End of july, Jeroen and I took our chance to climb a long route in the Ecrins. The North ridge of the Pelvoux. Real Oisans Sauvage in the glacier Noir area. After biwaque at the Glacier Noir we started climbing at 6 AM. The rock quality was better than on the Ecrins south face. Route finding was not difficult in the lower part. We were not very fast with the bivy equipment but ok! We were at the foot of the top wall at the small red tower around 13.30h.
We expected to be quickly on summit but underestimated route finding in this upper part of the route. We never found the red chimney (I assume we came back on the North ridge above the finish of the red chimney). We continued the second 5b/c section on good red granite. Due to increasing altitude and decreasing power we slowed further down and at that time pitch after pitch we never expected to get on the west ridge that day. But all of a sudden we topped out, after 30 minutes of scrambling on the west ridge we arrived on top of the Pelvoux (3970m) at 19.30h.
I lead climbed most of the difficult sections and half of the pitches in the upper part without protection (good rock but difficult to find slots for nuts or cams). I climbed this part on my mountain boots which is perfectly possible.
The Cambon book and also the guides in Ailefroide mention 8-10 hours of climbing. It's definitly possible if you are acclimatized, small pack and both partners of the party should feel comfortable on running belay up to UIAA IV. In the upper part I chose for a first ascent strategy: try to stay on the ridge as good as possible (good rock) and look for easiest way up. For me this is real mountaineering instead of trying to find the exact "route".
Great day again with Jeroen, thanx.
We down climbed the Coolidge couloir and made a second biwak close to the Bosses de Sialouze.
OISANS SAUVAGE! Best place ever!
Gear: 50m single rope is perfect, rack of cams (0.3-2), small rack of nuts and enough slings!
Topo: Cambon guide and also camptocamp!
Biwak at the glacier Noir, Pelvoux in the background
start of the route. we walked around the lower gray slab (on the right), there is actually a good bivy spot! we followed the ramps, cracks in the less steep part...
Sunrise on the arete de coste rouge of the Ailefroide
on the slabs of the lower part
sunset on the south face of the Barre des Ecrins...
easy walking towards the snow field
after the snow field we climbed towards the black granite just below the former ice field, from there we climbed left to the clearly visible tower in the left part of the picture, we climbed behind the tower. on the back side there is a small ice field and we climbed between the rock and ice (next picture).
This pitch gave access to the yellow slabs, perfect granite with plenty of old pitons. we climbed rightwards, than up to reach the black (bad) rock. from there we turned left again for 20 metres (next picture).
Here I am at the end of our traverse to the left and I am looking for acces to the upper part of the route. Mont Blanc in the background!
We tried to reach the breche before the top wall from the right (as described in one of the topos). We made a kind of a detour to go back to the arete and the reach the breche from the left (as indicated in the Cambon guide). I now think thats better (quicker).
Close to the breche...
Somewhere on the top wall. We maybe climbed 12 or 15 short pitches... protection was difficult and also the route finding...
Jeroen seconding after the second 5b/c pitch, steep climbing, excellent rock, never expected this kind of climbing, great!
final 20 metres to reach the west ridge.....
on the west ridge...
south face of Barre des Ecrins in the shade and clouds on top...
Final part of our climb to reach Point Puiseux...
Tired? No way, just happy that we made it!
Glacier plateau of the Pelvoux, down and right to reach the Coolidge couloir...
Good morning,
for our second bivy we only one powerbar left. We shared and melted some snow - not perfect for recovery, but ok.
nice views
walking down to the Pelvoux hut (at 8.00 AM we asked for petit dejeuner and coffee, impossible, too early for the guardian, so we ended there with a coffee and two lion bars....) and further down to Ailefroide.
after two rest days we did some multi pitch climbing in Ailefroide. Excellent climbing on the Marche au Sauplice (6c, 11 pitches)...
pitch 1 of marche au sauplice
2nd pitch: 6c
some cool slabs 6a/6a/6a+
final on the steep tower 6b/6b/6b+
on our last day we climbed the Ailefroide classic "Fissure", nice trad route with a lot of chimneys...
