Cheating In Chamonix 2015

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Onto the main forum by popular request!

I'm still no Chamonix expert, but this is my favorite town on the planet. As soon as I show up, I'm already thinking about how much I cant wait for the next trip. Is that weird?

I'm not sure if this really belongs in the climbing forum, but we did ski basically every day... anyway, on with it then...

Chamonix is cheating. Plain and simple. French pastries in the morning, a lift to the alpine, a downhill ski to your climbing objective and then a downhill ski to one of 1) another lift, 2) a train, 3) your car or 4) town. You can do in one week in Chamonix what would take you a month or more anywhere else. It's an alpine climbers Disney Land with very serious consequences (good and bad). My last two trips have been plagued by poor weather with limestone sport climbing and fine Italian food as consolation prizes. This year, we somehow managed to nail the slowly expanding good weather window AND motivated partnerships. Other than a nagging cold, it was game on.

Day 1 had us skiing on the Grands Montets in bad weather. I know this is a skiing forum, but It pretty much looked like this:


Day 2 was our first day of splitter weather. We went in search of a mixed line called Farraon (II, 4+, 5c, 400m) on the Grands Montets Ridge. About 8 of us showed up at the base at the same time and as the entire ridge started shedding, we all decided to bail. Two of us decided to save the day and link up the ridge route back up to Grands Montets lift with the ridge route on the Petit Vert. A nice, mellow, safe, acclimatization day.

Leaving the Grands Montets lift


Skiing to the base of the route


Our route is kind of in the left middle of the rocky/snowy ribs in the middle ground.


Consolation Prize












Day 3: After our adventure the previous day, we decided it would be best to try a rock route in the sun. Central Dihedral on Aig. Argentiere was the order of the day. 6a, 7 pitches. Same story: Lift up, ski down, skin to base, climb, rap off, ski down...profit?

The view from the top of Grands Montets does not get old. Aig. Midi and Mt Blanc:


Our route is on the rock buttress slightly below mid way up the peak on the right hand ridge, basically right above the skier:


The Argentiere Basin is a grand place to be:


Many El Cap size (1000m) ice and mixed lines in this basin:


Cranking through pitch 1


pitch 2 (crux)


pitch 3


pitch 4


pitch 6


pitch 7



Our route was the large sweeping dihedral in the middle of the face, directly above the tiny red guy:


the views are still good:


Up Next - Routes off the Midi!

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Day 4 I was really hurting. Terrible soar throat, woke up in a pool of sweat, congested to the point where it was periodically hard to breath...But by 7am I was feeling like half of a normal human so I decided to give valeria gully a shot. We managed to get there behind two other parties after catching a relatively late lift up the Midi (about 9:30am, I think).

Popping up at the top of the Midi makes an impression:


Valeria Gully (II, 4) is the line that goes to the low notch in the middle of the photo and then turns right and ends up behind the petit capuchin:


Skinning to the base of the route with the Aig. Verte (left) and Dent de Giant (right) behind.


Pitch 1:


Pitch 2:


Pitch 3:


Pitch 3 looking down:


Easier ground and then the last two mixed pitches to the notch behind the petit capuchin. We skipped this and rapped from here in the interest of making it back to the cosmiques hut before weather and/or darkness caught us out. As it turned out, this was perfect as we arrived at the hut just in time to enjoy an amazing dinner of soup, stuffed tomatoes, polenta, turkey and dessert. Not your typical north american alpine cuisine...


Skinning back to the cosmiques hut (Left):


One of the great walls of the Alps, the north face of the Grandes Jorasses showing its top on the left:


the sunset did not disappoint:


I can't say how awesome the hut system is. It really reinforces the cheating aspect of chamonix climbing. You show up with daypacks after a full day of alpine climbing and you put all your stuff on drying racks. You check in and sign up for dinner and breakfast and then walk upstairs to move into your bunk with a mattress, wool blanket and pillow. Did I mention it's heated with running water? Did I mention we were served a 3 course french dinner? Did I mention you now are in a position to get on any route you want before everyone else comes up the lift in the morning? Wow. Cheating.

Day 5 dawned bright and clear. I was up all night fighting my cold so friends went off for a lap on the cosmiques ridge. It's one of the best alpine climbs anywhere and if it was about 4x longer, would be an ultra classic. Realistically, it's ultra crowded, but when you get a 6am start, you get the whole thing to yourself. The ski down was a nice exercise in survival skiing until we got low down on the vallee blanche where things corned up nicely.

Sunrise on the cosmiques arete and Aig. Midi:


Soaking in the awesomeness:


The Tacul from the hut. If you know what you're looking for you can see the chere couloir in fat conditions and staring right at you is the contamine route. Two deaths on that face right before we showed up reminded us all this place will take your life in the blink of an eye even on easier routes. Keep your head together and come with the right skills and experience and you'll have a great time. Get suckered into something above your head and you might go home in a box.


By about 10:30 we were all regrouped and I seemed to have enough life to enjoy a ski down the Vallee Blanche.










Up next, another bonus day of good weather, first bin, a charge up The Lafaille Gully and a race back down the Vallee Blanche for the last train back to town.

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Day 6: The quintessential Chamonix day. Up at 6:45. French pastries and cappuccino for breakfast. First bin up to the top of the Midi. Downhill ski to the objective, small amount of skinning, 5 pitches of great ice and mixed climbing, downhill ski to the last train from Montenvers back into Chamonix. Lamb and red wine. Cheating and getting away with it.

Today's adventure goes by the name of Lafaille Gully (II, 4). After a most interesting bergschrund buy-in pitch it's 4 more pitches of awesome ice and mixed followed by a bunch of wallowing. Most people rap after the technical pitches...We followed suit.

The route is basically dead center. The steep ice is in the shade:


The awesomeness of Supercouloir (IV, 6, 800m) is unmistakable.


The Lafaille follows the narrow patch of ice just ahead!


Looking down from midway up pitch 2:




Following pitch 2:


Look up pitch 3


Looking down from midway up pitch 4:


Looking down from top of pitch 4:


Looking up pitch 5:


One seriously happy (non)camper with a stunning supercouloir in the background:


I can't wait to go back!!!

[ex-powderbroker]

Sign me up.

[itsnowjoke]

Awesome TR. Cham is so incredibly awesome. You nailed it with the bit about the box. So true...