Like you could have read in Jeroen’s article, I (Bart) went back down to Chamonix, because I was feeling ill. So I packed my bags
while Jeroen was looking for a climbing partner at the hut and I was on my way
to the train station of Montevers. I was really feeling tired and sick when I
arrived at the crowded train station. Luckily the train came quickly and I was
on my way back to Cham.
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| The Aiguille Verte looking pretty snowy on my way back to the valley |
When I
stepped out of the train, the warmth overwhelmed me. I dropped off my gear at
the car and went for a burger and a drink in the Midnight Express and some
drugs at the pharmacy to get healthy again.
Then there was the quest of finding a camping close enough to Cham, so I
could bring all my gear to the camping by foot (cuz I don’t have a driving
license yet). That camping became “Les Arolles” in Chamonix-Sud. A nice, cozy
camping with a communal table and a ‘free box’. An ideal place to meet people,
so it turned out…
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Me and Jeroen at the camping, showing off our Camalot #6
©Martin Antvorskov
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Frida, myself, Martin and Jeroen at the communal table in the camping.
©Judith Leegwater |
The next
few days where filled with resting, reading, meeting interesting people and I
went cragging once, with the friendly Swedes I’ ve met. When Jeroen returned
from Envers, he settled himself in the camping and took a few days off himself.
Jeroen really wanted to go back to Envers les Aiguilles, but I was still not
feeling fine enough for those routes. So, Jeroen went up with Steve, a Brittish climber he
had met on the camping. The same day I went to the ‘Dalles de Chézerys’ with
Martin, a Danish climber I’ ve met. We climbed a three-pitch route, called
Dune. That day, I felt better and Martin came with the idea of climbing Arête
des Cosmiques together. A route he really wanted to climb. Although I climbed
the route already twice, I agreed because I needed some acclimatization and he
insisted on paying my cable car ticket. But we had to be quick, because he was
leaving in the afternoon. No sooner said than done, we went up the Midi next
day. We soloed, almost the whole way and downclimbed the first rappel. As usual, there were a lot of
people on the route, but it wasn’t overcrowded. Although it was the third time
I climbed this route, it is still a beautiful one. Nicely exposed, fun mixed
climbing and different behind every corner.
There was still a lot of snow, so we kept on our crampons the whole way.
The climbing took us two hours and we passed a lot of rope teams. When we
sumitted with the usual tourist-crazyness, we took a bite and a rest and took the lift back to Cham. In the end
Martin still had time by spare to catch his bus to Aillefroide.
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| Martin, feeling strong on the approach to the Chézerys! |
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| Martin, follows the second pitch of Dune |
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| Martin downclimbs the first rappel |
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| Martin rapelling on my way-too-long-for-this-route 70m rope |
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| The classic Cosmiques photograph! |
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| Martin climbs the crux |
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| On the summit! |
In the
afternoon I went climbing in ‘Les Gaillands’ with Frieda and Josefin (the
Swedish girls) and Barry, a South-African native who currently lives in
Australia. Les gaillands is one of the most popular crags around Chamonix and
it gets hot and crowded very quick on the main wall. That’s why we climbed on
the left side of the wall. Shaded by the trees and less crowds! I made plans
with Barry to go up to the Midi for some alpine climbing.
The next
day, we took the Midi. Loaded with a tent and food to stay up for a few days.
We dropped our gear on the Col du Midi and set off for the objective of the
day; Chèré couloir on the Triangle du Tacul. When we arrived at the route,
there were already some ropeteams in the route. We decided to wait until they
were at the ridge, we hoped the ice would fall down to the sides and not trough
the couloir. When they were a little higher, we climbed the first pitch, who
was a bit sheltered from the falling ice. When we were at the safe stance, we
decided to bail, because there was still too much ice coming down. When we were
down again, we went for the Contamine-Mazeaud. The route was beautiful but it
consisted out of constantly 60-70° of blank ice with no rests, not even at the
belays! Quickly, my calves were exploding out of the back of my pants and I had
to fight the pump, pitch after pitch. Barry, who had some more experience with
ice climbing, had a much better technique and he kept the same rhythm, pitch
after pitch. Halfway up the route, we came to the conclusion that the snow
conditions were getting worse and we still had to get down, once again we had
to bail! The route still had one surprise for us, we had to rappel trough a
gigantic bergschrund! We walked back to the Col, we’ ve put up our tent and
started making dinner, for once not with freeze-dried meals, but with real
fresh food and even a bottle of wine.
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The Chèré Couloir, pretty crowded as usual
©Barry Smith
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Waiting for the other teams
©Barry Smith
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| Barry, leading the first steep section ot the Contamine-Mazeaud |
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Bart, following the steepest part
©Barry Smith
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| Barry, leading a fun pitch with some mixed in the end |
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| Rapelling over a gigantic bergschrund |
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| Our camp on the Col du Midi |
Next
morning, we took our tent down and went for the East-face of Pointe Lachenal to
climb the classic Contamine route. The approach was easy, but there was some
doubt about the right start of the route as our topo wasn’t very clear. Thank’s
to Barry’s route-finding experience, we started the right route. A nice crack
with a block underneath that served as a gear depot. The most pitches were
relatively short, that’s why sometimes we climbed two pitches together. My lead
of the second pitch consisted out of a short, but very beautiful dihedral and
led to a ledge. After this plateau started a huge compact wall littered with beautiful
cracks. Pitch after pitch, we were astonished by the beauty of the wall! There
where surprises behind every corner! Halfway up the route we encountered a huge
freestanding flake, with another flake lying on top of it and on the last pitch
we passed a huge window in the rock, that looked out over the North-East face.
We were also surprised by the toughness of the climbing for the grade or was it
the altitude… After all the climbing is situated between 3100 and 3600m.
Later-on we learned that the Voie Contamine follows the ridge and as we climbed
more on the face, I believe we climbed some pitches of Harold et Maud, after we
left the ledge. Anyway, if you know what we climbed, please comment below!
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Approaching the East-face of the Pointe Lachenal
©Barry Smith
|
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Bart, following the third pitch of the route
©Barry Smith
|
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Barry, climbing without helmet because he dropped it
(we were able to recover his helmet later on, because it lay on the bergschrund) |
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| Barry crushing one of the harder pitches |
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| Enjoyable climbing on the face! |
When we
arrived at the last belay, we walked to the actual summit. It was possible
without crampons, as the rocky ridge was clear of snow. We took some pictures and we walked back to the belay
for a bite. We rappelled from our last belay and we got a bit of an epic on the
wall. We ended up in the overhanging part of the wall and we had to do some
scary traversing rappels on pretty bad stances, the “alpine feeling” was
further strengthened by a thunderstorm in the distance and the Gervasutti
couloir, who was avalanching the whole day long. The traversing rappels were
necessary to get back to our depot, but the rappel line led us to a couloir to
the left with a huge bergschrund underneath that was impossible to cross,
especially without ice gear! After two hours of rappelling we were back at our
equipment depot. We were relieved to get off the wall, but we didn’t knew the
day wasn’t over yet! The thunderstorm was staying in Italy, we thought. But
when we were ready to start walking, it started to rain. Lightly at first, but
then the clouds dropped and the thunderstorm broke loose. By the time we passed
underneath the first Lachenal point, we got into a complete whiteout. Sometimes
we managed to see the foot of the mountains trough the mist, just before it
closed in on us and we could only see a few meters ahead. I tried to adapt our
course, by making a deliberate error. But, made an error in my calculation and
I was still too close to the Mont Blanc du Tacul instead of the Aiguille du
Midi, so we almost passed our tent. Luckily the skies cleared briefly and we were
able to see our mistake. We put up our tent, ate some bread, drank some wine
and went to bed.
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Bart, arrives at the last belay after the 'window pitch'
©Barry Smith
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Climbing to the actual summit
©Barry Smith
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Yeah! But the day is far from over!
©Barry Smith
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General info
A return ticket for the
Midi-cablecar cost you 50 euro’s, yeah pretty expensive! However if you don’t
wish to pay for the expensive Cosmiques hut, you are allowed to bivouac in the
Mont Blanc Masif. Beware! Camping is forbidden, so you have to take down your
tent every day! Be careful because the camping fees are very high!
Thank's to our sponsor: Kariboe Leuven
For more pictures, take a look at our Facebook page
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