And again I have been to Cogne with Jeroen. We had a lot of
plans: climbing a longer route in Chamonix or a hard ice route like Repentance
in Cogne. Well, Cogne got a lot of snow on Saturday – the day we arrived. Up in
the valley it was 40-50cm of fresh snow… the road between the Valnontey and
Cogne was closed. In one of the climbingforums on the internet stories were
told about climbers who had been pulled out a route in the Valnontey that
normally is called an avalanche safe route.
Sunday was a beautiful day with lots of sun. We went into the Valleille for some climbing. On the east side of the valley the routes are less exposed than the routes on the west side. When we arrived we immediately spotted the enormous cone and pillar of “hard ice direct”. That pillar does not form that often. Normally it collapses under his own weight. But now the pillar was very solid standing on the huge cone. Four climbers went there for climbing. My first thought was, well this is too big for us.
We wanted to climb
Riacamo, WI5+, the route is a bit more to the right. Last winters it had not
build up, but a few weeks ago it had been climbed. When we arrived we
immediately saw that there was not enough ice in the upper pitch and in the
lower pitch the ice was very thin. We decided to walk to Memoire du Bouquetin,
WI5+. We climbed that route already in january. The snow was very deep and it
took quite a while to get to the start of the route.
The climbing itself was great, it was steep, the pillar was
much more solid than in january and we enjoyed to be there.
After climbing we walked back and stopped again to have a
closer look on “hard ice direct”. There was still some climbing activity on the
pillar and it looked great. So we made a plan how to climb it. First pitch traversing
under the large cone to the right and up to reach a belay in the back of the
cave. Than in the second pitch up to the top of the cone, climbing the pillar
until under the roof, then to the left and steep for a few metres until it
would get easier. Another ten metres to reach the belay of the second pitch.
Back in Cogne we checked the avalanche bulletin and the
weather forecast for the next day. Again there was snow predicted from the
early monday morning until tuesday noon. So if we wanted to climb we had to be
early.
Next morning we were at the start of the route at 7.30h. It
was snowing a bit, but not too much. Jeroen cimbed the first pitch, at the
start steep and then making a traverse through some really nice ice features
below the cone.
I was quite nervous about the route, but the first pitch helped
me to calm down. Climbing was fun and I enjoyed to be there. What also helped
was the trust Jeroen had in my climbing. He assured me that I easily can climb
the pillar. That helped a lot.
And indeed, the ice was well hooked, the pillar was really
steep but I felt very confident. It took me 7 minutes to climb from the cone
until the small overhang – for me this is quite fast :-)
I placed two good ice screws on the top of the pillar where
the ice was very good. In the first metres of the overhang the ice was thin.
But with the two bomber ice screws below I felt good to go for it. After another 5
metres the wall got less steep and I knew that I had done the hardest part,
great. After another 10 metres I reached the bolted belay.
Jeroen followed very
quick and after two abseils we back to the start of the route – it was 10.30h!
Time for a proper capuccino.
