Alpine starts - a Mont Blanc Course

The first course was a ten-day Mont Blanc trip. Marcus from Nottingham and Vicente, from Spain but living in Amsterdam, were already here. The tale of them doing some pre-training by front pointing up the mixed ground of the rocks leading up to the Grande Montet the day before, sent a shiver down my spine.
Now they had the chance to learn how to climb properly!

The course was really going well but now the main event.

I'd decided the route to the top had to be via the Gouter Ridge, as recent events on the Tacul were suggesting it was getting more dangerous to go that way. So the team gathered at the Tete
Rouse Hut in the late afternoon. It had been years since I'd been there and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality and the service there. Mind you, the Gardienne did make a difference.

Off to Switzerland-Zermatt

Steve, my friend and colleague came up trumps that evening. I had to be in Zermatt the following day for my next course, and he was going to Sass Grund. A little (Franc) persuasion and I sat on the Zermatt train and watched the cows and walkers go by.

The Hotel Bahnof was still the same old place, only now it was a five-star doss! Paula Biner has relinquished her hold over the running of the pace, and Kathy now takes a firmer grip than experienced before. Still, there was a welcome back feeling and I was soon introducing myself to Paul and Chris.
An American Lawyer from the Deep South and an American, teaching physical fitness at a Moroccan school, and driving his newly-wed in a beat-up Renault across Europe. It seemed an unlikely course membership.

Our plan was to warm up on the Breithorn, traverse Castor and Pollux, and continue over the Liskamm to the Margherita Hut. We'd then traverse to the Dufourspitz and descend to the Monte Rosa Hut.
The Breithorn, from the Theodule hut, was nice, but very straightforward as it always is. Dropping down and across to the Valle dAyas (guide's) Hut, I was starting to relish this trip. The lads were turning out to be great company.
Paul as fit as a fiddle (well you would be, wouldn't you, if you were that sort of teacher). Chris, however, was not doing quite so well.

A Law teacher now, he had been a major participator in the huge lawsuit against Ford Motor company about 10 years ago, when massive pressure from the American public, against a car called the Pinto, was underway. It seemed the problem was this car had a fuel tank that was fitted in the boot and was the cause of some explosive crashes.
Then a rear-end smash had killed some young girls, and it looked bleak for Ford. Exhaustive investigations found out the truth, by a slim chance, that the Pinto had been stationary on a highway and it had been rear-ended by a sleepy truck driver, not as was being suggested, a basic design fault by Ford. A very interesting story, which illuminated at least one evening in the hut.

You may think, what was Smiler doing guiding a lawyer? I've had to move on and put matters behind me, and so, as we crunched our way back up to the col between Pollux and Castor any thoughts of the London courts were forgotten.

The plans had changed slightly. Chris was feeling the altitude and rather than go over Pollux, descend and re-climb Castor, and finally then move over to the Quintino Sella Hut, we decided to edge our bets and test the water on Castor first. To have trouble at the Sella Hut stage would mean a lengthy way out via Italy.

Castor is a lovely climb; it finishes with a superb narrow snow ridge that was definitely one way only. Indeed, as we were first to the top from the hut, there were some interesting moments when some Italians wouldn't wait for our return from the summit. Getting the lads to move a few feet down the steep sides to allow passing to occur, proved very interesting.

Back at the guide's hut, we were considering not going over the Lyskamm, after all. Decisions taken, next morning the frontier was reached again and the mixed ground of Pollux, from the col, was taken to this also fine summit. We descended down the other side, assisted by a few fixed ropes, and took a break on familiar ground.

In the warm sunshine, the long trek back to the Kliene Matterhorn lift station did seem to go on a little too long, even though Paul was doing a grand job as pacemaker. The heat was affecting me as much as Chris and the flat area of the ski tow seemed elusive. Then it was all over!The cable car journey was marred only by the discovery that a single ticket down was outrageously expensive! Be warned.

Two courses down and back in Argentiere, I was looking forward to the short 1:1 course with Hugo. After some warm-up rock climbs, we finally got onto the Triangle du Tacul. The Left Edge Route was our target and it proved very worthwhile. Not simple though, as the general warmth of Chamonix is affecting all the mixed and ice routes. Steadily cramponing near the rocks, we gained height until the final long snow band led up towards the summit.

The mist was down and a glimpse either side would just keep me in the middle of the snow band, aware of the cornices on both edges. Without incident, we reached a possible exit rightwards under the seracs of the normal summit ridge on Mont Blanc du Tacul. The snow had fallen deep after the recent bad weather, and the facility to go horizontal for a while instead of upwards, was pleasantly relaxing.

Soon we were heading down the normal route on the Tacul towards the Col du Midi. A tortuous line, I wondered at times how climbers could get up and over the enormous seracs our path took us over. Yes, we were definitely on line, but I don't think Hugo has jumped so many metres before, and I certainly felt I was in the air for quite a time, several times. Perhaps it is all different in the dark!

The long slog back up to the Midi Station reminded me that sometimes there was more to life than alpine climbing.

An Oberland Traverse

My next course was in the Bernese Oberland. Mick was taking his Minibus to Lauterbrunnen a few days later and offered me a lift. The use of the railway through the tunnel to Kandersteg was new to me, a novel way of avoiding the Grimsel Pass with its nightmare of summer traffic. After spending the evening in the local bar with the soldiers, I made my way next morning to the guide's bureau in Grindlewald and sat down under the glare of the Eiger's north face to wait for Peter and Robert.

The plan was to repeat my 1995 trip across the Oberland peaks, starting with the Monch, then the Fiescherhorn, the Finsteraarhorn, and the Oberaarhorn, arriving at the Lauteraar Hut. As in '95, here we'd do a massive U turn and cross the glacier to the Lauteraarsattel. Climbing this we'd find ourselves on the flat plateau leading to the Gleckstein Hut, from where we'd descend to Grindlewald and the starting point.

The best laid plans........ Robert didn't acclimatise well enough and after the climb up the Monch, we decided a loss of height would be prudent. Several trips to the toilet that evening in the Obermonchjoch Hut confirmed the decision to forget the Oberland expedition.

All was not lost though, as lower altitudes did prove effective and soon we were summitting on the Weissmeis, the Lagginhorn and the Fletcshorn, the latter being a particularly fine summit ridge.

A short(?) break on a hard route!

Taking the train back through Martigny to Argentiere, I had time to ponder the story so far. No problems, satisfied clients, things were going well. I also had some free time, and Nick, my aspirant guide colleague, kindly agreed to do a climb with me. A climb with a difference though. The Swiss guide's had bolted and fixed indoor climbing wall holds to the Emmerson dam.

A fearsome looking wall, it starts as a very steep slab with small awkwardly placed holds, before rearing up into an outrageously overhanging top half. To do it, one must be accompanied by a guide and pay a modest £8 fee. The start is via a ladder which must be unlocked from some brackets at the base of the dam and there follows a shinty up the ladder (at least 15/20 feet) whereby a few tricky moves gains the first stance. The second climber then removes the ladder, re-locks it back to the brackets and then climbs hand over hand up one of the ropes while the leader helps with the other rope.
Sound interesting? You haven't heard anything yet!

The climb has five pitches, the lower three being quite long, around 120ft -130ft. On the first two pitches the holds are small and awkward. You have to think hard about devious moves right or left, and the bolts are very spaced out! Very clever but not too easy! As you gain height, the holds become bigger and more straightforward. However, the angle is starting to tell, and I have to admit to some aiding on the final stupendous pitches. Thankfully Nick led the last
big one so I could relax a little. Only a little though, as the thought of coming off, either leading or seconding didn't feel very encouraging. I was left in amazement of the perfection of the route. I feel like telling the guides there is room for another few routes (maybe one at least a little easier please?).

Serious Oberland Climbing!

Back in Dores, Loch Ness, Clare hadn't been slacking after all. My intended fortnight off didn't materialise and instead, Ed and myself were tramping up the familiar track to the Albert Premier Hut, our intentions for the North Spur on the Chardonnet a little suspect with the forecast of bad weather.And so it proved. Regular checks with other alpinists at 1am, 2am, 3am and finally 4am resulted in a 7am breakfast and the decision to brave the rain and head down.
It was the first time this season the weather had played the deciding role.

Ed's main ambition for the season was to climb the west ridge of the Salbitschijen, on the edge of the Bernese Oberland. Memories of alpinists in the late sixties came flooding back, as I recalled Eric Jones and Cliff Phillips and their early traverse of this famous ridge with its steep long towers. I got a shock on reading the new guidebook.
'One of the hardest rock ridges in the Alps!'

A shortage of harder leads on routes for several years (I blame the Scottish weather) has left me wondering about has-beens and walkers etc. Still, a job's a job, and the motto don't think about it, get it done proved the case as, in slightly inclement weather, we left the car and headed for the Salbit Hut and on to the tiny bivy hut under the West Ridge.
The bad weather hit us on the via ferrata to the bivy hut and we were a couple of very damp climbers but luckily ensconced alone in the hut (I wonder why?), making a brew and some rice for a meal.

We decided to see wait and see what it was like in the morning, ensuring our socks were drier by sleeping on top of them (that idea didn't work that well).

The morning dawned better and I was soon ensconced in the difficult layback crack of the first pitch. Cube had told me to climb this the previous evening and fix the ropes. If we could have even found the route the night before we'd have been lucky, and its only five minutes above the bivy hut.
Cold hands and some help from hardware got me up and on to some easier pitches and the only worry remaining was the weather. Enveloped in thick, damp mist, I was finding the climbing hard and, as usual, I didn't have enough Friends to cheat ALL the way. Gradually we gained height (and after the top of each tower, lost height by some serious abseiling into the
unknown).

Three difficult towers done and two to go. There weren't, according to the guidebook, many pitches above grade IV to go, about five or six, so we'd done the hardest part. However, the mist was getting worse and the guidebook showed an abseil descent of five raps down a gully and back to the Bivy hut. I suggested to Ed that it might be prudent to bale out, the time being 4pm and we'd already done nine hours of hard climbing. I was concerned that if it did get worse, the rock would become even greasier than at present, the lichen seemingly becoming more abundant.

Ed had to agree and as he said something about not having seen anything all day, I lowered myself over the edge into the huge gully system. I had only gone 15 feet and all hell broke loose. It rained, snowed, hailed, you name it. Every wall all around became a torrent, and you can imagine what our gully was like.

When you've gotta go, you've gotta go and five abseils later we had the final short snow slope to rope down. Disaster, the rope jammed. There was no alternative, but at least I'd be warm. While Ed shivered on the stance, I grunted up on two prussics, eventually finding the culprit was a knot wedged in a crack. Praying for no problems this time, we joyfully retrieved the ropes and were soon sharing our last tea bag, wrapped in blankets in the hut.

Donning wet clothes in a morning is never fun but (well, you know the saying by now) and soon we were warm and happier and then eventually got down to the car and a change of clothes. Makes a lot of difference to your attitude!

Italian Rock and Pizzas

I haven't been to the Dolomites since '67 (that's 32 years!!) When the chance to take over the running of a week's course there came up, I was quite interested. It was a chance to re-acquiant myself with these majestic walls.

Driving down the Italian motorways in the hired car was also relaxing in a strange sort of way. I'd done so much climbing and walking, this gave me a break, and I was going rock climbing in the sun!

Angeleen and Stephen hadn't visited the Alps before. They'd chosen the Dollies because they were attempting to do some harder rock routes in warm conditions and this seemed the place to do it. The campsite near Canazie, in the Sella region, was to be our base. Although expensive, it had all the usual facilities, wash rooms, showers, screaming kids etc.

Warming up on the boulders near the Sella Pass enabled me to get to know the team and establish some ideas of routes that might be possible. Our initial foray into multi-pitch climbing (neither Angeleen or Stephen had done much on this score) was on the 1st Sella Tower. A pleasant route, about severe standard and an interesting descent.
This was what the team had come for!

We chose a longer route, although no harder, for our second trip. The Ramp Route on the Piz Chiavazes was simply superb slab climbing for around 11 pitches, and at the most, Severe standard, maybe a little easier for the large part. It did help cement the rules for belaying on bigger routes though and the traverse along the path at the top of the route provided some roped moving together practice. The team's following week would be spent on via ferratas so that was useful.

Back in 67, when I was a boy, the north walls beckoned, and I chose the Comici and other harder climbs rather than the easier classic, superb routes in the Dollies. I'd missed out on routes like The Piaz Arete on the Tore Delago, in the Vajolet Towers area. Being one of the most famous of all routes here, because of its low standard (a mere hardish Severe) there was no real objection to my suggestion to go for it. The climb takes a stunning arete with fantastic exposure all around. Unfortunately, our day dawned misty and cold, and the climb proved exciting if only for freezing cold fingers, but we could see little through the mist.

Day five provided another new area for us to sample, the Cinque Torre. These isolated monoliths are near Cortina and provided us with our hardest route. A grade V+ on the Torre Sud. Great climbing in the warm sun and a spectacular traverse, not hard but exposed, on the second pitch. We avoided the line which was described in our guidebook, by taking a much more homogeneous diedre on the left, a fine piece of climbing. We found out later, it was the line described in a picture postcard showing the routes, obtained from the refuge below the cliffs. So who was right, I don't know, but I'll go that way again! Brilliant rock.

Our last day was a washout. The rain came and got worse. We did drive up and down to find some dry rock, but it was to no avail and we parted content in what wed achieved.

Alpine training back in Cham'

The drive back to Milan was interesting, at 5 km per hour and bumper to bumper for around half an hour. The rain was the most intense I've ever driven in.

With the Mont Blanc tunnel closed until at least next October (2000) the Grand St. Bernard is the only real alternative way back to Chamonix. Arriving and dropping the car back to the rental firm, I prepared for my next course. David wanted to climb some bigger routes than he'd previously achieved.
Hazel didn't really mind.

The decision was taken not to go to Zermatt for the week, as was originally planned. My team wanted to combine evenings in huts together with John and Paul, two other members of their team. My friend and colleague, Alan, was looking after the other pair and although David would have liked them all to be together on the same routes, David and Hazel were far more advanced. So it was decided to stay in Argentiere and that way, the club meet would continue, as Alan intended to put Paul and John through some glacier training for a couple of days, and there's no better place than Chamonix.

Routes came and went. The Chappelle, the Cosmiques, the Table du Rock Ridge on the Tour, a diversion on the one wet day (there always seems to be one a week nowadays) to Annecy where some free wine tasting almost got out of hand, and finally the Petite Aiguille Verte. All great classics and tremendous training for any future year.

French rock in the Sun

The intention for their next week was some walking in the Jura, but David had other ideas. He (and I don't think Hazel objected much) wanted some rock in the sun. How about doing a couple of extra days climbing work---- in the Verdon, Smiler?

What! No contest. In all my years I'd never been to this rock climbing mecca. Arriving at La Palud it was all just as good as I'd heard. As my brochure used to say 'If you like good French wine and food after a great climbing day, this is the tour for you'. And here I was, on my own tour!

We managed some shorter routes on day 1, not in the gorge but very pleasant climbing near La Palud. Afterwards we checked out a route for the next day, in the Gorge itself. Descending its cunning descent path, we went carefully down to the riverbed. Gazing around at the huge walls, we located our route and then climbed back out.
Next day the L'Herbutto route proved quite straightforward. At around Severe standard, for about 700 feet, this was heaven. Hazel and David had done a big route in the Verdon Gorge and they were happy.

An old friend and a bolted climb

I got dropped off at Bernard's house in Annecy on the way back. My old friend rarely climbs consistently unless I visit him, so I got to do some hard rockin' at last. Woody Woodpecker on the Sapey cliffs above Thonne, proved to be an eye-opener as far as bolted climbs go. Protection well spaced, you could take a monster here, and it was a case of keeping cool and using your feet on vertical-strata grooves. Serious but great.

A new client and classic routes

Clare had been active again! Shane was a late entry to my program. He had been delighted when Clare had told him I'd stay on to run his 4-day course.
Well, I was too, really!

Shane was an recent addict to climbing, had never done a multi-pitch route or an abseil. So there was plenty to show him.

By the end of the tour, he'd climbed the Index, the Petite Aiguille Verte, a day on the Guide's crag and his first series of abseils (even one on his own, with a prussic of course), and his culminating day of glory was the Cosmiques Arete, a route he was so keen to do. I think he went home happy?

Suddenly, it was all over. Flying back I find the rules on weight and size of hand luggage on Easyjet flights have changed. A maximum of 5kg is all that is allowed now, so take all those karabiners out of your handbag. I don't think you can even take them in your pockets now.

So much for a good alpine season. Gotta go and pack for Nepal.
I hope Clare still recognises me?

Smiler Cuthbertson