A long weekend in Chamonix (Aug. 29-31)
I had a good weekend in the Mont Blanc area of France with my good friends Alfred and Verena. I took a few days off and headed down to Chamonix on Thursday morning, arriving at noon. After a quick typical French lunch of baguette, tasty cheese and delicious dried salami we packed up. We rode the Aguille du Midi teleferique to the Aguille du Midi at over 3800m. It was beautiful day and the views of the entire Mont Blanc range were awesome. The rock there is bomber granite, and the peaks are often stunning spires of granite rising out of snow-covered massivs and steep icy couloirs. There are also incredible granite ridges, with countless church spire aguilles soaring to the sky. Mega classic peaks like the Grandes Jorassa, Walker Spur, Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Blanc filled the horizon.
We roped up and headed down a steep, snowy, knife-edge ridge to the Glacier du Geant. Our route descended down the hard glacier for 600 vertical meters, then ascended through a quite broken glacier to a col near the Pointe Helbronner. The Mer de Glace had some new snow but the snow bridges were quite hard. In one area the trail led through a wild, broken area of deep blue crevasses and massive tilted, broken ice walls. It was quite otherworldly and amazing.
The trail then climbed gently but steadily the last 1.5 hours and I really started to feel the altitude, as I had come straight from Stuttgart (500 m.u.m) to 3800m. I was careful to watch my tempo and pay attention to my pulse and breathing rate to make sure I did not over-exert myself. In general I felt quite good.
The hut was quite large, not real comfortable but luckily not very crowded. It was Italian, and again I noticed some of the differences – they are just not as well taken care of as the Swiss or Austrian huts, they are dirtier, everything seems a bit disorganized but everything somehow works nonetheless. After a welcome cafeteria-style dinner we hit the sack.
Unfortunately I hardly slept at all, despite also not having slept not much in Stuttgart the few nights before. It was probably the altitude, but I felt like I just laid awake in bed all night. At least my body felt rested in the morning despite the lack of sleep. We woke at 4:15, ate breakfast, geared up and hit the glacier before six to the Tour Ronde, a nice 3650m warm-up peak. Stars shined down on us from the lightening sky, the first bluish glow of dawn just starting to appear. We soon switched off the headlamps and followed the trail in the suffused blue light of dawn. Deep orange and greys faded to an even orange glow on the horizon as we crunched over the hard frozen glacier.
The climb traversed up a moderate snow face to a snow ridge which led up to the start of the rock ridge. We unroped then scrambled up the first 300ft of easy 4th class climbing. The rock was just perfect, rough granite blocks and jutting spires creating bomber hand and footholds. We cached our crampons and ice axes, roped up with three people on a doubled half rope and simul-climbed over the next exposed section of the ridge. It was not hard, a few moves maybe 5.1 or 5.2 but quite exposed, but it could be well protected with slung horns and by weaving the rope between the solid rock spires.
We reached another ledge 150 feet below the summit, with a sloping, wide, but fairly compact ridge leading to the summit. It looked to be quite a bit more challenging so we set a proper belay and Alfred and I took turns leading to the summit. It was still pretty easy climbing, maybe 5.3 max but wearing heavy boots and gear and the big exposure made it interesting.
The rock was truly a blast to climb – incredibly solid, rough granite with positive edges, cracks, and spires. We soon topped out and took in the incredible panorama. It is a uniquely beautiful area. After a few moments of reflection we rapped down two pitches and traversed over to the ledge marking the start of the easy ridge traverse, meeting back up with Verena.
We did everything in reverse, simul-climbing with me leading down, placing the occasional sling anchor. On a few sections I set up quick Munter hitch belays as well, more for practice than necessity. The jagged character of the rock made it easy to get bomber belays from just about anywhere. We cruised back down the snow ridges to the glacier, enjoying the panorama and snowy expanse of the glacier. A bit tired but happy we arrived back at the hut before 2pm.
After some rounds of tea we all hit the mattresses for a welcome nap, though we were disturbed a bit by an idiotic couple who were jabbering away in our room. Verana finally told them off, using the great German expression "Das ist eine Unverschaemtheit!" (roughly, that is unexcusable (behaviour)), it sounds better in German. I managed to sleep a bit. Dinner was tasty and very filling.
Unfortunately I slept quite poorly the next night as well, just took forever to fall asleep and only slept about an hour before waking and tossing and turning til the morning. We were up at 3:40, had a quick breakfast, then Alfred and I suited up and slogged across the glacier. The goal was to do the Rochefort ridge. Verena was not feeling so well and decided to stay at the hut. It was a very foggy morning, quite warm but poor visibility. There were a large number of other groups on the mountain, probably 25 people in all. We trudged up the wet snow, almost to the base of the steep snow slope that marks the begin the start of the real difficulties of the route.
I suddenly realized with a sick feeling in my stomach that I had left my effing crampons in the hut. Merde!! Scheisse!! That was it for the climb – we headed back to hut, enjoying the ever-clearing morning light and sunrise. To make it worse the weather did end up clearing, though the afternoon was probably stormy. We definitely could have done the climb, but in hindsight it would have not been so good – the first part of the route through steep snow coulouirs and easy rock would have been dangereous with so many parties above us, and the knife-edge, partially corniced ridge would have been tricky when parties had to pass each other. We want to go back and do the traverse of the Rochefort ridge to the Leschaux hut, which would have been longer and harder but not have to backtrack our steps. I will go back and do this next year…oh well.
Instead we headed down to Courmayeur, the Italian equivalent of Chamonix on the other side of Mont Blanc then caught the bus to Chamonix to pick up my car. After the usual long drive home I was finally back in my apartment, enjoying familar surroundings and a bit of time to relax.
It was a great introduction to a fantastic area, obviously I was miffed about forgetting my crampons but I will never never do that again… Finis.
Gabriel Williams
(erschienen im "Höhenrausch" 4/2002)
