Cosmiques Arete Solo

Friday saw the good weather we'd been heaving in Cham break and a bank of unsettled low pressure move it for the weekend. Ash an Clare decided to have a valley day at Gaillards the local crag but having done a lot of the route there that are within my grade when I was out in Chamonix last I decided to try and get one more day in up in the mountains before my flight and the definitive end to my sumer alpine season.

The Cosmiques Arete isn't hard, nor is it particularly serious, its very accessible and having done the route many times over the summer due to its proximity to the lift station and preferableness to trudging up the snow arete I now know it pretty dam well. As such it made quite a good objective for a alpine solo. I've never solo'ed anything in the alpine before, and when I say solo I don't mean just climbing un-roped, I'm referring climbing alone on the mountain.


The weather was poor, with visibility down to about 15 meters, persistent snow and a reasonably strong wind which made walking across the galcier the scariest bit of the whole trip, especially when I put my foot partially in a small crevasse just below the Eperon - probably not big enough for me to fall in but it did make me think. I took some shelter behind the Abri Simmond, having a quick bite to eat before setting off.

I left the base at 10:10am (having left the Midi at 9:45/9:50am) and climbed fairly quickly up the first slabbly sectyion. The rock was very snowy and sections were covered in rime. After about 15/20 minutes I was at the first abseil. I though about down-climbing this as I've done several times before but as I needed to get the rope out for the next one decided it was probably quicker an safer to just rappel both. Rigging the second abseil my hands got quite cold having got wet earlier from brushing snow off holds, here I had a bit of a moment as once you do this you are fairly committed to finishing the rest of the ridge, including the crux slab. I went for it and got to the bottom of the gully where I pulled the ropes, here I made a stupid mistake. As I took my sack off to stow the rope I forgot that my axe was behind my back and dropped it and had to downclimb a good 15m to where it was perched precariously between two rocks, this cost me a good 5-10 minutes as I took it quite slowly. After this I soon reached the crux slab where I changed into dry gloves and then went for, the last section on the north side of the ridge went very quickly and by 11am I was slumped infront of the telescope on the viewing platform, 50 minutes after I started.



The guidebook time is 3 hours, so 50 minutes isn't bad, I'm happy with it considering the conditions. I would of really liked to of beaten John's record of 40 minutes, and I think if I did in good conditions I maybe could - but that will have to wait to next year. I really enjoyed doing it and got a huge buzz from moving freely and swiftly on the mountain however I really did feel alone and quite vulnerable if anything did happen (there were no other parties on the ridge), I imagine I'll do some more soloing, but I'm not quite sure how much yet.

Thats the summer alpine season over for me, I've done 7 weeks out in the Alps and got loads done, and in general the summer has been one of the best I've had for climbing with the month I spent climbing Yosemite, Squamish and Nevada before the Alps. Apparently its time to knuckle down and finish my degree now...

Aiguille de L'M NNE Ridge & L'Index SE Ridge

Tuesday myself and Ash took a 9am lift up the Midi and jumped off at the Plan station before heading up towards the Nantillons glacier and then cutting across under the Petit Charmoz to the base of the Aiguille de L'M. The approach is given in most books as about 2 hours, either from the Plan station or the Montenvers train station on the to the other side. We opted for the Plan approach as while it undulates a fair bit as it crosses several lines of moraine its basically a traverse, a appose to the Montenvers approach which is shorter but ivolves a lot more ascent - we planned to use this as out descent route.

NNE Ridge, Aiguille de L'M.

I led the first pitch, which starts with a few steep moves before some delicate climbing up a shallow crack on a slab. Its given IV- which makes it allegedly one of the harder pitches of the route but despite it being freezing (the sun hadn't come round yet and I couldn't feel my hands!) I thought it was fairly amenable, I strung this together with the next pitch which has some easy III climbing leading to a nice terrace. Here Ash took over and led a fairly short pitch, but with a stiff move (about British 4b/4c) to start up to below the big diedre. This offwidth corner crack is certainly the crux of the route and takes a bit of though as the natural line is to follow and try to climb the offwidth but the way to do is to make a few delicate but easier moves out on the slab which lead to the belay above. This thwarted me the first time, but Ash dispatched with ease, leaving me to follow with both mine and his rucksack which proved quite a challenge! The line on the next pitch is a bit vague and has a few option, I followed a line that passed a few pegs, but Ash found another on second. From here a final pitch led up to the summit ridge and then the summit of the L'M itself. A bit of backtracking leads to a series of abseil anchors, we made three 30m abseils down to the snow gully and then a further one to the other side of the snow and bit of down-climbing to get get us back to the start. We managed to do the descent from here to the Montenvers in 50mins, getting to the station about 10 minutes before the last train.

Clare O'Sullivan arrived that evening so with both myself an Ash being a bit tired from 3 days on the run and Clare having come straight from sea level we took the Midi up and just did a quick lap on the Cosmiques making use of our lift passes, and being down in time for lunch in the Petit Kitchen.

L'Index, the SE Ridge is the left side of the prominent fin of rock.

The next day we walked down from Chris an Andrea's down to Flegere lift station to get up onto the Aiguille Rouge before the lifts shut at the end of the week and we'd have to start walking up... Alpinistes actually walking somewhere!? I've climbed l'Index twice before, but always done routes on the face rather than the classic but easier ridge-line known as the SE Ridge. We did the approach pitches first that sit below the terrace, these are 5c and then 4c and fully bolted. As I'd done these before Ash lead both of them with me an Clare following. At the terrace we had some lunch before we swapped over and I led up the ridge, which at it's hardest is 4c. Its got much less equipment than the other routes, but theres pegs here and there and a reasonable amount of in-situ nuts an cams. I think I probably only places about 3/4 of my own pieces. its 4/5 pitches in the guidebok but I manged to run bits together and did it in 3 fairly full 60m pitches right to the summit. The route is well travelled, and as a product it is quite polished in places but again there is a reason for this - the route is very good, and while it does detract from the quality it certainly isn'y a reason not to do the route.

Throughout the day we had great views over to the Chappelle route on La Gliere which is a route that I really do recommend to do up on the rouge, 14 pitches of excellent climbing at a moderate grade, the hardest bits being 6a.

Vallee Blanche Acclimatization

Myself and Ash headed up the Midi lift on Sunday morning after arriving in Chamonix the evening before. We carried up bivi gear and dropped this off at shack that's perched on the spur of rock below the Cosmiques hut. This hut isn't officially acknowledged in any guidebooks or on any maps as far as I know, probably because if it was more well known the actual Cosmiques may loose some business! It seems to have fallen into a little bit of dis-repair recently as the top section of the door is now missing and one of the blankets has been nailed up to cover the hole in a crude fashion, due to this there was quite a bit of snow that had blown inside that we needed to clear. Thankfully it wasn't a windy night so we were ok. Theres probably enough wood lying about under the platform in their for somebody with a bit of skill to fix the door up a bit.

Anyhow after dumping our kit we had a lap on the Cosmiques Arete as Ash had never done it before. I think this was my 5th time on the ridge this summer, and I could probably climb it with my eyes closed now but it is still a good route. It gets a lot of stick of sites like UKC from people that its too busy, not that good and too accessible but I disagree with most of this. Yes there are hundreds of finer routes in the massif but this is one of few that provide what I consider to be a good standard of climbing in such a accessible location. Simply looking at it, less than about 16 hours after getting off a plane in Geneva we were at 3800m climbing, there aren't many places you can do that in the world!

The route wasn't too busy, but a combination of us not moving too fast due to coming straight from sea level and one or two incompetent parties on it meant we took about 3.5 hours which is pretty slow but we took our time, and Ash was able get to grips with the area and back into the whole alpine thing. A quick jog back down the snow arete and across the glacier to the shack and we made are beds an prepared the evenings food.

Pointe Lachanel.

The next days plan was to climb the Contamine-Mazeaud (central route) on the Tacul Traingle however due to the combination of neither of us sleeping particularly well during the night and the alarm not going off in the morning and us getting up late we decided on shorter day so went to go and do the traverse of Pointe Lachanal. The Pointe Lachanel is most famous for its east face which is home to some classic, albeit fairly challenging rock climbing. The three summits can be traversed though, this is given the grade of AD 4a and involves some steep snow slopes, ridges and some mixed ground with a about 60m of rock climbing at the end to the final summit. This was covered in quite a bit of snow an ice when we were there due to it being the end of the season so was in mixed condition, still not hard though probably only going at about Scottish II. Ash led the first section of the ridge until the middle summit where I took over and led up through the mixed section to the final summit. Another steep snow slope led down to below the Tacul Traingle. I actually really enjoyed the route, I'd dismissed it in the past due it being dwarfed by the bigger mountains and harder routes that surround however it was actually quite good fun, not something I'd rush back to do again soon but something I'll keep in mind for a short day or when the weather isn't too favorable. I imagine a good acclimatization day would be to do this and then the Cosmiques in a day.

I'll add some more photos when I get chance to get them off my camera, and get hold of Ash's.

The Roaches

I was down in Cheshire last weekend at a Scout Network event. On Saturday we headed over to The Roaches, just the other side of the M6. We had a group of novices with us so we rigged some ropes on the right-hand section of the Upper Tier, although we perhaps overestimated the ability of some of our climbers so moved them rightwards in the afternoon.

Bottom-roping with a group at the Roaches.

I escaped for a while with Stu Spencer and Charles Conventry, both keen climbers form Ormskirk Network and we got too good routes done. First we did Pedestal Crack HVD 4a which is quite a nice line following a flake crake and than through a break in the overhang leading to the top. We took the direct (left) start which warrants the 4a/Severe grade, you can start further to the right though where it is easier. Some guides suggest doing this in two pitches but we managed to run it together just fine in one.

Secondly we did the classic Black an Tans, S 4a which gets 3 stars. Its got some varied climbing and probably deserves its stars but was perhaps a little short for my liking, because, as we did it in two pitches each one was probably only 10-15m long. Still nice climbing though. As we got down from this the rain came in so we made a tactical retreat to the pub.

Pedestal Crack.

On separate note Connected, the Network event that we were at was ace, a lot of respect for all that turned up in Burgundy! You did us all proud.

I'm off to Chamonix tomorrow to round of the summers Alpine climbing, apparently theres a fair bit of snow around so we'll see what we get done, I'll try to blog with conditions while I'm there.

Wallowbarrow, Pillar & Scafell

Just back from a weekend of climbing in the western Lake District. Friday night myself an Ash left soon after work managing to get to Wallowbarrow, a small crag in the Duddon Valley just above Seathwaite that neither of us had climbed at before. The crag is of a southern aspect so the rock was nice and warm from having the sun all day, the approach is also fairly tame being perhaps 10-15 minutes from the car park at the farm.

As a bit of a warm up for the weekend we jumped on Digitation, VS 4b**. The route first follows a large slab for 36m with some lovely climbing, at about 2/3rds height there is a slightely move bold which both he guidebook states and we inferred from the grade, its actually fine though. There then a small walk up a grassy terrace which leads to the final pitch; up a crack line on a steep wall, and then a series of ledges to the top of the crag. Some guides give the route MVS, while other give it VS. I don't think I've done enough MVSs (simply because the grade is fairly modern so not many exist) to know what one feels like however if it is VS, I'd say its certainly a soft touch at that.

Shamrock and Pillar Rock, Grooved Wall follows a line of weakness up the large smooth looking wall on the right.

Sunday we headed into Pillar Rock, on the backside of Pillar from Wasdale with primary objective of doing a reconnaissance of Slab an Notch route, the scramble/climbers descent that we'll be using when we take the late Dave Ridout's ashes up there in a few weeks time. After some careful placing of sacks at different points on the crag we headed round to the North East face of the massive rock bastion and set off up Grooved Wall, VS 5a***. Ash did the first pitch, which the guidebook does make apologies for and states is out of character with the rest of the route as its an awkwards series of moist grassy ledges which eventually lead up to the base of the groove, the only significant line of weakness of the fairly blank face. I took the second pitch which is the 5a crux, and wastes not time as after a few moves its time to pull through the overhang and into the groove proper. The move is superbly well protected, ideally by no9. hexcentric or a big cam (probably a friend 3.5 or BD 2) and actually feels pretty easy for 5a, although the bomber gear by your waist is a big comforting factor. 20m Of crack climbing with the odd bit of bridging then follow, of which most of it can be almost exclusively protected by slinging chock-stones in the crack before a belay is reached. Ash joined me after doing sterling job of pulling through the crux with our team sack, and then lead off up the final pitches, running the next 4b and final 4c pitch together in one. The final 4c pitch which follows the groove up its steep termination has some lovely climbing on it.

The evening was spent in the Wasdale Head Inn, which pleasantly had a beer festival on including an outside BBQ which was superb. Apparently this is an annual thing so the date has gone in the diary for next year.

Sunday, while Ash an Phil headed up to the Napes on Great Gable to do some classic rock ticking myself and Tom headed up Scafell. Neither of us had climbed on Scafell, and its somewhere I've really wanted to climb for a long time now. Its big for a start, high, being the highest crag in England or thereabout, clean, steep and imposing and a whole host of other things that make a good crag. Its fair slog up from Wasdale Head, taking us about 1.5hours to the base of the crag. It was fairly windy and the rock was pretty cold so we decided to start off up Moss Ghyll Grooves MVS 4c***. Tom led the first short pitch out of Moss Ghyll and up to the grooves where I took over for the 4c crux, which certainly feels 4c and I don't think would be out of place on any regular VS. This first follows a corner crack in the groove before a delicate traverse out onto the arete which is followed for a few meters until a steep move leads out of the groove and into the sentry box. Tom did the next pitch which had a lovely combination of crack an slab before the final pitch that led us to the top. A really good route.

Scafell Crag, Botteril's Slab is the obvious leftwards slanting line in the center.

After the descent down Broad Stand we went for Botteril's Slab VS 4c***, which I'd had my eye on since getting to the crag as its a very obvious and compelling line. Tom did the 4b pitch that approaches the slab and then I led off up the meat of the route, the 4c slab pitch. I found it a bit stuff for VS 4c I have to say, with the climbing being very delicate and yet sustained on small holds as you teeter up the steep slab (its probably 75-80 degrees) this could be because I was pretty tried bythis point, it was quite cold and some of the holds were a little damp. The gear is good on the route, however I though the there was some distance between some of the bomber placements. Tom finished up the final 4a pitch to the top. Anyhow the pitch is superb, and one of the best I've climbed in absolutely fantastic situation. Go and do it, its well worth it.