Sam's Climbing Blog: 2012

After a few weeks at home - I couldn't find a climbing partner to go abroad - with little climbing - not motivated to pull on plastic, but succeeding in doing 13 Boulevard du vol 8a and Globalia 8a+ (a much nicer variant starting in Aeroplane blindé and traversing under Fritographie into 13 Boulevard) ever staying dry in the rain. It appears Freyr has it's own kind of microclimat. Matti climbed the same stuff, plus the boulders Quomolungma 8a+ and Namché Bazar 8b and so became the hero of the local Marche-les-dames army boys in spe. I tried Namché to, but was forced to quit due to pain in my right ringfinger. When I'm fit and strong again I come back to kill the beast, only for the ticks in the topo ofcourse.

Ablon
Getting crazy in concrete land Vlaanderen I contacted Tim who was climbing in Chamonix. With no car at my disposition I had to take the Eurolines bus at the really welcoming urine drenched Brussel-Noord station. After a short night with 15 and 20minutes pauses announced in a toneless and emotionless Polish accent, and an Italian dude trying to get a smoke in the toilet and so provoking one of the bored drivers to settle the case in his preferenced Stalinistic goelag way. From Geneva I headed to Ablon, a nice and quiet little valley near to Thorens-Glières where I would meet Tim. The wall is supercompact and consists of atypical but pretty powerfull fingerclimbing on tiny crimpers. Not really what you want after a time of little climbing. According to a local you need some time to learn appreciating it. But it's a beautiful valley with a farm where Tomme de Savoie and Reblochon are traditionally made. 40 cows are milked twice a day and we were so lucky to put up our tents in their night meadow. Not afraid they came inspecting our tents and shitting around while making dinner. Only sleeping in my interior tent, I felt pretty uneasy by the few centimeters that seperated my head from the massive hooves of a 600-700kg animal who planned a little inspection during the night. After 3 days we felt we were ready to attack some bigger stuff and left to Wendenstöcke in Switzerland.

With some chickenbouillon everthing tastes good

Project Dam at Wendenstöcke

Our initial plan was to go to Rätikon - a kind of Swiss Verdon - in the most eastern part of Switzerland. After consulting a map we concluded this was pretty far, especially if you have to do everything hitchhiking. Fortunately there are tons and tons of mountains and rocks, and we came up this pretty big but rather unknown (for us at least) area in the central part of the country, near to Sherlock Holmes town of Meiringen. The gods were with us - a crazy ride with an English airplane engineer in his big fat fully automatized Mercedes with enough comfy legspace for a giant in the front and in the back and the possibility to use the locally generated wifi-hotspot and get some free demo's of all the buttons, straight to Luzern, injecting some nitro into his V5 engine every now and then because of his totally unfounded neurotical fear of being to late for his work because of slowmo's driving too mellow on the left side of the highway. Later on a superfriendly german lady brought us straight up to Wendenalp, although this was at least 40km extra driving back and forth fo her. She even insisted to pay the toll for the special road going up. I guess she would have even cooked for us if we asked. Seems there are still good people in this world that has been gone sour for ages.

Wendenstöcke is the futur investment place for big infrastructural works, and by this I mean damconstruction and power plants. We considered this lovely valley with an Alpkäse producing farm ideal to be expropriated to turn it into a real goldmine. Remember, Switzerland is a tough businesscountry, everything is about the money. You need balls here. Upon arrival T.D.D. Damconstruction Company contacted me as second CEO of Belfius Bank to invest in their project. I joined the proj' immediately. T.D.D. is reknown for his no nonsense, no bullshit approach to such big works. They have the attitude, they have the know how, I provide the money. Provided with the newest Tefal cookingpot the job was done in no time. Now people in the region can inally take a decent bath after a hard day of climbing.

The central part of Wendenstöcke

The base camp

Men at work

Destroying a nice tefal pot in an original way

I spotted this creature multiple times on my trip. It has a preference for ice cold baths before going to bed.

This proved to be a good investvment. The hike went up for a long 2 hours on an endless trail, now traversing to the right, thn to the left through gullies, and going over tens and tens of little ledges with no clear trail left, to finally arrive at the middle sector and at the start of Niagara, a 250m 7b+ with most of the pitches 6c(+). Meanwhile 3 Englishmen were planning to climb to, but not before one of them dropped one of his hiking boots, going down for a few hundred meters down the slope never to be found again. That was pretty sour. Strange how cynical people are, going even more strike as the shoe takes its last jump, catapulted through the air over the edge, before vanishing out of sight, and feel compassion with the guy at the same time. Afterwards we learned he found an old shoe around their bivouac spot. A foot full of blisters is still better than a foot peeled to the bone. The climbing itself proved to be a little bit adventurous (sometimes a lot). It seems this is a general characteristic of big alpine limestone walls. Some loose stuff every now and then, hollow flakes, little features on the rock like crimps and pockets, spaced bolts in the good old ground-up style, especially in the easier pitches you can take enough airmiles to fly around the world (5 à 10m is a rule, not falling too), rotten slings, rusty pitons, need for extra cams and nuts, the occasional tv or fridge coming down from the top of wall at least once a day. Add to this the fact I had forgotten my helmet at home, and balls can shrimp in no time. Niagara was all considered a pretty safe route, with a 7a that was harder than the 7b+. Another route we tried was Elefantenohr (320m, 7c+), but we got lost (or not) in the 7c+ which felt incredibly hard for the grade and were forced to bail. We also noticed this at other times that once you are served more than 7b, it gets totally ugly, or undoable, or irrational and unlogical. After this we planned a rest day and after that rain and thunder arrived and left. It was pretty scary to be in the clouds and see lightning coming down at almost eyeheight. The area has enough climbing for a life time and we still have many things we want to try here, like Ben Hur perfer et obdura, a 300m 7c+ to which they added 30 bolts in 2009. Say enough about ethics in those days I think.

So the rain kicked us out. Without a car it seemed to much mess to get around, and go to places as Gastlosen, the Eiger, Scheideggwetterhorn, Rätikon and all the rest. The high prices in the supermarket not to be forgotten as a major contributing factor.

Airy!

The much needed extra vitamins

5 hours for a mere 20km can drive some people mad

Tours d'Areu

The way back to France was not going as smooth as we came in. But we made it to Chamonix and from there to Tours d'Areu near Sallanches. The last part to again a lovely valley with a farm were they made Tomme and a refuge follows a steep 4x4 track. Logically the neck of people who drive these kind of cars is to big for us and our bags to join in. An hour or two waiting made us decide to go up by foot untill a guy with a 1945 WW2 Jeep and living in one of the little huts in the valley higher up showed up and decided we could get in. How I love fate and carburant sucking jeeps. The wall consists out of 5 towers, mostly with 6th degree routes, and 6 à 7 pitches long. Tim suggested to attack the nicest route of the whole wall: Aguirre (7b). And I have to admit this was a real beauty. The first 3 pitches were more powerfull and slightly overhanging on the typical looser orange rock, followed by some technical slab pitches on compacht grey limestone. It's really astonishing to find such a consistent line and a waythrough the slabs, which were not easy by the way. Next day we went to a tower on the left to try "Une Ballade pour Jean-Pascale", but not for us. The 7c pitch was totally uninspiring and shit. No sign of any hold, even no shitty 'frul'. We couldn't figure it out and finally had to A0 the whole goddamn thing. My motivation for the next pitches dropped to zero too, especially because there was a lot of loose rock. The last pitch was a 7b I managed to onsight and freeclimb, my day at least saved a bit, but not before we rushed down to escape the appraoching thunderstorm. Just imagine lightning, a lot of metal on your body and a wind strong enough to blow 30m rope horizontally, and you won't 'semmel' to much during the rappels.

Refuge de Doran and the towers behind

We're in the army now!

I was not so happy as I seem on the picture - rappelling en plein vide, pretty scary

Anterne

After Tours d'Areu we could lay hand on a really good topo of Switzerland, one that was not only more complete, but more inspiring as well, and looking to this topo it seemed there was so much more to do in Wendenstöcke. We decided to try it once more and started back hitchhiking. We couldn't get any further than Martigny. After 2 hours of trying both at the highway and the national way, we were both pretty pissed off. A whole day spent to get to Martigny and back to Chamonix: ZONDE. No, Switzerland was now defenitely out of the question. We discovered another spot in the region of Chamonix, called Anterne close to Sixt Fer-à-cheval. A gigantic rockcliff above a valley through which a lovely stream meanders and the GR5 trail that brings you past a lake to a col that gives a panorama view on the Mont Blanc mountain range. We put up our tent next to the river under the gigantic 150m high rotten looking (and also being) socle. The plan was to get up early enough to attack Djin Fiz, 13 pitches with 2 7c's as the hardest pitches. We didn't leave early enough: first we had to het up the steep scree slope on loose rock and boulders without a clear trail, after that into the dangerous gully with loose and falling rock, after that we had to climb 10m, and after that we had to traverse using fixed lines to get to the start of the route which was not too hard to find. At 9h45 we could finally start climbing. A well protected and consistent route with a 7a slab which gave me some difficulties but peanuts for Tim, 2 7b's, the one more powerful, the other very technical on microholds and 3 6's. All pretty nice pitches untill we reached the terrific 6a+ traverse to get to the first 7c. I have no words to describe this bastard pitch, but I certainly wouldn't call it a pitch, let alone grade it. I would just put fixed lines to get past it as quick as possible. A 20-25m rotten ledge with bolts far enough to scare you shittless and end up in midair in case anything should come out. I had the honour to go first and I think my whole adrenalin stock was depleted in just a few horrible minutes. Afterwards the big brothers from the refuge in the valley told us they watched us through binoculars crawling on our knees and shitting around on the ledge. Everything has to be public these days. The 7c proved to be to hard again. Tim got stuck at the 3 bolt. Apparently one or another flake went airborne the previous time. No way to get past it without aiding. It looked all very tiny and hard and there was even a second 7c coming right after the first one which we had to do both in order to rappell. It was also getting late and so we had to go back over the rotten ledge again. Jeezes! Afterwards it was the best decision we made. The whole descent took us 4,5 hours, especially the really dangerous descent through the gully. We just wondered why there weren't any fixed ropes or things to be able to rappel on those loose sliding stuff. We found some rotten pieces of rope in the gully and used it to fabricate a rappel, throwing down big blocks every now and then. A long day that was concluded with the traditional chicken bouillon at the base camp and the cancelling of a second route on this wall.

Brol traverse, I was scared shitless

The Homo Dedobbeleeriensis can be spotted in every kind of alpine region, especially near a water source where he can refresh himself before going to sleep

Flammes de pierre - Chamonix

Getting really tired of dragging all the bags constantly from one place to another, we decided to stay in Chamonix to climb something with cracks. We would go to Flammes de pierre and Aiguille du Moine (2700m). A really long 5h hike awaited us to reach Refuge du Couvercle, if we didn't take the little train who went to Montenvers and the glacier. Enough people to hop on for free and save us 25€ and at least 2h or 1000m hiking up. Add to this the fact we both had diarrhea (me one day later as Tim but the proces was already going on), probably an infection from the water in Anterne. Tim was litteraly shitting out his soul, so this little ride was all the more welcome. Next we had to take stairs to descent onto the glacier which has almost completely disappeared (200 years ago it was at least 100m thicker), and then a flat walk on the glacier untill some other endless klettersteig like stairs to get back out again. All together pretty heavy with a rugsack full of stuff and food. And the diarrhea didn't help either. Luckily the refuge was supercheap, a mere 6,5€ per day. After a bad night in a dormitory full of snorlaxes, the next morning it was my turn to shit out my soul multiple times. After 2 hours we both felt pretty empty, i.e. no more shit and energy, but still wanted to look around the corner to attempt Miss Tique, a 400m 7a. Arriving near the base I couldn't hold it up any longer and created an abstract Picasso in his brown period like painting on a virgin white glacier, in 3 times if have to say. All very amusing but not really what you want in the middle of a wall. Besides Tim felt pretty weak too, so we went back to the refuge for a frustrating day of doing nothing but drinking bouillon. Next day was our final climbing day. We got up to early in fact, the snow on the appraoch was still to hard and to steep to walk on without crampons or piolets. Time for plan B: going to Flammes de pierre following the trail back on the Balcon de la mer de glace, of course with the obligatory stairs and such. A long walk but a magnificent piece of granit. Much better quality actually than all the limestone together on this trip. The route was called L'Elan Vertical (6 pitches, 7b). Since it had been a while since my last cracks, I felt a bit uncomfortable at first, but the climbing proved to be super and the rock compact. We only got a problem -never a route without any problems - higher up at the second to last pitch. Tim missed a bolt and couldn't find were to go. Meanwhile the 3 Spaniards arrived on the same relais to and there we waited and waited, getting cold while the fossilizing process begun. I lowered Tim and we asked the Spanish dude if he could go ahead. No problem for him, he discovered the next bolt was just straight up above some blocks. Shit happens sometimes hé. All considered this was a great route and although not looking forward to the big hike, I was in the end really glad to have come to this stunning place far away from crowds and noice and the mundane Chamonix. Maybe I shouldn't sell my crampons yet, there is probably more of this nice stuff hidden around the corner. Ofcourse we missed the last train, so we concluded the day with a 3,5-4h walk down to Chamonix to get extra hungry, and an obligatory stop at the local frietshop.