Check out this amazing and inspiring video of the First Ascent of K6 west.. This is the kind of thing I want to be doing over the next few years. Fast, high and in alpine style.
Polish Route, Grandes Jorasses
After a few days of climbing by myself like a proper “billy no mates” it was absolutely awesome to head into the Grandes Jorasses NF with Jack Geldard and Andy Houseman. Despite feeling pretty out of it and very run down this weekend I had the best time I’ve had on a north face, possibly ever. High class banter from start to finish, awesome climbing and, hey its the Grandes Jorasses in once in a lifetime (?) conditions, whats not to like?
It looked for a while like it was just going to be me and Jack heading up, but Andy was arriving in Cham that day and decided he could get his kit ready and meet us for the 2pm train. We had to buy him food and despite Jack remembering Andy is slightly lactose intolerant we bought a hod of snickers and cheese for our three day journey.
Heading into the Leschaux hut we speculated on the amount of other teams that would be there. Suffice to say its been “busy” up there this autumn with the perfect conditions and the social media fueling a veritable climbing frenzy on the modern classics of the Colton/Mac and the Croz Spur.
Never-the-less we weren’t deterred after arriving at the hut to find 10 others in there (it only sleeps 12). We stuffed our faces and settled into a very cosy night waiting for the 12.30 wake up call. On the way up to the bottom of the face I punched my foot into an icy pool of water which fairly well soaked my foot. Not the ideal start to the day but it wasn’t enough to put me off. At the bergshrund I changed my sock and we brewed up some tea in the freezing night. We also tested out the two man bothy bag I had brought along as the emergency shelter. After deciding that a night in that would be utter hell (not too different to my first experience on the Grandes Jorasses) we stopped larking about and made a break for our route. Our tactical faff had allowed the other two teams that had bivied on the glacier to get a reasonable head start on us. After a few hundred meters of moving together through spindrift and getting ice chunks to the eyes we made the decision to split off to the Polish route after initially wanting to climb Belle Helene. We didn’t particularly want to climb underneath people for the whole day.
Arriving at the bottom of the first difficulties we switched from moving together to pitching and Andy took the lead. On the thin ice pitch of pitch 2 Andy sent down a few chunks of the fragile ice, one of which hit me square in the chest and properly knocked the wind out of me. The combination of a soggy, cold foot, sore ribs and a general feeling of lassitude that seemed hard to shake I (and Jack) resigned to the fact that Andy would do a much better job of leading the harder pitches. A true WAD shows he still has it only 24 hours after arriving in chamonix, unacctlimatised and having not mixed climbed in a while. A inspiring effort. Although the climbing was never super hard it required care and was sometimes pretty thin.
More climbing and a few stops later we were nearing the summit…
We topped out on the ridge and headed over to the abseils of Point Croz enjoying the sun but not the exposed ridge. I’d never made the descent all the way down to the valley before and it was long and tedious to say the least. We stopped in the Boccalate hut and passed out after some food and tea. Jack booted me out of bed and informed me we were leaving as they were bored of waiting for me to get up! Ooopps
Click to see in larger gallery format.
Thanks Jack and Andy for a brill weekender on the big one. Lots of type 1 and 2 fun thrown in and more than likely the end of whats been an awesome Autumn season for me! I need to work now!!
Climbing the Droites North Face Solo.
I must say I’m feeling pretty drained. I’ve gained (either climbing or walking) close to 5000 vertical meters in 3 days. Tuesday was one of my all time biggest days in the mountains in terms of the mental and physical stress. I’ve had it in my mind to solo a route on the Droites North Face for a while now but never found myself in the right situation to actually do it, either because of fitness/psyche or due to conditions. I absolutely love the mountains of Chamonix, especially the Argentiere basin in the Autumn. I have fond memories of climbing my first grande course, the Ginat and the Colton/Brooks the following year with one of my partners in crime, Ally Swinton. When the good weather comes in there is nowhere on earth I would rather be, which is saying something! These past few days have left me smiling ear to ear and have given me that feeling of satisfaction that I only get from climbing a big face.
Choosing which route to climb on the Droites was a bit interesting. I didn’t particularly want to repeat the Ginat, although it is the obvious choice being the most straightforward. My memories of the descent off the back of the Breche des Droites are pretty bad and it wasn’t somewhere that I wanted to be by myself. I also really wanted to climb the East summit. After scoping the conditions from the Col des Montets through my binoculars I knew that the top of the face had lots of good ice, so I knew I had a few options of ways to go on the headwall.
I headed up the home run of the Grands Montets ski area on monday about 3pm still feeling the Chere Couloir in my legs from the day before. I arrived at the Argentiere hut at about 7pm to find three other teams, one of which was already asleep! I asked what time they would all be getting up. One team was planning on getting up at 12 (!), one at 3 and one at 4.30. This proved quite disrupting to my already nervous sleep which meant I didn’t get much until they had all left. I had set my alarm for 5 but actually didn’t get up until 7 and left the hut just after 8. Making my way across the glacier I could see a team on the central Ice field of the Ginat and another team starting up the crux pitches of the Colton/Brooks. I was 50/50 whether or not I was actually going to climb the thing as I felt quite tired and a bit sluggish. I wanted to do it relatively fast and wasn’t sure how quick a pace I could keep especially with a rope, mini rack, stove etc on my back.
When I got to the bergshrund I had a bit of water and food and automatically got on with getting my spring leashes attached and before I knew it was over and starting up the hero Ice towards the Messner ramp. Meters and meters of Ice began accumulating below my heals as I made my way up to the crux wall. By this point I had caught up with the team on the Ginat and It had confirmed that I should go to a different route as I didn’t feel it was safe or wise to be underneath/near/above other climbers. I took a rest on an ice screw and prepared for the crux steepening, about 60m of 85-90º ice. It took a lot of positive affirmations to fend off the rising pump in my arms and it felt pretty out there with more than 600m of cool autumnal air beneath me.
From the top of this steepening I slowed it right down and rested when I needed as the balls of my feet were killing me and I could really feel the past few days in my legs. Weaving through the final steep section and on to the upper snow field I soon had the summit in my sights. I always love the moment when the sun hits your face after a long slog up a north face, and it didn’t disappoint. Sat on the summit I contemplated what I had just done and what I still had to do. Mostly I just took in the breathtaking scenery…
The descent went relativity smoothly with 10 or so 30m abseils, some down climbing and some shin-deep-slushy-wadding down onto the lower Talefre glacier. I spoke to Ross Hewitt on the phone and he suggested I stay in the Couvercle hut for the night, but I was felling ok so I began the long march back to down to town. I made it back to my bed at 11pm, some 9 hours after leaving the summit. My feet and legs where destroyed and I was too tired to make food so I just passed out for 12 hours and when I woke began consuming calories like a mad man and waddling about like I’d aged 60 years.
The route took me 4 hours and 20mins from bergshrund to summit and was 1070m according to my Suunto. It was an amazing experience and just the kind of adventure I was looking for. If I don’t manage to do another route this autumn I’ll be happy!
Here’s some photo’s from the day. (Click to see them in gallery format)
Chèré Couloir, Aiguille du Midi. Speed Solo.
As I sit here stuffing my face with last nights Lasagna, I feel pleasantly happy with this mornings activities.
When you mention the Chèré Couloir to an Alpinist here they’ll instantly think of the popular classic on the Tacul Triangle. Robert, however, was a busy man during the 70’s and put up more than one route don’t you know ;-). The Chèré Couloir on the Midi north face is threatened by Serac fall for the first 800m (its only 930m) so it doesn’t often get climbed. It stares me in the face from my balcony here in Cham, taunting me with its perfect looking ice. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and I wanted to do it as fast as I could. Today was the perfect day. The ice looked amazing, I was feeling fit and well rested and after scoping out the Serac from a few different angles over the past week I decided it would probably,hopefully be OK.Continue reading
Kyrgyzstan, September 2014
First off I want to thank my partner Emily (roo) Ward for all her hard work on getting this trip off the ground. I saw what it did to her during the months and weeks leading up to the trip. Now it’s over and it went (relatively) smoothly its been a great time to reflect on what could have been done differently. Bringing together 9 people, most of whom hadn’t been to mountains outside of the Alps before, is not an easy task and without Emily’s motivation and experience I doubt this trip would have taken off. So thank you!
Continue reading
Departure Imminent
Tommorow I will be departing for my most epic adventure to date. Myself, Gavin Pike and James Clapham will be boarding a plane to Kathmandu in Nepal from where we will take another plane ride east to Taplejung. From here a 1.5 day jeep ride to the end of the road at Gopetar. Then begins the 10 day trek to Ramche which will be our basecamp for the proceeding month and is some 15km from the base of the north face of Talung, our proposed objective for this November.
I have never been on expedition before. I have never been to a third world country before. I have never tried to climb a new route and I have never been higher the 4810m (I.e the top of Mont Blanc!). The whole trip should really push my comfort zone and open my eyes to a new world of possibilities regardless of success or failure. I’m not without my worries about how I will cope with the stresses and strains and extra altitude but I feel I am approaching everything with an open mind and a willingness to learn. James and Gav have both been to Alaska twice before and they know part of what is involved in the process but for myself my ventures into the mountains have only lasted a few days at most.
This expedition has been a long time in the pipeline and I remember when we first came to the decision we were going to do the trip. I remember it vividly in fact as I was in a pit of despair in early December last year after fracturing my Tibial Plateau in a ski crash which put me on my biggest layoff from the mountains in 3 years. Towards the end of my week long hospital stay Gav asked me whether I wanted to join them for this expedition. I immediately agreed. This trip and the thought of getting back on the ski’s again were the driving forces behind my thankfully speedy recovery.
This autumn has been a total washout so fair with only a handful of good weather days so far and lots of fresh snow to contend with. Getting out to do anything “big” has been next to impossible. Its been a haze of sport climbing, drytooling and “Col du Midi Alpine Cragging”. My hunger for a big route is bigger than ever right and is giving me enthusiasm beyond that that I have felt for any trip into the alps I’ve had so far.
I’ve also never had to pack like this for. You have to think about every thing you’ll need for a big new route and also what you’ll want in basecamp to live in the mountains for 7 weeks. It’s been a long process of preparing, packing, repacking, pairing down and adding more and it’s still not over. I’m also moving out of my current apartment in Chamonix when I leave so there is a lot to sort out over the next few hours!
I’ve also been slightly worried about my current body weight which is perfect for sport climbing but doesn’t give me a huge amount of fat reserves to work with out in Nepal. So its been melted ice cream, eclairs, cheese and chips to try and pile a bit of much needed bivi fat on in the past few days.
We won’t be in contact with the outside world when we are in basecamp unless there is a problem (we have a satellite phone but we are planning not to use it). I’ll be doing a trip report on here when I’m back in mid December.
Still it is with great trepidation that I say goodbye to Chamtown and all its residents and mountains. With the recent snowfall and the Season pass bought I’m already looking forward to the adventures that will happen this winter.
Help Out Our Expedition With Two Clicks!
Want to help out our expedition? Easy! For every Facebook page like that Mountain Drop-offs gets between now and the 16th of October they will be giving us 1 Euro towards the Trip! Myself, Gavin and James have been working for Mountain Dropoffs for a few years now and they have decide to help us out with this amazing offer. So please please please like and share the page linked bellow to help us get out to Himalayas!! Did I mention you will also be in with a chance of winning some Julbo Sunglasses!?! Whats not to like?? 😉
Click on the image bellow to go straight to the Mountain Dropoffs Facebook Page!!
Biding Time
This autumn has been a bit of a washout so far. I’ve not heard of any big routes being done on any of the big faces as it’s either been too hot, wet, windy or snowy to make going into the mountains for a big route a sensible thing to do. It has given me the chance to focus on some other aspects of climbing and also given me time to get stronger and fitter through numerous Drytooling and Sport climbing sessions and the odd foray to the ever fruitful and reliable Tacul Triangle.
So all in all not much to report in the mountains apart from there is a lot of snow and most things should be in pretty good condition due to the freeze thaw cycle and the snow limmit being around the magic 24-2700m mark. I’m feeling pretty primed and ready to go as soon as the weather gets good!!
I Leave you all with this… for those of you who haven’t heard or seen what myself, James Clapham and Gavin Pike are off to try this autumn here’s the best photo we have so far……
Mileage
I must admit that my absolute least favourite month in Chamonix is August. Its super busy, super hot and the Glaciers are usually at there most open making getting around in the mountains dangerous and tedious. Strange that its also the most prolific time for alpine climbing with ques on all the popular routes and big routes seeing rare ascents (like Calum Muskett and Paul Jenkinson on Divine Providence, good effort lads!). I however have been working…… working some more and occasionally getting out for the odd rock route in the Aiguille Rouge on my lunch break or a sport climbing session in the baking heat. This is all soon to change and its been great to get out in the past week and rack up some millage…..
I had a super fun day on my own climbing routes around the Col Du Midi on wednesday. I started in my typical third bin fail way and headed straight over to the traverse of Pointe Lachenal to kick things off. After this I headed up the Contamine/Grisole on the north face of the Triangle Du Tacul which was in really good condition and gave me the first chance in a very long time to use my nomic’s which made me very happy indeed. The normal route on the Tacul looked like one giant windslab so I opted for the Chere Couloir rapels to get back to the col. The Chere had a few teams in it and Jeff Mercier and his partner were climbing the Perroux Gully (just to the left of the chere, see Jeff’s blog here) so I was being peppered by ice on the way down, as to be expected. I had originally wanted to solo the Chere but decided against it due to the ice that was coming down so headed over to other side of the col and started up the short section (not sure what its called) of ridge that finishes at the Cosmiques Refuge. Unbeknownst to me you have to take your boots off and walk through the hut to get to the start of the Cosmiques Arete proper. I got some funny looks from people sunning them selves at the hut terrace as I less than gracefully took my boots off and flopped over the railings. I also got momentarily lost finding the way out of the hut which in hindsight is pretty funny, but in my defense I had never been in there before! I hadn’t been up high for a while (maybe three weeks) and the altitude really hit me when I started to climb the initial slope up the Cosmiques Arete so I was suffering hard on this part of the day but I finished off my journey in a 6 hour round trip feeling like I had had a pretty good work out!
Thursday saw me and Ally head out to Gietroz, an amazing sport climbing venue just up the valley from Chamonix for a leisurely half day working on Reve de Senge a super classic 8a which I have wanted to get on for a while. I was surprised how well I got on with it and I hope that I can finish it off before I head out to the Himalayas this autumn, fingers crossed.
Today I headed out with Mike Thomas for a fair well Aiguille Rouge climb-a-thon (the Flegere lift system closes after this weekend) that saw us climb a total of 1000m of excellent quality rock up to 6a including such classics as the south ridge on the Index and Manhatten on the Lower Bastion of the Grande Floria.
All in all a fun week had by all and psyche is very high for this coming period!! With less than 6 weeks left before we depart for Nepal its high time it got cold so we can all get out and play on the north faces!
Current Conditions Chamonix side
After the big snowfall of last week the north faces are looking a bit fresher but more snow wouldn’t go a miss. The Colton/Macintyre, Shroud and Croz/Slovienian all look pretty good right now so as soon as it gets cold would be worth a go. The Desmaison/Gouseault could do with more cover lower down but you could nip in from the top of the Shroud crux. Not sure about harder routes on the Jorasses right now.
Not much ice in the Cham Aiguille north faces or the Tacul East Face Goulottes. The top of the Droites looks good but I haven’t seen the bottom of the face so can’t comment on whether its possible to do the Ginat or Colton/Brokes etc right now (anybody been up there?). The Tacul Triangle is pretty good right now as is the North Face of the Tour Ronde. Not enough ice on the Midi north face right now but too much to make the Frendo not viable.
All the south facing rock is clear enough and its fairly warm so the Envers Des Aiguilles would be OK still. Not sure about the Italian side of the Massif right now. Any reports of the Grande Pillar d’Angle north face would be welcome as I’d personally like to climb it this autumn!
Hope this helps. Feel free to message me about routes your interested in and i’ll try and help you out or point you in the right direction.
Hunting Chickens in Amazonia.
The unusually high temperatures we have been experiencing this month have really drained me. I’m much more of a cold weather person so finding psyched to trudge about on a falling apart glacier in the baking heat is difficult. Luckily Chamonix provides ample opportunities to find perfect granite with minimal glacial faff and a fine place to look is the Envers Des Aiguilles. This past trip with kayaking legend and general cool guy Johnny Vincent is the third time that I’ve been to the Envers this summer and this short trip provided us with a great route and an opportunity to hunt the elusive chickens that can often be found stuck in up to there necks in the granite.
We chose the route Amazonia on the first point of the Nantillons which is a stunning 370m 6a on pristine granite with a mixture of cracks and slabs (Michel Piola waz ‘ere but must have been having an off day as the slab pitches aren’t sandbags for a change!).
We started at about 8pm and with all told made it back to the train in good time so this route is a good day route to do at the end of a trip to the Envers if your reasonably efficient (which we weren’t as I got us lost at one point, dropped my belay plate and generally was a little spaced out due to the heat and having just finished work in time to get the last lift the day before, hense not feeling like much of a winner). Here’s some photo’s….
Thanks John for a great day. Sorry for all my screw ups but at least we made it back down to the train on time.
The weather is getting cooler now and it feels a lot more like autumn which is very good in my opinion. Getting pretty motivated for some big face action and the Himalaya’s…..