Fast and light - Part 1

Bonjour from Chamonix!!



Clare- fast and light

Been out here for a week now and there has been some stonking weather! I haven't really been rock climbing around Cham much before and have been totally shocked this time by how much there is and especially how much trad there is around. Our first expedition was up to camp by the Envers des Aiguilles refuge and after trying to pack as light as possible we still looked like students on a D of E training expedition....

Adjacent scenic camping spot

After pitching our tent in the most scenic location possible we went for our warm up route - the Magie d'Orient, which might be one of the best routes in the world (according to select guide to the world 'Parois du Legend'). It was predictably pretty good! However, holdless granite slabs came as a bit of a shock... we have discovered we climb about 3 grades harder on cracks than we do on slabs. Anyway we sucked it up and enjoyed all the crack pitches and whimpered and cried our way up the slabs to reach the pointy sommet du pointe orient. We pretty much styled the abseils, only getting the ropes stuck once (everyone we spoke to got their ropes stuck also on the penultimate ab due to an inconvieniently positioned spike). Ate some awesome tart at the refuge and listened to a totally wacky world war II style weather broadcast.

Clare arrive au sommet du pointe orient

After finding our 'warm up' pretty absorbing we then scoured the guide books for routes without hard slabs, settling on a route no one has ever heard of 'Desir du Alain' on the 3rd pointe of the nantillons ridge. A perfect place for adventure aparently! It didn't disappoint, with an ardous approach up a steep very sloshy glacier where I got to use my ice axe arrest in anger (and it worked hooray!), then a bit of a struggle to find the start of the route and then a struggle to find the first belay. It was definitely looser, grittier, more vegetated than Magie but really fun steep climbing (and no slabs). We reached the second belay (in four pitches) and decided to bail as we were super slow and the belays were not equipped as promised by the guide book. Although this would not be classicly termed a success we irrationally felt pretty successful and celebrated with another piece of tart after a soul destroying slush descent down the glacier.

Me after soul destroying slush descent

The next day was the day we ran out of food, but we managed to squeeze in a route Petit Nicholas before the grand descent to the valley. This was one of the bolted routes under the refuge which are toatlly different in character to the higher routes and we managed 5 pitches (inc. a slab) in under 2 hours to our immense suprise. Shows a big difference between following a line of bolts in a non-serious situation and questing around with a trad rack trying to follow a vague topo....

More to follow if i get my blogging act together.....