Ecrins

Just back from a week of climbing in the Ecrins together with my brother. The day before we drove into the Alps, I read the news over the death of Martijn on his final metres to the finish of his 82 4000ers quest... unbelievable! My thoughts are with his family and friends!!!

We had a really nice week in La Berarde. First day we climbed "Du 5 a tire-larigot" on the Tete de la Maye. 13 pitches up to 5c and a nice warm up.


start of Tire-Larigot



nice granite


Next day we went up to the Soreiller hut. We dropped our biwak gear close to the hut and continued our walk up to the start of "Mazurka" at the Auguille Orientale du Sorreiler (3.380m). In 7 pitches up to 6a+ you climb from the glacier slabs, through diedres and short roofs to the final 2 pitches of steep red well-structured granite. Very nice, though 2 6a pitches were wet and the second pitch is a nice mental challenge! The route is well bolted at the most hard sections but in the second pitch there is a long run-out of maybe 6 metres on a slab before you reach the next bolt. But that's part of the game!



First view on the Aiguille Dibona and Sorreiler... beautiful


First pitch of Mazurka...


In the second pitch with the red tower above...


steep red granite...




Mazurka is on the right red tower! On the the left red tower there is another cool route (pilier du Voltigeur)...


After abseiling the route we were back at our camp site at 6 PM.


Sun until 8 PM and "cherry coke"... almost  holiday ;-)

Next day we climbed the Visite Obligatoire on the Aiguille Dibona. Great route. I already climbed this route back in 2012 with Andreas. Challenge this time was to lead all pitches up to the top! We had a great day, we were not that fast but we really enjoyed climbing, on the belays we met people from Slovenia, Spain, Germany and France. The climbing is great, varied but you have to be confident in the grade 6a. Bolts are usually every 5-7 metres. You can take some cams with you, though the placement is not always easy.


Pitch four on the "Visite": airy traverse and then through the roof,...

 Brothers!!!



Preparing the abseil!



On our third day we started  a climbing a newer route in the east face of the Dibona. up to 6a+ in 8 pitches to the summit. It was very windy and cloudy that morning. After 3 pitches we went down and an hour later it started raining....


pitch 1

Here the topo, you can find the topo at the Soreiller hut!





The last two days we climbed a lot of pitches on the Tete de la Maye: Pujolidal (D, 350m, 5c max) and Li Maye Laya (TD, 500m, 6a+).

 The neighboorhood: impressive Meije South face...

And Dome de Neige du Ecrins...