Ice and Mixed Climbing

This winter is not quite a good one for winter Alpinism. Weather is crap and skiers are happy.
There was some good ice conditions building while i was in the opposite side of the world, by christmas everything disappeared because of unusual warm temperatures.
Little did i know two important things saved my season so far
my car and my Ergos. Not quite the best way to prevent pollution though.
First trip around new years at Fressinières 4h drive i was back the same day. Way too warm.
With Jonathan Joly we tried  to climb the Route Cimetère des Elephants a rad route placed
a little aside of famed Gramusat wall

Cimetière des Elephants.Our highpoint is atop of L6 at the begin of a 6b traverse to the left

We started climbing while it was still enough cold, so that we avoided to climb the exposed lower part in dangerous conditions
We made good progress but the temperature were rising quickly by midday, fortunately we were already on the steeper more sheltered mixed pitches out on the right end of the waterfall.

The huge icicle threatening the route was intimidating . We witnessed ice falls, rock fall, and the collapse of a part of one of the pitches above us. It was time to bail. This sort of routes require a combination of good conditions that materialized quite seldom.
The process of try and eventually fail in the eye of the obvious lack of conditions is always interesting, but on a structure that might actually partially collapse, the climber have to rationalize and wonder if the situation is really under control or if the control of situation is just an illusion.
We also witnessed a special display of absolute lack of competence and a minimum of attachment to the life, when some climbers randomly choosed to start climbing around midday,with no idea of the risk involved. I tried to discourage them by throwing small pieces of ice while they were on the
ground. Unfurtunately they were Italians and seemed willing to accept their fate and started climb
The Cimetière des elephants (elephant's graveyard) at 12h.
Twenty minutes later a big rock detached from the upper wall . I watched mesmerized the rock narrowly missing the belayer at the base. The belayer took off his atc and started running all i could
hear was a fadingly lament of "Vaffanculooooo". The climber was left on the waterfall preparing his own retreat. In a half an hour of winter Alpinism they took more risk than me in a couple of years, i could only imagine their feeling goin back to the car. Killer mountain?? no...mountains if are really
to have a soul, have a also a better karma than Mother Théresa of Calcutta,helping often people in taking the right decision before they got high enough on the climb to hurt themselves fallin down.
But we were not watching this from the road. we were on the route, sheltered,yes but yet to escape up or down. We choosed to go down more because it seemed disrespectful to complete a route like this by bad conditions, but also because of the various little negatives things we witnessed on our party, and around us, the amount of those things had a weight on the balance that finally matched
my building enthousiasm for the approaching summit, and the difficult pitches we passed.
4 hours drive alone to get back home helped thinking...
Cold weather was back in the second half on January , Jeff also was back from a succesful trip in the US . Jeff,the Ergo swinging,RedBull sipping,T-Shirts of Alpine Celebrities ripping,mixed climbers abusing, was stoked as usual so we tried to scope something interesting to climb.
A new mixed route in Cogne became our choice. "Dio li fa e poi li accoppia"

    I am happy to see that curiously this kind of mostly trad climbing is becoming quite popular.
Not a new concept off course ,but the "bolt everything that has less than perfect rock" attitude is changing in "why not leave it trad" which makes more sense in my opinion since this winter climbing is supposed to be part of Alpinism. The route is interesting for all people that wants to get more experience on this sort of climbing.
 By midday we were again thinking about what else to do. The neighbor waterfall,
Di fronte al Tradimento became our target. This route is longer but easier than expected.

It was a proud test for the efficiency of my GoreTex new Adidas Jacket

















On the way down we decided to give a look at Kandersteg were we knew the routes on the Breitwanfluhe to be in conditions.
Once again the start at 4h was painful. The drive, the tunnel were we put the car on a train, an
approach with other people that tried to be the first on the uber classic Crack Baby, and finally

 we were at the base of today target,the wall left of the above mentioned route.
We choosed to start withe the route that looked in best conditions, Elementarteilchen.
 The route is the main line in the middle of the left half of the picture.

Jeff started on L1 then i took L2 to the base of the mixed part. Here Jeff on L3

 Here aside me following L3 a M7 bolted of very nice compact rock.
This route is amazing and seems to form quite often.
The wall is visible from Mitholz downwalley from
Kandersteg. Wherever you live on planet earth you should consider to visit this place one day. It's home to some the best ice and mixed routes in Europe.
 Breitwangfluhe is some 350 mt tall
it looks like the Stanley Headwall in Canada.
Happy to see it formed on this strange winter
I couldn't onsight this route mainly because of tricky move
on the begin of the fourth pitch M8.
It's the equivalent of a boulder move ( it seems
ridicoulous to talk about boulder moves when
holding always the same things on the hand).

L4 M8

                                         

A nice pillar 

A long route definetely worth a go

Back to the car and then back to work. Not quite the best way to reduce CO2 pollution,but the
only way for me not to reduce the amount of climbing days in the sake of stacking money as a mountain guide . I always heard about Guides saying "You'll see when you'll become a Guide your climbing will be over" i always said "Fuck That" and so far it works.
A few days later i managed to convince my good friend Andrea that there's nothing better to start his climbing season than climbing Les Larmes de Merlin a very nice route in the Montriond area.
Montriond lake is home to famous routes like La Dame du Lac or ILynxx.
An hour drive from Chamonix this area is not always in good conditions but "Les larmes" are often
doable.

Larmes de Merlin climb the right icicle and end on a not visible pitch of WI 4 atop of the hill

L1 M8+ is very demanding

L3 

L3 can be climbed on this icicle or the choss aside

I generally try to avoid posting only pics of me climbing, but Andrea's choice of clothing doesn't

match the standard of this blog. This also explain the lack of summit pics.

Breitwangfluhe Part II

Flying Circus

Many people me included would be in awe in front of the list of Ice Routes climbed by the OldMan Jeff,even more amazing is the fact that climbed must of them multiple times. He already climbed this route and we were adamant in doin rather Mach 3 but some people were already there.
So we walked to the base of Flying Circus.

Jeff climbed a not so formed L1 we heard about people recently preferring a start on the left.

The original went with a very physical little section. Behind us a real legend materialized in the person of Robert Jasper who climbed this rad route in 98 of last century. It was the year i started climbing and this route was simply the ultimate step i could ever reach back then it was the hardest mixed route in the Alps. In awe and stressed about the amount of the living legends around me,and the legendary pitch 2 above my head, my attempt of onsight the pitch smelled the FAIL as  Shaquille stepping on the Free throw line . I must say that i really wasn't lucky having a bomber placement fall apart by some strange reason. So let's talk the pictures.

Jeff on L1

L2

L2 requires a bunch of small or medium cams and 3to 6 icescrews 

Foot are well marked since 98 and some more holds appeared with the rock
getting tooled by many climbers

On this kind of traversing pitch one can imagine how much it's cooler to climb with leashless
tool

A bit more of ice will be welcome for natural rest like that

This kind of pictures is a answer to why people is paid big money to get good shots
LOL 5minutes non belayed for this...were's my homie Griffith?? 

A ,new Petzl's SAMA harness, butt photo The pitch was rad

L3 ends on this big icicle

Same as for all of the routes on Breitwangfluhe, most times  a climber must cope with avalanche danger .Beware!

Disclaimer: I have sometimes question from people that make me think about when as a kid i tried to learn something by simply studying pictures of other climbers. On many pictures our reluctance in clipping Both twins ropes is more than a evidence.I definitely recommend to clip both even more in less than vertical terrain or simply use bigger ropes. If i don't do it every-time ,as i should, it doesn't mean is a good thing to do.

Patagonia trip second part
After Torre Egger it seemed a possible window might show up so we got back to Niponino but it was without counting on the amount of precipitations predicted.
It rained a lot and with Colin we basically only waited in the tent for the all day hoping someone would finally come up bringing the latest forecast.
When some friends appeared without any good news about the weather we hiked back to town.
Needless to say the following day was actually pretty good, a mistake due to the modern comfort of
having a weather forecast for a place whose weather is foolish anyway, and the comfort of staying
in town in a place where a couple decades ago years ago there was no town at all.
Up there i  had to learn  to not trust a weather forecast that it's not really clear and fail in his predictions and to be ready always in changing totally my climbing plans. French friends Ben and Fred succeed climbing Fitz Roy at their first week in Patagonia and gave me an urge to climb that mountain as well. I remember a Salvaterra quote saying that there are a few days where the conditions allowed to climb in the Fitz group when at a couple of km away, on Torre or Marconi it's a bad day. Running short of time and with a full week of bad weather ahead i opted to climb Fitz Roy that i haven't climbed yet. Manu is already gone home because of the bad weather lasting until his departure day. I went on to make plans for an eventual climb, with Andrea Di Donato a montain guide from Italy. As usual trying to decide what climbing and when to leave was a stressing task that absorbed me for much of the ten days we waited before we finally go up. A world class ice line, Supercanaleta, haunted my dreams since i was young when i read the book Patagonia from Buscaini-Metzeltin. His obvious straight line his Wind Serpent the many tries they gave it...little problem everybody seemed to say that it was gone, literally melted by the good weather week that we managed to miss before our arrival. With all this nasty weather we reckon it might be in, many of the local activist agreed so, local guides said no way. We were not sure what to do until just a day before we left. We were sitting in front of a coffe. The pinnacle at the top of the route in front of me on the back cover of  the brand new guidebook showed a climber from longtime ago. A climber that travelled trough a entire continent in a van only to surf and climb, lost in frost covered rock on a pinnacle of vertical rock 1400 above the ground with a bunch of pitons. No cams no goretex no guidebook and no weather forecast. Just climbing. We decided to go for Supercanaleta.

Supercanaleta

Seven hours of approach took us at the base of the route trough Paso del Quadrado. First good news to get there we just walked no swimminng in waist deep snow. Second good news the route was in, as for Cham if someone need to know if a certain route is in conditions better to ask people that climb, not the guides.

Andrea and his fitz roy

We walked in saturday. Sunday we waited during a not too bad day hoping the weather would not play with us a second time then around 1AM  we crossed the bergshrund and climbed the long couloir until daylight saw us partway up bloque empotrado.

Awesome shadow of fitz on Lautaro far on the icecap

 We said hello to Frank a dead solo climber sitting on a ledge. The day was good but bad weather was forecasted for the late afternoon.
The rock was covered with rime and fresh snow so we had to drytool all the way up ,so i reckon it was great conditions!
I was full absorbed on the climb Andrea was following fast and efficiently and after almost 12 h we were on top.
We started rappelling the route in pretty cold conditions then downclimbed the lower part of the couloir and a few hours later we were down.
Definetely great to share this route with Andrea. We had a lot of  fun. Now back to Cham winter is ready.

 On route

Upper bowl

Today is gonna be a good day!

cool mixed

climbing second tower

Lot of rime on second pinnacle

Last pinnacle

Cumbre!

Aguja Mermoz and Torre EGGER report

Text and Photos Korra Pesce

When I left Chamonix for a trip to Patagonia a few people must have felt a lot of relief, the reason was simple, when five days before my departure I opened the for the first of a number of times the Meteogram for the weather forecast of Cerro Torre it showed a huge weather window , I almost fainted, it was supposed to last approximately until the moment I would  eventually reach El Chalten.

Chances  for another similar chance were slim at best. Landing in the tiny airport of El Calafate three hours of drive away from El Chalten I could finally see  again the fantastic mountains of Fitz Roy and The Torres . I imagined how cool would have been to be up there in perfect weather, but I could do nothing it was too late. The following day Manu Cordova joined me and immediately we went up with all of our gear to made a gear stash at Niponino Camp. After ten days of mainly bad weather we finally had a chance of climbing something on a windy day between two storms. We choosed to try Aguja Mermoz East Face via Andy Parkin route Vol de Nuit.

 It’s a nice line with a lot of mixed climbing and almost no ice. Conditions were not ideal but this type of climbing was one we were both  familiar with. We climbed the route adding a couple of variations that allowed us to reach the top of the mountain. Descending the route we had to cut a stuck rope and it was only after 17 hours  after our departures that we reached our snowcave at Paso Superior.  We descended by night to El Chalten and rested all of the next day. Another day of good weather saw us ready for action at Niponino.

Mixed ground on the lower half

Manu leading a tricky dihedral followed by a tricky tension traverse

Sometime weather end up being better than forecasted 

Manu follow up a awesome corner, with only a rack of cams it was a interesting pitch

The fantastic Goretta Pillar on Fitz Roy
climbed by Casarotto solo in 1979

Cumbre of Mermoz

Herron Egger Traverse

With Manu we choosed to climb Punta Herron and Torre Egger, a wonderful trip that will see us climbing rappelling and traversing for 23 hours. We had a early start and walked to Standhardt Col, we climbed the first two pitches of Exocet than continued all the long of the big ramp that slashed across all of the East face of Aguja Standhardt, climbed a couple more pitches than rappelled directly to the base of the magnificent Spigolo dei Bimbi on Punta Herron a few meters from Col dei Sogni.

 There we swapped ice tools for rock shoes and started climbing up this incredible route. The exposure the climbing and scenery were unreal, with the Hielo Continental behind us the Pampa and the huge lake Viedma on our left, steep compact rock  laden with rime formations and the odd mushroom above,

and off cours several hundred meters of steep mixed terrain below us.

The slabs of Sigolo dei bimbi in great conditions

One of the best climb in Patagonia

The rock was pretty clean of rime only a little wet and we made quick progress on Spigolo dei Bimbi. 

Manu leading the mushroom 

Next step Huber-Schnarf on Egger

A rest to melt water 

On the slabs of Torre Egger

Nice traverse under mushrooms

  The day was really hot and there was no wind at all. We stood atop of Punta Herron rappelled to Col de Lux and finally climbed to the top of Torre Egger via the Huber Schnarf, a route similar to the on we did on Herron supposedly there was an Italian route somewhere up there  by De Dona and Giongo but they left no sign of their passage up the compact slabs, Huber and Schnarf left a very limited amount of not that necessary bolts (not that leaving bolts must became the best option to leave proofs of an ascent, even more in Patagonia were bolts anyway tends to disappear mysteriously, indeed on this route De Dona and Giongo curiously left three bolts under the mushroom as a proof of their ascent no one ever found them...maybe they should have used Pezl anchors as the party  from 2005 did because they are very well visible. In the end is now called Huber Schnarf . Before this last route i managed to drop a rockshoe, Manu was kind enough to lend me his shoe and followed the sleep slabs in big boots!the mushroom was melting but we made it up. It was really a great feeling to be up this difficult mountain but the way down seemed ridiculously tricky. Patagonia it’s a test for anyone rappelling skills and rapping down Torre Egger is certainly one of the most complicated descent.

The caracteristic summit of Torre Egger aside of me

Cerro Torre upper north face upper tier of Ragni Route

Just below the col between Egger and Torre

Descending  the route we did, was simply out of question, descending the East Pillar was the preferred descent so far but we preferred descent the South Face to the col of Conquista then climb up one little pitch and rap down the east side of the col. We were now on one of the most legendary place of Alpine climbing. Like a sanctuary of alpinism. At our left was the Box placed by the British climbers that attempted in the late seventies the huge dihedral and the north face above us, it was destroyed by years of terrible storms.

The English Box at the base of one of the sickest line in Patagonia 

Rapping down the Colle della Conquista
the real conquest will be not to fuck up the descent

All around us were waste of ropes and gear from the many teams that attempted to climb Cerro Torre  from this side but  the most tangible ones were the imaginary footprints of the people that actually succeeded climbing this side of the mountains with a lot of bravery and little gear. I couldn’t avoid thinking about the pioneers of those places . Donini and Bragg , Salvaterra and Garibotti, Burke and Proctor, Ponholzer and Bonapace, the Slovenians…We reached the top of the lower dihedral not far from where, Toni Egger had his deadly accident . I can’t even imagine how badass must have been even trying to get up there in 59,  those people were visionary. All of those lines are from another world. We stood on the glacier below Cerro Torre by full moon. It’s over, but I already would like to get back  up. Descending  I can’t stop turning back and watch up those unreal walls. One hour later at midnight we crawled into our sleeping bags at Niponino. Today was a good weather day on the Torres. Today was a good day.