Chamonix - ice/snow/mixed

Due to back pain I wasn’t able to do a lot of alpine climbing last summer. Even if I would have been in good shape the bad weather in the Alps prevented a lot of climbers to do some bigger routes. Now, september and october were a completley different story. There were plenty of ascents of the North Face of the Jorasses and the Matterhorn. If you read the stories on the internet and social media one can get the impression that it is really easy and everybody can do it. I decided to stay focussed on my own learning curve. The big faces have to wait a bit until my technique and speed are sufficient to climb big routes within an acceptable time frame. Last climbing week helped a lot to make progress working towards my climbing goals in the Alps.

First I went up to the Aiguille du Midi together with my brother. We spent three nights at the Simond Biwak and climbed the Pellissier Gully (WI4, M5, 5b) on the Point Lachenal and the Gabarrou-Albinoni (500m, WI 4+) on the east face of the Mont Blanc du Tacul. At the end of the week I went up again together with Bernd. We climbed a mixed route on the triangle of Tacul (without knowing the exact route, whatever) and the day after we went to the east face of Tacul again for climbing the ice route Modica-Noury (500m WI 5+).

All routes were in very good conditions. For the ice routes we took 10 ice screws (including some shorter ones) and for the mixed climbing 6 ice screws and a rack of BD camalots (0,3 – 2).

 Pellissier Gully

 the second pitch

 looking down the second pitch

 the third pitch: easy snow/ice and then a short section M5, a lot of ice, not too difficult

the fourth pitch: thin

 in the notch, warm sun and nice views, we continued up for another 4 pitches on snow and rock

 Peter, exiting on the Lachenal


THE GABARROU-ALBINONI

after the initial snow slope, to the left the Gabarrou and to the right the Modica Noury

 the second ice pitch after snow field

the last steep pitch (80-85 degrees, but really good hooks) 



Abseiling


Mixed route on the triangle

Bernd leading on thin ice in pitch 1 after the snow slope

Bernd leading in fourth pitch, really nice climbing

 Bernd seconding on the crack (nice tooling there, good to protect, 5a or so)



MODICA-NOURY

Bernd leading on the second pitch: really steep and cool climbing



Bernd exiting the steep pitch after 60 meteres of climbing!

Final pitch for me...

nice climbing, really! we wanted to go all the way to the top of Tacul, but we found a rock barrier (5a and difficult to protect), so we rappelled down the route.