UKBouldering.com

Fairly Long, Moderately Hard and Mostly Free (Read 159284 times)

Fultonius

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4315
  • Karma: +138/-3
  • Was strong but crap, now weaker but better.
    • Photos
Mount Everest Foundation - they threw some cash our way.

Rob did the final publishing effort, and a fine job he did too. Pretty much why we took him along  ;D

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29221
  • Karma: +630/-11
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Well if you need some publishing effort done next time look my way ;)

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
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.


For La Fête des Nerfs and Via Mathis an overcast day in spring or in the fall would be the best bet. For a short trip you have to be lucky... We were lucky last spring in May and had two cold overcast days in a week!

...
And cool report Fultonius!

Paul B

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 9626
  • Karma: +264/-4
For La Fête des Nerfs and Via Mathis an overcast day in spring or in the fall would be the best bet. For a short trip you have to be lucky... We were lucky last spring in May and had two cold overcast days in a week!

Thanks. We've had similar thoughts with other venues (Aiglun for one) that mean for us they're probably better as part of a longer trip to avoid disappointment.

duncan

Offline
  • *****
  • Global Moderator
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2952
  • Karma: +332/-2
23 best routes in the Verdon as chosen by jwi.  Excellent beta and it’s fun to discover where some of the more arcane route names came from.

 In Swedish but google translate offers an entertaining version for Anglophones (apparently you “celebrate” your way down Luna Bong to the Terrasse Médiane. That’s certainly one way of putting it!). Unfortunately the last section of top tips for Verdon climbing was too much for the poor computer and was a bit harder to follow. I couldn’t quite work out how jwi managed to drop his haulbag...

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground

 In Swedish but google translate offers an entertaining version for Anglophones (apparently you “celebrate” your way down Luna Bong to the Terrasse Médiane. That’s certainly one way of putting it!). Unfortunately the last section of top tips for Verdon climbing was too much for the poor computer and was a bit harder to follow. I couldn’t quite work out how jwi managed to drop his haulbag...

My God, google translate english > swedish is really surprisingly bad! (I dropped the haulbag because I was an idiot, is there any other way?)

Since I got help from this forum, I should probably post a short TR on

Sous la griffe de Lucifer, 450m ED-, 6c+>6b+, 14 pitches

Are you in Céüse and bored with hiking for an hour to go and climb the same 15m over and over again? Bring down nine draws, two shoulder length slings and something for belays, drive 50 min from the campground to Dévoluy and climb something completely different. You get a Parois de Legende tick as well!

Unusually sustained and steep face climbing for 13 pitches. No cracks or anything that scratches the back of the hand. In the shade until around 2.30pm.


The wall. Lucifer climbs just to the right of the big dihedral that splits the main wall in two. (There are 3 PdL-ticks on the wall, which is partly explained by the fact that Bodet and Petit used to live 45 min away).

The approach is mercifully short (20 min or so) and easy to find. The route starts at the memorial plaque to Bruno M.


“You who pass by, remember Bruno Martel and his love for The Gillards. To our dad, with eternal love”

The first pitch has some average rock but not many bolts so it pays to be careful. Overall the easier pitches still has some tricky route finding and very few bolts, so they take quite a bit longer than you would think to climb.

Here's J. on the 6th pitch


and near the top of the amazing 11th pitch with the banded silica intrusions that gives plenty of small crimpers. Very cool to climb on!


Overall, we found the climbing very good starting on pitch 4 all the way to the end of the hard part in the middle of pitch 12. Compared to the topo in PdL we found P9 to be the hardest and P11 to be slightly easier (but more demanding mentally perhaps), otherwise we found the grading in PdL to be closer to our opinion than the grades given in the description on camp to camp.

The descent was easy to find (a single footpath from the top of the route all the way down to the small village of Jouves) and makes for a very pleasant hike on alpine prairies.



« Last Edit: July 16, 2020, 03:33:40 pm by jwi »

Wood FT

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2951
  • Karma: +162/-8

 In Swedish but google translate offers an entertaining version for Anglophones (apparently you “celebrate” your way down Luna Bong to the Terrasse Médiane. That’s certainly one way of putting it!). Unfortunately the last section of top tips for Verdon climbing was too much for the poor computer and was a bit harder to follow. I couldn’t quite work out how jwi managed to drop his haulbag...

My God, google translate english > swedish is really surprisingly bad! (I dropped the haulbag because I was an idiot, is there any other way?)

Since I got help from this forum, I should probably post a short TR on

Sous la griffe de Lucifer, 450m ED-, 6c+>6b+, 14 pitches

Are you in Céüse and bored with hiking for an hour to go and climb the same 15m over and over again? Bring down nine draws, two shoulder length slings and something for belays, drive 50 min from the campground to Dévoluy and climb something completely different. You get a Parois de Legende tick as well!

Unusually sustained and steep face climbing for 13 pitches. No cracks or anything that scratches the back of the hand. In the shade until around 2.30pm.


The wall. Lucifer climbs just to the right of the big dihedral that splits the main wall in two. (There are 3 PdL-ticks on the wall, which is partly explained by the fact that Bodet and Petit used to live 45 min away).

The approach is mercifully short (20 min or so) and easy to find. The route starts at the memorial plaque to Bruno M.


“You who pass by, remember Bruno Martel and his love for The Gillards. To our dad, with eternal love”

The first pitch has some average rock but not many bolts so it pays to be careful. Overall the easier pitches still has some tricky route finding and very few bolts, so they take quite a bit longer than you would think to climb.

Here's J. on the 6th pitch


and near the top of the amazing 11th pitch with the banded silica intrusions that gives plenty of small crimpers. Very cool to climb on!


Overall, we found the climbing very good starting on pitch 4 all the way to the end of the hard part in the middle of pitch 12. Compared to the topo in PdL we found P9 to be the hardest and P11 to be slightly easier (but more demanding mentally perhaps), otherwise we found the grading in PdL to be closer to our opinion than the grades given in the description on camp to camp.

The descent was easy to find (a single footpath from the top of the route all the way down to the small village of Jouves) and makes for a very pleasant hike on alpine prairies.

Awesome! You had me at no cracks or anything.

petejh

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 5778
  • Karma: +622/-36
Great stuff. Keep them coming jwi, inspiration material.

tomtom

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 20282
  • Karma: +641/-11
Great stuff. Keep them coming jwi, inspiration material.

👍👍 even to (me) someone who has no intention of tying in... 😃

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29221
  • Karma: +630/-11
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Does look ace, maybe a bit rich for my blood. Got me flicking through the Arvre Guide though, and thinking about something a bit friendlier next summer maybe.

MischaHY

Offline
  • ***
  • obsessive maniac
  • Posts: 496
  • Karma: +64/-1
Recently did some moderately competent bimbling in Sardinia seeing as the Alps were soaking.

First up 'Non Potho Reposare' 6c+ 7 pitches. Absolutely feckin' brilliant. Best easy pitches of the trip and every pitch was a gift.

Seriously, it was that good.

Little video from Lando here:


Next up was 'Cuore in Gola' 7c+ 10 pitches. First 3 pitches are the crux through a bigggg roof (7b,7b,7c+) after which it's 7 pitches up to 7a+ to reach the top. We had a look at the roof pitches on our second day (just the two 7b's for me, Lando checked out the 7c+ so I could have a flash go) and then bivvied in the gorge and went for it early doors. Knocked out the first two pitches steadily enough, then fell off the flash go of the 7c+ on the last hard move due to being a f***king loser and getting scared. That went next go (argh  >:( ) so we cracked on with the rest, leaving the haul bag at the top of pitch 5 (7a+). The rest is bolder but steadier and we got to the top in good style to find out that the last pitch just stops in the middle of nowhere 30m below the top of the wall or thereabouts. The wind was blowing a serious hoolie by this point so we started to head down and did some very intense high wind abseiling to get back to the base of the gorge just as it got dark  :beer2:

Another vid of that little escapade here:



And a picture from the Gorge for good measure:

 
Other highlights were 'Legitimo Bastardo' 7c 8 pitches which I managed onsight until we hit rotten belays on the easier upper section. This was a funny one as we were expecting a super bold crux pitch, but it had actually been recently rebolted and was actually quite reasonable, whereas the following 7a+ (b) pitches were pant-fillingly bold with some sections containing hard moves with 6m runouts.




We then followed that up with a team onsight ascent of 'Stella di Sangue' 7b, although I got knackered on the last few pitches and seconded pitifully for the rest.

Onsighting the crux pitch of Stella:


Hardish things aside, we also did a fairly rapid simul ascent of 'Via de L'amicizia' 6b 700m in 6 loooong pitches and about 5hrs total. Absolutely brilliant route, 95% trad with bolted belays and the occasional old peg/bolt. Highly recommended!



All in all it's a fantastic place and I will definitely go back, although it must be said the walk-ins are knackering and rotten bolts are not uncommon. We approached and descended for over 30 hours in the 8 days that we climbed!

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
Les premiers pas d'Elsa, ED, 7a+>6c

After two routes on the Gillardes, my better half had it with the wall. Suffering from a bit of monomania I wanted to do Premier pas d'Elsa as well as it is included in both “Parois de Légende” and Mussato's book “Itinéraires d'un grimpeur gâté”. I knew that HaeMeS was in the area and suspected that he could be convinced; alas, he had already moved on to more proper alps, but luckily he knew a Belgian climber who was in the area and was keen.

The French climbing establishment insist on this slightly quixotic fight against dissemination of information outside of local topos. After having had Rockfax and Tmms Verlag's topos in the cross hairs, their new pet hate seems to be camptocamp.org. As Mistral is for noobs and Rockfax tends to have errors like having the wrong number of pitches on routes or simply drawing routes on a pic of the wrong mountain I never considered using them for information, and never really cared. Camptocamp, on the other hand, is a real gold mine with up-to-date user generated information about routes on the continent, the maghreb and the levant. Specifically I learned from comments that there were four hangers missing along the route, so I went to Approach in Gap and bought 5 hangers the day before climbing.

I met Erik in the morning 7.15AM at the parking, and after spending half a minute on discussing the rack we went off.

The route starts with the same first pitch and a half as Sous la griffe de Lucifer, but then continue straight up with a second pitch that was closer to 6c than 6b. Pretty demanding climbing with some runouts early in the morning as well.


The fourth anchor was the first that missed a hanger, and since the hanger in place had a very small hole with a sling already threaded through it I could not get any of our crabs to fit, so I was quite happy to have a wrench and a hanger in the harness and nuts in the shirt pocket...

The fifth pitch had also a missing hanger, on the crux bit. Luckily Erik had margin and put in in place from a free climbing stance. Luckily it was also quite easy for the grade. One of only two pitches I felt was on the easy side. Most pitches felt quite hard for their given grade...


Erik just about to get out the hardware on pitch 5...

Starting on pitch 5 the climbing got very good as well. Basically everything from pitch 5 to pitch 13 is brilliant. Pretty solid rock as well.


Erik towards the end of the sixth pitch.

The eight (crux) pitch was particularly good, and not as easy as you might think... Overall I think that a good level of endurance is needed for the route. There are no slab pitches and almost everything from pitch 6 and onwards is either vertical or slightly overhanging (this part of the crag was the site of France's biggest rope-jump in 2019) with very few easy sections.

I struggled a lot on the tenth pitch, and close to the belay I was pretty close to falling on the section here:


The eleventh pitch goes through the overhang just above Erik in the pic above. In my experience it is exceedingly rare to climb steeply overhanging rock with 300+ m of pure air beneath the feet at such an amiable grade (7a). Partly explained by the fact that it is not a very long section.

The route finishes with some brilliant but confusing climbing on a band of "pouding" (vernacular for conglomerate).

Overall a brilliant route that is harder to link than a cursory glance at the topo would suggest. Most pitches are very sustained, and the easier parts are quite runout. In my opinion, the global grade of ED is well deserved.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2020, 03:06:47 pm by jwi »

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
« Last Edit: July 25, 2020, 03:30:48 pm by jwi »

Yossarian

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2354
  • Karma: +351/-5
Does anyone know anything about the Fleischbank in the Wilder Kaiser? A mate has been reading Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage and apparently Herman Buhl soloed I think the south east route, which included something called the Rossi Overhang.

I found a bit of info here https://www.summitpost.org/fleischbank/293951 and it looks quite hardcore.

This was vaguely prompted because we were discussing a possible return to alpine rock next year, and I had fancied going back to the various things we failed to do as a result of the Bondo landslide in 2017. Sadly it appears that the entire Bondasca valley is still out of bounds, and the Sciora hut is permanently closed. There was a paper about the landslide published earlier this year https://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/20/505/2020/ where you can see the distance the landslide travelled. When we got helicoptered down it blew my mind quite how far down it came - there were truck-sized chunks in Bondo which was way beyond the zone anyone had predicted an event like that would reach.

duncan

Offline
  • *****
  • Global Moderator
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2952
  • Karma: +332/-2
Great stuff again jwi.

Yossarian, the SE Diedre of the Fleischbank is in Extreme Alpine Rock (Im Extrem Fels). I can scan the pages if you like. Herman Buhl mentions it several times in Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage including his solo and seems to have enjoyed it.

Yossarian

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2354
  • Karma: +351/-5
TBH alpine limestone has always filled me with dread vs granite. I think if we were to consider it there are plenty of lower stress / easier access routes around Europe that we ought to try first!

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground

duncan

Offline
  • *****
  • Global Moderator
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2952
  • Karma: +332/-2
TBH alpine limestone has always filled me with dread vs granite. I think if we were to consider it there are plenty of lower stress / easier access routes around Europe that we ought to try first!

My limited experience of the Alpine limestone classics (eg Yellow Edge, Sella Towers and Piz Ciavazes) is the climbing can resemble a bigger Stoney Middleton with better views.  Some of the less celebrated modern sport routes are (whisper) much better...

lukas_s

Offline
  • *
  • newbie
  • Posts: 9
  • Karma: +0/-0
Anything specific you want to know? I have climbed quite a few routes on that face. Its quite a big wall with a lot of routes in very different styles. The most famous route on the east face itself is the South-East dihidral (Südostverschneidung) (as already mention an "extreme rock route") - and its really good as well. But theres also a lot less well known routes, from old classics to modern sportroutes and scary trad-climbs from the 80s.
The first UIAA 7, Pumprisse, in the Alps is also on Fleischbank (though not on the east face, but on the "Fleischbankpfeiler"). Thats also where "Des Kaisers neue Kleider", the famous Glowacz route is. .
I think the route Buhl solod was the "Wiesner/Rossi" (Südost-Wand) but not 100% sure.

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
I have compiled a list of Twenty-five routes well worth doing in the Verdon, and some practical advice on gear/raps etc, might be of interest in this context?

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29221
  • Karma: +630/-11
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
Good article.

Interestingly

Quote
Il giochi de prestigio is Italian for “a game of prestige”, i.e. stage magic. (In English as well has French prestige has lost its original sense of ‘conjuring tricks’, if I am not mistaken).

is true apart from resurrecting it for the film title, which i think caused a bit of confusion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prestige_(film)

A bit like the "III" being dropped from the film version of The Madness of King George, so audiences didn't think it was a sequel..


jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
good knowledge!

Yossarian

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2354
  • Karma: +351/-5
I have compiled a list of Twenty-five routes well worth doing in the Verdon, and some practical advice on gear/raps etc, might be of interest in this context?

That’s brilliant! Haven’t been to Verdon since the late 90s but that brings it all back (mostly in a good way)...

SA Chris

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 29221
  • Karma: +630/-11
    • http://groups.msn.com/ChrisClix
It is an amazing place. Did a 2 day hit when passing, L'Eperon Sublime and La Demande, first experience of multi-pitch sport.

jwi

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 4219
  • Karma: +331/-1
    • On Steep Ground
The second volume of Mussato's œuvre Itinéraires d'un grimpeur gâté (itineraries of a spoiled climber) has recently been published. The first volume is a great classic with 104 routes where the criteria for inclusion is very close to OP

Inclusion criteria are great climbs of ~8 pitches or longer with minimal death potential.  I'm not keen on freezing in a storm or being hit by lumps of rock or ice and crevassed approaches void my BMC insurance (plug for sponsors).  BHAGs could stretch as far as E6 trad. and 7b-ish sport.  Routes should be mostly free, a little sneaky cheating is acceptable. 

Philippe Mussato himself has put up hundreds of multipitch routes in all grades up to 8b+ in the area, including famous routes like Ali Baba in Aiglun.

In Mussato's books routes of a wide span of difficulties between 5c and 8a+ are included, most of them at least 8 pitches and nothing with glacier approach. All routes are in the French alps (if the Calanques are a part of the alps...). Every route mentioned has a usable topo and detailed approach and access descriptions. Around a third of the routes in the book are partly or entirely on natural protection, the rest are fully or almost fully bolted.

Volume 2 contains 132 routes. Like in the first volume, for each route a grade E1-E4 details how far it is between the points of protections and a grade F1 (12 mm stainless bolts) to F6 (no fixed gear) gives information of the quality of fixed gear.

So far I have only really used volume 1. I have only done a handful of routes of the selection in the second volume, most have been very good and one of which I do not think should be included in a book of this type, but I'll report back when I have used the book more. (I would trust Mussato's opinions over mine anyway)

 

SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2024, SimplePortal