Climbing in Switzerland
[Hum not that "brief" in the end ... if you don't want to read, go to the end of the post for links to the pics and the slideshow]
The last time I climbed with Thomas was in November 2005! Somewhere in March this year, Thomas and I thought it was about time to do some mountaineering together. However we couldn't make definite plans until much later because I didn't know if and when I could take enough vacation to go back to Europe. In the end it turned out almost perfectly as I would fly back to Belgium with Marie, spend a few days there together and then go for a full week to Switzerland with Thomas and Romain (and Claire who would stay with us for the week-end)! Marie on the other hand had her trip planned long ago to do some experiments for her research on Language Acquisition, go to a friend's wedding and visit Evelyne in Crete (more about that in a future post).
On Thursday I picked up Thomas, Romain and Claire much later than planned (which was already kind of planned). We arrived in Verbier around 10pm, with just enough time to set up our "base camp" (5 computers for 4 people 8-) before going to bed... Friday morning we slept late and had a nice breakfast in the sun. In the afternoon we went for some rock climbing at "La Pierre Avoi": a beautiful piece of rock along the ridge that divides the Val the Bagnes from the Rhone Valley. Romain and Claire climbed "P'tit Train", a four pitch 5 something route, while Thomas and I climbed the similarly rated "L'arête" next to it. When I reached the summit, I heard Romain shouting somewhere below "Vous êtes en haut? Vous pouvez faire descendre une [biiiiip]". No further details will be disclosed. Thomas and I decided to go for another round and rushed down to the base of the north face. We climbed a nice 6 pitch/200m route (5c/6a max). Romain and Claire called it a day and hiked (!) back to the chalet. In the end, we arrived more or less at the same time and we all had a delicious raclette.
After carefully studying the weather forecast for the coming days, we decided not to wait any longer and hike in to the Arpitetaz hut (Vallée de Zinal) on Saturday. On Sunday, we would try to finish a climb we started three years ago: the Weisshorn (4505m) along the Young ridge (D-). On our first attempt it took us 12 hours to reach the summit of the "Grand Gendarme" (4300m) at which point we decided we would not make it to the top (not such a hard decision when you know that the topo gives 6 hours to reach that point). Instead, we "directly" went to the summit of the Bishorn following the North ridge. We reached the Bishorn by sunset... Beautiful views but not such a good place to be at that time of day, since we were still at 4153m. After a looooong descent, we finally made it to our car at 3am --24 hour after we left the hut. Anyway, let's come back to this year's climb! We started our climb at 3am on Sunday. The approach to the base of the Young ridge was pretty much uneventful. On the ridge (which is actually more a face configuration than a ridge), we didn't make the mistakes that slowed us down on our previous attempt. We also decided to skip the part to the summit of the Grand Gendarme itself and traverse immediately to the North ridge. This way we bypassed the few last rope lengths which have some nasty 6a moves (we climbed that part 3 years ago wearing our big mountaineering boots! I'm still impressed at how Thomas led those sections). Once we reached the North ridge, we switched to ice gear and started climbing the magnificent and airy snow ridge towards the summit. At 12.30pm we stood on top of the Weisshorn (much better than the 12 hours for the Grand Gendarme but still slightly behind schedule)! After a short break we started the descent along the East ridge, sometimes climbing in the clouds. We made a few navigation errors on our way down, but safely made it to the final portion of easy glacier crossing before the remaining day light disappeared completely. At 11pm we finally crashed down at the Weisshorn Hutte for a good night sleep. On Monday morning, we raced down to Randa (Valley of Zermatt) and were just in time to catch the train to Visp but decided to give hitchhiking a try. We quickly understood that we would simply have to wait for the next train. After changing trains in Visp, Romain picked us up in Martigny and we drove back to Verbier.
In the meantime Romain and Claire had been enjoying the nice weather at the chalet. On Sunday, Claire did a tandem paragliding flight with an instructor: from Savoleyres all the way down to Le Chable. That was the perfect opportunity for Romain (who has been flying since a year or so and just bought his own wing) to quickly get up to speed about Verbier's take-off and landing sites as he simply followed Claire and her instructor! On Sunday evening Romain dropped Claire at the railway station in Martigny as she was going back to Brussels.
On Tuesday the weather was really bad but, since we were still kind of tired, we didn't really mind... We essentially spent the day playing around with computers. In the evening, we started planning our next ascent. We settled down on the South Ridge at the Dent Blanche. While we had been thinking since quite some time about the longer and more difficult Arête de Ferpecle, the fresh snow and cold weather conditions weighed towards the normal route. Wednesday morning the clouds rapidly dissipated. We started our long hike to the Cabane de la Dent Blanche (3500m) under perfectly blue skies. Despite the late hour and the shining sun it was really cold. A good indicator of what we would have to expect the next morning. We spent a calm evening with a beautiful sunset alone at the hut. That meant that we would be alone to go to the summit the next day. A real luck on this usually crowded route. The next day, the climb went perfectly well except for cold hands and feet. A little too easy according to Thomas. I was happy to lead on the Grand Gendarme, the only part that is a little more technical. From the summit we had a nice view on a bunch of our previously conquered summits. It almost looks like we are more or less done in the region :-P (hum, not quite yet). We were again really slow on the way down to the hut, but we made that up by literally running down all the way from the hut to the car!
On Wednesday Romain was able to make another flight, from Les Ruinettes this time. He also found out that it was a little cold that day! On Friday it was already time to drive back to Belgium. After packing our stuff and closing the chalet, we gave Romain a ride up to Savoleyres so he could do a last flight. The conditions were not ideal as it was windy and it was not perfectly oriented... In the end Romain managed to take off and we picked him up in Le Chable after a clean flight and landing in Le Chable!
For those who made it all the way down here, congratulations ;-)
Here are the links to the pictures:
Part 1 -- La Pierre Avoi
Part 2 -- Weisshorn
Part 3 -- Dent Blanche
Part 4 -- Flying back to Belgium
And here's the slideshow:
Verbier, September 2007 (214MB: right click and save as)
As usual, the file is very large but it's high quality with music ;-)
Goeric
posted by MC & Go at 8:25 PM
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