Season Ender...

Training in an air cast...

You know you are recovering when you keep accidentally leaving the house without crutches… With the season and tourist based work coming to an end, I had lots of plans for alpine routes in my time off; unfortunately this wasn’t to be!

For my birthday trip, we decided to go check out a sport-climbing crag near Les Marecottes. The descent was a bit of a nightmare down steep, loamy gullies and I spent most of it cursing my choice of baggy skate shoes! However when we finally reached the ledge with the shelter on I was feeling more psyched! The climbing looked fun, the view across the valley was beautiful and the hut was amazing! Someone has obviously put a lot of love and time into making it.

The beautiful 'hut'

The first multi-pitch route we climbed was easy and fun; not entirely knowing where we were going to abseil down made it a bit more exciting. However on the second route, I was struggling a lot. Even though I wasn’t feeling the love, I decided to lead the second pitch. When I hit a series of wet handholds (and then footholds) I panicked and tried to down climb before finally falling off. Sadly all the slack rope that I had created in down climbing sat on a ledge halfway up the pitch. When I fell, I fell much further than I expected I would and hit the ledge on the way past.

An explosion of pain in my ankle didn’t get any better as I was lowered to the ground. Fortunately Dave managed to rescue most of the gear and ropes as I crawled back to our bags. Even though I couldn’t put any weight through my ankle, I was pretty confident that I hadn’t broken any bones. Having spent so much time in the Scottish highlands, I’m used to the idea of getting yourself out of trouble and felt pretty guilty about the idea of my first helicopter ride. So I kept trying to convince myself that maybe I could hobble and crawl back up the hill. Maybe we could sit out the night and it would be ok in the morning…

With daylight fading pretty fast and the pain not getting any better we decided to phone for rescue. They managed to find us and pick us up just before it got totally dark. The ride down dangling on the outside of the helicopter was pretty exciting; it’s definitely made paragliding a whole lot more appealing.

About to be swung out from the cliff through the trees, impressive skills from the pilot!

The helicopter dumped me in a field then flew back to pick up Dave...

A trip to Sion hospital showed no break, just a type 3 sprain so with a very fancy air cast I was discharged and sent on my way. Fortunately Tom Grant came to rescue us, as the van was at the top of the crag 2 hours away with both mine and Daves wallets in it. Miraculously, neither the helicopter nor Sion hospital needed payment, proof of ID or insurance documents. Dave did then have a painful public transport journey the following day to rescue our bags and the van, SORRY!

Not very psyched on life just then! And in posession of a very fat ankle...

Sadly, cancer faff struck again... My hormone therapy makes me prone to blood clots, which isn't ideal when wearing a tight immobilizing cast! So I had to have a delightful daily injection into my stomach to thin my blood. As I've developed a discomfort (not quite phobia...) of needles Dave had the job of doing it for me whilst I tried my hardest not to kick him.

I struggled to find motivation for doing anything at all in the first few weeks of wearing the air cast. I had articles to write about Kyrgyzstan mountaineering, as well as applications for future funding and expedition planning. But I just couldn’t get the psyche together to even think about mountaineering. Instead I just took on more end of season cleaning work and distracted myself with that. Now that I’m back in the UK and able to walk, I’m able to train again and feel a lot more focused for summer alpinism. Buying a road bike was definitely a good move for my sanity!!

Cripple camping... Free of the aircast I was able to do a few more fun things

This time on crutches I was determined to do exactly what my physios tell me, and not to push myself by taking too many painkillers and trying to climb! Even so, the last seven weeks have been pretty slow and frustrating.  At the start of April I was just starting to feel confident in the mountains again and had been climbing some fun routes in the mountains; being stuck at home on my own did not make me very happy! 

But to be fair, when I get to spend so much time in the mountains doing what I love, the chances of getting injured once in a while are probably fairly high. Looking on the bright side, all this non-specific training will do me the world of good in the long run! I'm certainly feeling a lot fitter again, roll on summer!

Feeding my mapmyride addiction on Beeston hill...

Thanks to Dave for the photos and sorting the helicopter, van and doing my injection every night. Also for being so patient with my grumpiness!!!

Adventuring with Trine - Dômes de Miage and Chevalier Couloir

Topping out....

Sadly my dodgy knees (37kg bags are BAD on expedition....) put an end to our Haute Route plans for last week so came up with some good plan B's! Both of us were pretty keen for the traverse of the Dômes de Miage especially as neither of us had spent any time in that part of the Mont Blanc range. Hearing that you could pretty much walk up to the Tré-La-Tête hut cemented my decision - for some reason walking uphill isn't painful, just skinning and stairs!

Getting tired of 'skis on, skis off' for all the snow patches we decided to walk quite a lot!

As we wanted to enjoy our excursion, we chose to stay in the Conscrits hut and not bring our own dinner and stove up. And 2500m of ascent in one go sounds painful... This also meant that we were able to time our ascent to the huts for good snow conditions. We walked up to the Tré-La-Tête hut on firm snow, skis were unnecessary and trainers appreciated. After a leisurely lunch at the hut we put our skis on for about 100m before realising that we would have to walk down to the glacier... The snow was soft enough for us not to use crampons, although sinking every now and again was pretty annoying!

Skinning (at last!) up to the Conscrits hut.

The Conscrits hut is very well
equipped, complete with drying
room and mini library!

The eventual skin up to the hut was actually not too bad, just a bit hot, and we made it in plenty of time for dinner. The hut custodian seemed oddly familiar to both of us, even though neither of us had been there before... Then I realised it was Christophe from the Charpoua hut, who had been less than impressed with my lack of phoning ahead to book spaces a couple of summers ago; fortunately he didn't remember me! As there were only 8 of us overnighting in the hut, Trine and I got a room to ourselves and had a ridiculous amount of food put in front of us.

A litre of Earl Grey and a slab of victoria sponge make a good teatime snack!

Christophe heading off on his splitboard to do a new descent.

The wind on the ridge...

The next day was pretty painful for me on the uphill but I made it! The ridge is a pretty cool place to be being a perfect knife-edge snow arete. The strong wind catching our skis made it a bit more exciting than it should have been but the ridge was over all too soon. Our gamble at leaving the hut a bit later (8am) paid off as the icy snow had transformed nicely for our descent. I was pleased that I made an obligatory straight line, small drop across a bergschrund, not that there was much choice in the matter! The bushwhacking back to the car wasn't as horrific as I had anticipated (trainers for the win!). All-in-all a pretty amazing first multi-day ski tour!

My only skiing photo! I was too busy trying (and failing!) to stop faceplanting....

Being full of climbing psyche and short on time we then decided to go up the Chevalier couloir on the Petite Aiguille Verte. With thick cloud and rain in Chamonix we thought this would be a good option for not getting lost on a glacier...

Terrible weather at GM....

Floating above the clouds.

Surprisingly it was an inversion, creating stunning views from the top of Grands Montets! Even more surprisingly, there was a big stash of skis at the bottom of the route with 3 ropes of two climbers each ahead of us. The route was in good climbing condition on the whole, although the snow was variable in the first two thirds it was at a pretty amenable angle. The schrund was a bit overhung, unconsolidated and awkward, but once you're over that the rest of the route is fun!

Luckily there were only two skiers doing the couloir that day and they didn't cause any major avalanches onto us. The other 3 groups were knocking a lot of stuff down though for some reason they were all pitching the entire route and we quickly overtook all of them. I didn't have very high expectations for the Chevalier but it was actually really fun (except for wading down the North Face in waist deep sugary snow...) thanks Trine for suggesting it!

Climbing through the inversion.

Frendo-Ravanel

The Grands Montets ridge is a pretty cool place to climb! With easy access from the top lift station, these routes have a bit of a cragging feel as well as giving a taste of being on a cold north face. All of the routes I've been on along this ridge have top quality climbing, but the Frendo-Ravanel is definitely my favourite so far! 

A good wade up to the bergschrund... At least there's a track in now!

Questing up into the mixed ground.

After Sam's epic battle up the initial slopes, the unconsolidated powder fortunately changed to bomber neve. The mixed scrambly pitches (and icy chimney) were fun and mellow enough to move together on. We ended up at the first crux much faster than I had expected and suddenly it was my turn to pull a thin, sketchy, ice lead out of the bag... Edging upwards between dodgy hooks and even dodgier gear I finally pulled up onto thicker ice at a much easier angle, phew! Getting congratulated on my efforts at the belay by the nicest ever French Mountain Guide definitely made me feel better for being so terrified!

My new favourite mountain guide opted for the right hand crux, but turned around as it was too thin above.

Sam had a bit of an awkward choice for the second crux: go right over a mixed overhang or try the thinly iced slabby corner to the left. He chose the second option and stormed up it, even though he had run out of rope and had me climbing for the hardest top section. I was pretty glad it wasn't my lead! 

Sam heading up the second crux, which was surprisingly fatter than the first...

Being told by some french climbers that the rest of the route wasn't worth doing and the gear was hard to find we decided to call it a day and head down. After what felt like an eternity of abseiling we were back at our skis. Sadly the ski down was probably one of my worst ever ski experiences. Icy bumps, chomped up pistes and an angry piste-basher driver are not much fun when you are feeling a bit strung out! Still, we eventually made it down in one piece and at least the interesting climbing more than made up for it.

One of about a million abseils...

Hanging out on the north face of the Argentière basin is pretty cool!

Claire Chazal

Firm snow and ice steps made the first section of the route pretty quick!

Sadly I once again didn't top out another route.... This time it was Claire Chazal on the Grands Montets ridge. I wouldn't have blogged about this but I think the lesson that I learned will be useful for other people! Basically: take bigger cams than you think for granite mixed climbing!

Dave heading up mixed ground on Claire Chazal.

Pretty happy to be back mixed climbing at last!

Having climbed most of the way up the crux pitch, I realised that our wild country size 2.5 cam, was nowhere near big enough for either of the cracks that protect the last section. Looking down, my last (and only) bit of gear seemed a very long way away. I wasn't completely certain I could climb the last few metres without barndoor-ing off and didn't fancy the 20+ metre fall that would come with it. Somehow I managed to downclimb the icy groove that I had been quite proud of climbing up! Dave wasn't too enamoured with the pitch either so we decided to abseil back down to the bags. Waiting for us at the bottom were our bigger cams, which we had chosen to leave behind. Ooops!

Heading up towards the thin icy groove, thanks Dave for the photos and patient belaying!

Two very different alpine days - the Rébuffat and Gabbarou-Albinoni

Psyched frenchman...

Sometimes all you need in life is a super psyched Frenchman... When Arthur rocked up from Grenoble saying that he wanted to climb the Rébuffat rock route on the South face of the Midi, I had my doubts. I had so many doubts that I insisted we take along crampons, technical axes and a full set of screws as well as rock and ski gear, just in case we had to come up with another objective. It just seemed very unlikely that we could actually go granite climbing at 3800m in March! Even though several Vallée Blanchers declared that we would definitely get frostbite, we chose to ignore them and have a look at the Rébuffat anyway. As we were gearing up, Arthur said he was glad I was British as none of his french friends would have followed him!

The route looked good from the bottom with only a few patches of snow about. Choosing to leave our skis midway between the start of the route and the abseil descent (I have climbed the Rébuffat once previously in 2012) and then stomp up the snow was probably a bit of an error. The slope turned out to be pretty well consolidated icy neve which wasn't very pleasant in rock shoes or trainers. Traversing a final snowy ledge saw us onto the actual rock and life got a lot more fun!

Some snow negotiation...

Other than a few more snowy ledges the rock was clear, dry and warm in the sunshine. Although I was wearing ski pants and two synthetic belay jackets, we weren't anywhere near getting frostbite PHEW! The ski down the normal route on the Vallée Blanche was fairly horrific, but Arthur and I had a good walky pointy session and got a good look at what routes may still be in.

Looking down from my shady pitch to our skis.

I was wearing a lot of clothing!

The start of the rock climbing season made me realise how pitifully little mixed alpine climbing I've done this winter. As Sam felt similarly we decided to remedy this by go having a look at the Gabarrou-Albinoni on the East Face of the Tacul. From the bottom, the steep climbing didn't look particularly fat but we decided to go and have a look anyway.

Getting over the massive bergschrund was a little bit intimidating, it's huge! Very undercut and pretty wide with just a tiny balanced snow bridge to tip-toe across. Most of the initial couloir was uneventful, except for the one slightly steeper ice step where I suddenly got pelted with spindrift avalanches. This was then followed by quite a lot of ice and rock too! This is the main problem with being on an east face in the morning.

My psyche just about lasted until the bombardment stopped and I could continue upwards. Still expecting to get taken out by a massive rock I was surprised to see a bright orange helmet bouncing down towards me... Somehow I managed to catch it as it went past without letting go of both axes and peeling off into the great beyond. Definitely the highlight of my day, although the French climber who dropped it probably felt differently!

Once on the steeper climbing, the ice stopped being quite so soggy. Even though we were dodging loose rocks quite a bit we still thought the route was a goer. Looking up the next steep pitch, I realised that I had used up my bravery for the day in the spindrift avalanches earlier on. Thinly iced rock is not one of my favourite things to climb so I handed my lead over to Sam. Sadly on the 'thick' ice a few metres off the belay his tools were still bouncing off the rock underneath, so we both decided to call it a day and descend. The abolokov thread halfway up this pitch probably should have been a bit of a sign!

Sam questing up some steeper ice

The top few pitches of steeper climbing were pretty thin when you got to them!

After a lot of abseiling (that first couloir is long!) we got down and crossed the 'schrund without dropping ourselves or our gear in it. Shame we couldn't do the last pitches of actual climbing but good to have another good day out in the mountains.