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Fairly Long, Moderately Hard and Mostly Free (Read 159256 times)

nic mullin

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+1 to everything JB said.

The walk from the Helbronner lift to the grand cap is easy (like, gentle stroll easy) and will be well tracked.

Safety/training wise, when I was younger I yomped about all over the shop unroped and never fell in a hole - you'd almost certainly be fine doing that on this approach. I'm more cautious now (just because I'm older and more of a coward) and tend rope up where possible/practical on wet glaciers as a rule. Almost all Europeans seem to, Brits mostly don't unless they're punters. I don't know why.   

If you choose to rope up, my understanding is that if you're a pair and one of you goes in a crevasse, unless the person who fell can help to get themselves out, you will need someone else's help, so learning loads of complicated hoisting/hauling stuff isn't worth it. Know how to tie on with coils, have a general plan between you and make sure you both have prussiks and the gear you need to build a belay. You can easily learn what you need from the internet, a book or your mate. Avoid anything that looks complicated or needs loads of gear. Doing your best to avoid falling in is the way to go, roped up or not.

Other useful stuff: Don't wear new/expensive trousers the first time you wear crampons. Take a good sleeping mat or you'll get very cold. I was involved in an accident that needed a helicopter out there a couple of years ago and the one thing everybody said afterwards is "I wouldn't have known what number to call for rescue" - it's 112.

Have fun, that side of Mt Blanc du Tacul has some lovely bits of rock.
   

cheque

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I was involved in an accident that needed a helicopter out there a couple of years ago and the one thing everybody said afterwards is "I wouldn't have known what number to call for rescue" - it's 112.

 :agree: I only learnt it when I was lying in a hospital bed slurring "what number did you have to call anyway?" to my climbing partner.

mde

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As I understand it, the approach is about as straightforward as this stuff gets, esp from Courmayeur / the Helbronner lift.

Be careful! You have specifically posted the topo of the Salluard route at Pointe Adolphe Rey. My opinion is that you need a solid knowledge on glacier travel to access it. The glacier is really highly crevassed there and by going direct you are walking parallel to the crevasses which is always more delicate. Additionally, the shrund may be huge and the route may even be inaccessible later in the year. In my opinion, all these routes are best done early in the season.

Getting to below the Grand Capucin is easier than getting to below the Salluard route. But also at Grand Capucin, there will be a shrund and depending on the route you even need to go up the couloir.

Yossarian

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What time of year would be best do you think? As early as June? That might actually work better, as potential partner may well have his van left out there from the end of the ski season and we then have a place to stay.

TBH, my first thoughts were to do something like this with a guide and basically quiz him / her about every single decision or thing to watch out for. And do a single day / route in an ultra short weekend type hit. That was after listening to the Will Gadd Enormocast, in which he points out the logic and relative low cost of getting high quality knowledge from guides.

I think it would be wise to read around all this a bit more widely and go through the guidebooks in detail.

Johnny Brown

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Climbing with a guide would be a great idea. I'd try to get a personal rec to a good one, we had a bad experience when I was young with a guy who was desperate to do the route as fast as possible, get back to the valley and knock off. This of course sold to us with the 'speed is safety, you're in the Alps now etc'.

Quote
Safety/training wise, when I was younger I yomped about all over the shop unroped and never fell in a hole - you'd almost certainly be fine doing that on this approach. I'm more cautious now (just because I'm older and more of a coward) and tend rope up where possible/practical on wet glaciers as a rule. Almost all Europeans seem to, Brits mostly don't unless they're punters. I don't know why. 

+1 to this. As I was photographing on the big push day I had a lie in and then yomped down on my own, no crampons, sliding along overtaking the guided parties and getting ticked off by them. In my defence the glacier was quite dry but I daresay the longer you spend you there the more you realise the dangers are hidden.

A group of my sister's city friends had a week skiing in Cham and did the Vallee Blanche with a guide. The next day one of them wanted to do it again, but the others didn't fancy it without a guide - so he went on his own. Inevitably, halfway down with no one else in view he went down a crevasse. Although tightly wedged he just managed to free one arm and get how mobile out, which miraculously had one bar. He didn't know the emergency number either, so phoned his wife in London...

jwi

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A group of my sister's city friends had a week skiing in Cham and did the Vallee Blanche with a guide. The next day one of them wanted to do it again, but the others didn't fancy it without a guide - so he went on his own. Inevitably, halfway down with no one else in view he went down a crevasse. Although tightly wedged he just managed to free one arm and get how mobile out, which miraculously had one bar. He didn't know the emergency number either, so phoned his wife in London...

Jeezus

SA Chris

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Worth getting a guide for a day to talk you through safe glacier travel. Once you know what to do to avoid them, or to extract one another if you do, some good choices are available. Climbing some of the rock routes in that area with glacial approaches is just brilliant. June could be slightly iffier weather wise still, but the bonus of avoiding the crowds once summer season proper arrives.

jwi

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Including routes from the Verdon in this thread is probably cheating, but Kallistée (Καλλίστη = the most beautiful), 11 pitches on Parois Rouge on Escales is particularly good.

It is also something very satisfying with routes like Rideaux de Gwendal, Fete des nerfs and Kallistée that starts at the bottom of the canyon and climbs all the way to the rim.

The first six pitches goes through the big overhanging lower red part of the wall and has fairly athletic climbing on big holds and maybe for that reason feels comparably easy.

In June the sun is high enough in the sky at noon so that the first 6 pitches are shaded by virtue of being overhanging. So we started at 12pm. By the time we reached the grey the wall was already in the shade.

The route starts with two body-lengths of pulling on a fixed static line to get off the ground past some seriously rotten rock, and continues on very average rock up to the first belay, after that the rock is fairly solid up until the last pitch of the red part, an A0-pitch on bolts through overhanging kitty litter.

Do not let the average rock and the two short bits of aid climbing on the first half discourage you. The climbing is steep, fun and athletic, and protected by beefy glue-ins. The middle three pitches are like doing a bunch of fun warmups at a steep sport climbing choss-pile.

The four pitches that follows goes to the most amazing Verdon grey imaginable. They are all 7a+/7b with the grades a bit randomly applied depending on source. I thought they were all the same difficulty except the very bouldery/perplexing 9th pitch (but my climbing partner had 0 difficulties following with the help of some chalk and a quick explanation of the trick). The tenth pitch is the topping on the cake and quite likely the best pitch I've done on the grey.

We did not do the 12th pitch (7a+ one-move wonder reputedly) as that seemed very daft since you already reached the rim, and the first ascensionist recommended to walk around instead.

We had two cars, so we had left one car at the rim and parked the other at Samson/Duc and walked in through the tunnels.


 
(Alex on pitch 7, which is still fairly steep. For some reason I thought this was 7a, but apparently it's 7b in some topos which makes more sense. Sustained and techy)


(Pitch 8 is a very nice sustained 7a+. I felt this was the easies of the 4 top pitches, but it is always easier when there's chalk on the holds)


(Me following Pitch 8.)


(Pitch 9. I was simply not good enough to figure this one out on the fly.)


(Pitch 10 of Kallistée is maybe the best pitch I've climbed on the gray. Ends with an anticlimactic grass-filled crack. Alex took a bunch of pics of me on this part, on every one I am staring at my feet)

We have a bunch of photos from pitch 1-6 as well, but they are all a bit crap.

« Last Edit: June 10, 2020, 10:28:05 pm by jwi »

HaeMeS

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Thanks for the trip report Jonas. I wasn’t sure the route was a must or not. Now I’m sure it is  :bounce:

jwi

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Thanks for the trip report Jonas. I wasn’t sure the route was a must or not. Now I’m sure it is  :bounce:

It definitely is. Possibly the best route I've done on Escales I think. In retrospect I should have gone back to the belay to redo the 9th pitch clean, as we had plenty of time. The tenth pitch is interminable (18 draws!) but not so steep and possible to get up even if really really tired as it is mostly about putting the feet in the right spots.

I should add that it is very comfortable to haul on the route as almost every pitch is either overhanging or vertical but free of big features.

galpinos

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Those photos are making me very jealous (despite not even having the ability to get up that route!).

danm

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It's OK Nick, there's plenty of mind blowing routes in the gorge at all grades! There's nothing like the feeling of abbing in, pulling the ropes and then realising you are on the wrong hanging belay for your route out. At this point you realise the things in the "jardin" ledge below you are the improvised encampments of those who have made the same error as yourself.

SA Chris

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Eperon Sublime was my rude awakening to this! Nasty shock for a sport climber.

Starting from the bottom on La Demande seemed a lot friendlier.

dunnyg

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Verdon always looks amazing. Tried to go last summer but it was (unsuprisingly?) too warm for us and we ran away to the mountains. Cheers for posting up the pictures!

SA Chris

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We made a predawn start for La Demande, started at first light. Felt like a commando raid through the tunnels with headtorches. Brilliant place.

andy moles

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Kallistée wasn't on my radar - it definitely is now. Looks amazing.

duncan

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Thanks for reviving this jwi, sounds great. I'm borrowing 52 years and 520 routes and a visit feels very overdue.

Verdon was my introduction to all this kind of thing, I was wildly inexperienced: had done four months of climbing in the Peak to about E1 and nothing longer than 3 pitches. First route was Luna Bong, we got benighted on the last pitch and had to learn to Jumar in the dark. Second route was Arete du Belvedere, we got benighted about three pitches from the top and sat out the night on a ledge (it gets cold in March). Despite, or perhaps because of, this I was totally sold on the style and the place. It was a good lesson in the importance of choosing partners and of climbing efficiently.



 
Luna Bong abseil, 1980 I think.

jwi

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The Luna Bong rappel still feels totally wild, and I have more than four months of climbing under my belt ...

jwi

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Verdon always looks amazing. Tried to go last summer but it was (unsuprisingly?) too warm for us and we ran away to the mountains. Cheers for posting up the pictures!

I keep advising people to go in June, as the sun sets very late and a lot of good sectors are south-east facing and some good sectors are almost east facing. Rap in about 2pm, when most people are topping out. Be at the base at 3pm. Top out 8pm with an hour of twilight to spare. Shade and afternoon thermals help you keeping cool. (As do the occasional evening thunderstorms = the drawback of my strategy, admittedly)

Fultonius

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I'm itching to go to some of these places. The memories of January in Chile are fading.

We went to Aysen, which is on the edge of Patagonia, but more inland and lower, so less affected by the incessant winds. Si and Graham stayed on and went to Cochamo, which sounds like it really ticks the the boxes of this thread. I'm keen to go back to Chile, and visit Cochamo next time. Avellano was so, so wild and beautiful, but I think Patagonian big wall new routing was perhaps a once in a lifetime experience for me.

Trip report here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qLeXRp1VfEGWT4kwCgTSFeXxyyv5shGp/view?usp=sharing

Duma

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That looks amazing fultonius!

Johnny Brown

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Paul B

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I keep advising people to go in June, as the sun sets very late and a lot of good sectors are south-east facing and some good sectors are almost east facing. Rap in about 2pm, when most people are topping out. Be at the base at 3pm. Top out 8pm with an hour of twilight to spare.

We've had some great days using this strategy, notably on Gwendal and Pinchenibule. What I can't work out is when is best for things that get the sun most of the day (La fête des nerfs)? I don't do well climbing in the sun.

Trip report here:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qLeXRp1VfEGWT4kwCgTSFeXxyyv5shGp/view?usp=sharing

Amazing photos!

SA Chris

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What I can't work out is when is best for things that get the sun most of the day

The night :)

SA Chris

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And nice one on the S America report Ali, what is MEF?

 

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