Over the coming period I will be doing some gear reviews for Cold Thistle.
Its an internationally know blog run by a friend of mine, Dane Burns
Check out my rescent review of My Grivel G20’s and my Scarpa 6000’s.
Here my Grivel G20 review there:
http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2011/11/grivels-g20-monopoint.html
Here is my Scarpa 6000 review there:
http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2011/11/scarpa-6000-boot-review-by-dave-searle.html
Yesterday we headed up for Pinocchio on the east face of Tacul. We had a leasurely 2nd bin start as usual and poodled on down to the bottom of the face. We were greated with great conditions and superb mixed climbing over the 7 pitchs we did. Our original plan was to hit Scotch On The Rocks but Pinnochio looked better so we went for that instead. Its not a good idea to get on these routes too early in my opinion as the sun is still on them untill 11 ish which is when we started climbing. We climbed to the top oof the pillar Martinetti and then abbed back down the route as the light started to go. Gabbarou- Albinoni and Modica-Norry look really good right now as well. Here’s some photo’s…..
So what have I been up too over the last few weeks….. hmmmmm. This and that you know, rock climbing, working, etc. Me and ally walked up to the bottom of the Dru to get on the North Coulior only to find that the glacier to the base of the route wasn’t having any of it and had decided to put a large gnarly crevasse in our way. Still as always its a good place to bivy and we were treated to an amazing sunset but the access is a no go for this autumn. Apart from that I’ve been rock climbing with my mate’s Ross Hewitt, Sandy Simpson, and Ally. We enjoyed two days of granite sport climbing up at the Getroz and Bouchy…. heres some photo’s…..
I recently got back from climbing the Croz Spur with the Slovenian start with my friend Ben O’Connor Croft. I have wanted to climb this route on the Grandes Jorasses for sometime now. It was great to finally get it ticked. The climbing was varied and for the most part good, with the exception of the penultimate pitch which was quite tricky with steep, broken rock and poor protection. Normally this pitch has more ice in it but this year it is quite dry so it’s been putting up a bit of a fight! We were one of three teams on the route that day and I’ve been informed we were the only team to make it over the top with the other two teams being helicoptered from just below this ‘crux’ pitch. This however wasn’t the only helicopter action that the Jorasses saw that day….
With such a strong high pressure sat over the Alps at the moment it would be rude not to make the most of it. Especially as my driving work has all but stopped. We decided to head up to the Argentiere basin to check it out. We had our sights set on the Colton-Brooks on the north face Of the Droites. We had no idea what the conditions were like on the bottom half of the face as its impossible to see from the valley but we decided it was worth a punt!!
Here’s how it went…..
…..That’s the words Ally said to me when we topped out on Pointe Walker at 5.45pm after climbing the Colton/ Macintyre (with Alexis Crux Variation).
Our plan was to traverse the Jorasses, after climbing the north face, to the Canzio Hut at the Col des Grandes Jorasses for the first day of our epic link. We wanted to traverse the Rochefort Arete to the Forche hut and finish up the Chechinel Nominee on the Grande Pilier d’Angle to Mont Blanc.
Little did we know just how long the first day was going to be……
Its been a fairly quite last month or so for me. I have been working hard trying to get enough money saved up to last me for a few months of climbing. I have been out for the odd day on the Tacul Triangle for classics such as the Chere Coulior and the Contamine-Grisol. Thanks to my mate Emma for a great week whilst she was out here and well done too! You packed alot into a short space of time!!
The other day me, Ally Swinton and Jon Griffith headed up to the Grand Gendarme on the Cosmiques arete to get a few photo’s. It was a super fun morning, make no mistake we weren’t there to climb it! It was pretty damn cold and pretty damn hard. We did however get some good photo’s.
With nuclear temperatures in Cham right now finding motivation to leave the comfort of the shade of the flat can be hard but me and Ally Swinton wanted to get stuck into some granite. We really wanted to get on Gulivers Travels on the Grand Capucin but we came to the conclusion that we would probably get fried to death in the process ,being as I am blonde and fair skinned and Ally is…..well…..Scottish. So we decided it was best to stay out of the sun as much as we could. We decided on heading over to the Red Pillar on the Aiguille de Blaitiere’s west face….
So the other day me and my mate ginger Ben (O’Connor Croft) were trying to decide what to do with what seemed to be a good 3 day weather forcast. We banded round some ideas like heading into the Envers for some spliter but came to the conclusion we wanted to climb the North Face of the Petit Dru……