Vite et leger le part trois - wacky races on the cordier pillar

Clare 'Emergency veterinarian' Muir and well known car mechanic Hazel Findlay perform complex mechanics with wire and tin foil

Our next objective was to be the Cordier Pillar, which is evidently quite a popular rock route reaching the summit of the Grand Charmoz from the Plan des Aiguilles side. Despite its popularity it seems to be a difficult task to find any decent information on the route and Office de haute Montagne were even pretty vague as to which guidebook or even what mountain it was on. Eventually we found the topo (in the old Piola book) which was pretty basic and lacked any written description. We also scoured the internet where several people suggested the need for one or maybe even two (!) No. 4 Camelots. This was a problem, as we didn't have one and we definitely like placing gear above our heads, especially on offwidths.

Our efforts to find said piece of gear were successful and not only did we get a cam but a fab girly night in too (thanks Sandra, Hazel and Maddy!!) and a crash course in improvised car mechanics. And so we set off on our last foray into the mountains. We thought that maybe as there was no info on this route that maybe no-one did it except maybe british people. We were wrong. There were three teams already insitu at the bivi situ on the Plan des Aiguilles (all wanting to look at our topo then realising it was the same crap topo that they had). A much more worrying problem was the constant stream of rocks falling down the Nantillons glacier. It would have made a pretty good geography video 'Erosion in action' or something like that....

We swapped the tent for giant silver blankets this time....

Climbing! On the pillar

Surveying

One team decided to pack it in after watching the rocks but the other two thought it was fine and there was a relatively safe route to the base. We were pretty anxious about it but decided to stick to the plan; most of the rocks stop short of where you cross and in the morning it would be pretty stable so we would just have to do one 'dodgy' crossing.

Abseiling!!

Clare climbing up to our highpoint.... this time in the sun

So we made it and started climbing out of the chilly bergshrund with some spanish guys infront and some friendly poles behind. The climbing was totally ace and certainly the hardest pitches we had climbed so far. Hence, we didn't make it to the top because we just couldn't climb fast enough and we had a bit of route finding faff but it was great fun anyway and a good recce for next time! We packed it in the evening and abseiled back down and then had the totally gripping trek across the glacier. Arriving unscathed back at the bivvi site was a big relief, especially after watching some impressively large blocks tumble from really high up on the blatiere. Despite not reaching the top again we both felt like we had learnt alot from the experience and are totally keen to come back and do it again! Also, our sagely route finding wisdom that we dispensed to the new arrivals at the bivvi site obviously stood them in good stead, as 10 the following morning they had already embarrassingly reached our highpoint.....

After surviving the nantillons crossing

Looking up at the monster glacier

Our sagely route finding advice is (obviously this only applies to the bottom third of the route): At the start its very easy route finding as there is a fixed rope up the first two pitches (tied off to the second belay). After about 5 pitches you arrive at some broken ledgey ground. Here if you want to keep to the good rock and fixed belays go up and right. If you want to climb an easier but loose gully with no belays go up and left. Both  ways are possible but the righthand way is probably more desirable. Then after maybe 4 pitches up the righthand way at some point the route then goes left (after a stuck cam I think) and that is as far as we got. Losing the route is quite possible, one team went into the gully and made it to the top but chucked quite a few rocks down in the process and the other guys missed the left hand turn and climbed into no mans land and retreated a little before us. The only other piece of advice I could hope might be useful is if you are planning on rice and tinned fish as bivvi dinner do not choose fish in an 'ancient mustard' sauce and if you do try very hard not to spill it on your trousers.

Le bon sunset

Bivvi site

So we had a sad final descent back to the valley the following morning for a poco loco and ice cream breakfast. I finally got a bit of triathalon training in, doing 10 widths of Lac du Passey, where the water is way clearer than padarn (so you can see the fish, big fish!) and then we had the roasting drive home....

Triathalon training Lac du Passey - big pikes watch out!

New feature - Holiday Recipe of the week (courtesy of Sandra)

Ingredients
semi thawed frozen raspberries
sugar
yogurt

Method
Mash together!!!