On our arrival day Miel and I climbed the Stallatito de Cristallo, WI 4+. Good warm up.
At the start of the Stallatito de Cristallo... after 10 hours driving a nice physical activity
Next morning we moved a bit more to the right to climb Tutto Relativo, WI4. But there were people ahead, and with -17 degrees it was definitely to cold to wait an hour or so. So we traversed back to the left and climbed the Stallatito a second time, really nice. After that we got our chance to climb Tutto Relativo, the first two pitches are easy, but then things get really steep, it was cold, but the ice wasn't too bad. Afer the final pitch we walked up and around to go down again to the start of the route.
The crux pitch of Tutto Relativo...
We got some sun, had a hot tea and then crossed the valley to the other side to give Coyote another try. After the first pitch we aborted the climb because of a serious shower, within minutes everything was soaked, and immediatiley frozen. It was time to get down, and at 17.00 we had a nice Paulaner beer in Cogne.
Next day we went into Valleille again for climbing the cold
couloir. We were pretty early trying to be the first en route. But as we
arrived at the start more than 3 rope teams were preparing, so we decided to
come back another time and walked back to Stella Artice.
Stella Artice is a pretty impressive route, with a long 60m
start at WI4. But this is just the warm up for the very steep and long
free-standing pillar of the 2nd pitch. In januari the pillar wasn’t yet thick
enough for a save ascent, but now it was very massive – about 2x1 metres
thickness. I never lead climbed a steep massive pillar like that. So it was
pretty exciting. But it was really cool
climbing.
The left line is Stella Artice...
Steep ice is definitely fun!
the final pitch of stella artice...
Funny thing is if you climb steeper ice routes it feels more like
rock climbing – and that’s what we know and like! Miel second the steep pillar
– he was really fast. After the steep pitch we had an easy snow pitch and the
last pitch was hard to climb. Really hard ice, it was difficult to place the
ice screws and my calf muscles were burning as hell. Anyway, we climbed that
last pitch and in 4 abseils we were down again. It was a really cold day and
even in the sun it was -15 or so.
Stella Artice gets some sun after 12.00h, Miel is rappelling down the first pitch and you can see some guys from Chamonix climbing the pillar
The last day we climbed the first 3 pitches of cold couloir,
this time we the first party at the start. At 11.00h we were back in Lillaz for
a coffee.
