European Trip: Summer 2002

SE France: Dauphne Alps

After the long slog through high temperatures, high humdity and excessive amounts of road rage we eventually end up in the South of France, about an hour south of Grenoble in the Dauphne Alps. A beautiful quite Alpine valley, enveloped by granite sentry spires and at the top by an awesome looking hanging glacier which drops down from the huge Barres des Ecrins peak. It doesn,t take long for us to settle into the quite Walton mountain like camping scene, set in a forest next to the town itself, before we tackle a long 12 pitch route called "Snoopy" on the Fissure de Ailfroide buttress, one of the many convenient roadside big crags which encircle the valley floor.[Photo] [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]

NE Switzerland: Urialps

So after a sweet and yet exciting spell in Ailfroide, we moved onto the Uri Alps in NE Switzerland, after Geoff Thomas,s recommendation. The weather isn,t particulary inspiring when we arrive, but we eventually got up some big corners and slabs/walls when the weather broke. The quality of the rock, beautiful setting and most importantly the lack of crowding on the routes made this a great venue. The weather unfortunately was not awfully inspiring on our time here. We get in a few long routes and also have an argument with the sales woman in the local climbing shop over the price of the areas climbing guide. The high Municipal campsite above the town of Wassen was definetly the highlight here (maybe due to the time spent there on the rainy days) both myself and Al watching in awe as this small, hard as nails mountain man who ran the campsite would occupy his day with lifting stones the size of Al,s Punto onto a wheelbarrow and then swivel them into a path he was creating....well that's Swizz-German precision for you. We only manage to sample the crust of the pie in the Switzerland mountain granite and limestone and hope to get back at some point in the future to sample some of the fantastic walls that we spied from our humble campsite. [Photo] [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]

SE France: ChamoniX

So onto Chamonix we go, as we land in the valley we bump into climbing war veteran Calvin Torrans who gives some good beta on the best camping spot in town. So after getting settled in and the usual greeting ceremony  myself and Al decide to make plans for going up to do some biggish routes. We decide to stick to pure rock due to our lack of experience on the mixed stuff. After a few attempts to get onto the high rock, we eventually make our way up to the Midi Plan station via the Telephrique. After an earlyish start, we make our way to the bottom of La Majorette Thatcher on the, Red Pillar on the West face of the Blatiere. After a hand numbing start in the morning cold, we make our way up the steep hand jamming crackline, which manages to spits me out a few times, before we make our way to the top. Four pitches and the main difficulties have ended, but we then have an epic retreat, when a thunderstorm suddenly hits the Aiguilles range, with high gusty winds and rain.  After freeing  jammed ropes twice, and comically watching our ropes get flung all over the place by the wind, we eventually set foot on solid, relatively wind free soil and slide thankfully down the snow slope at the base of the face to the scree path and back to our humble bivouc cove underneath a huge boulder. The rain never really eased for the next day so we spend the day in the cave...! [Photo] [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]

The next morning we emerge from the feldspar womb to beautiful clear skies and loads of dry rock faces...cool! So after about 10 eggs and enough chocolate bars to get you up a steep Donegal brey, we make our way up to the NW face of the Peigne below the Aiguille Plan to give the classic "La Ticket" a go, a classic 8 pitch  slab route, well that whats Paul McGarrity told us, I would say its more like a wall..but hey,  I wasn,t going argue with a man with a moustache of Pauls calibre! So up the slab we went, fantastic technical slab climbing on thin nothings to other thin nothings. Fantastic face, excellent line...with the added exhileration of some runouts on most pitches. Both myself and Al struggle again to get to grips with the cold mornings and rock and crimp painfully on our numbed finger tips. We top out with a few US lads who have big plans and are seem to be doing this route just for their warm up. At the top of the route I ask Al what time it is.....4.45pm, right then...oh sh?* last Teleprique is at 5.45pm,  so we get our arses in gear and make our way swiftly down to the station to be greeted by the last staff members holding their noses as they symultaneously push the stations eco-friendly shit tank into the Telephrique. We collapse at our tents at 6.30pm that evening in one of those usual Chamonix mountain- tired, rough and ragged, smelly and dirty kind of ways. We bump into Donna and Marty, Pysclone and Geoff and a few others that evening and end up getting completely trolleyed. Great end to a great day.

The weather kind of craps out for the next few days as per usual, so we lull about and eventually make our way up to the Valle Blanche glacier below the Aiguille di Midi to tackle a few routes. The Aiguille di Midi definetly is one of the finest lumps of rock you will ever see, the south facing, orange tinted granite spires and the sulphur blue sky giving fantastic oppertunities for a quick snapshot. Myself and Pyschlone later go on to try the Rebuffat Route on the South Face, a classic crack line wondering up the middle of the face. We come down after 3 pitches but both of us enjoyed the climbing and especially the magic position with views of the Matterhorn in the far distance. Over the next few days we get up the Mont Blanc du Tacul which is really hard going. The weather craps out again so we  make our way down to the valley and make plans for moving onto the Dolomites with Donna, Marty and Geoff.

NE Italy: The Dolomites

After a henious 6 hour drive from Chamonix myself and Al, Donna, Marty and the kids and Geoff and Stu eventually end up in a small tourist town called Campitello, next to the Sella Pass in the middle of the Dolomite range. After a quick scout around the Sella Pass to get our bearings right, myself and Geoff eventually make our way up to the NE face of the Third Sella tower, 15 mins from the pass. The route looks pretty chaucy from below, but hey my predictions are never really that reliable. After farting about with ropes we eventually get onto the route and eventually make it up to the half way terrace below the crux roof crack. As we finish the last of our raisins and sultana,s on our luch stop, our view of the delightful Sassalunga range gets rudely interupted by a tied climbing shoe hurtling precariously through the air followed briskly by a camera and quickdraw. I turned to Geoff and thought....yeah its going to be one of those sort of days. Later we bump into a few Polish climbers (they would have to be Polish!) that inform us of their nasty 20m fall which caused apart from a few nasty grazes, the guys shoe to dislodge itself from the end of his foot and his camera to come off the back of his harness. Good route, great day, the surreal look on the Polish guys face as he descibed the fateful event making the day.   [Photo] [Photo] [Photo]

The campsite is pretty nice but unfortunately seem to be owned by a few of Mussolini,s ex-pats who are terribly fond of controlling their front barrier and loud campwide intercom speaker system. After getting used to the campsite, we pair off and decide to make plans. Al and Marty decide to go off and do some classic, long HS which they say is awesome, while myself and Geoff decide to tackle a Reinhold Messner route on the North face of the second tower. A really fantastic climb, 8 pitches of quality, steep pocket pulling mayhem. The climbing often felt a bit bold because of the crap quality of the pegs on the route and the lack of trad gear placements, but that often adds a certain flavour to a route your expecting to be straight forward. On the 5^th pitch it starts to spit rain, by the 6^th pitch the water is running down our sleeves. Despite the change in circumstances we decide to soldier on, after I soon realise that Geoff revels in this masochistic type of torture, turning round the apparent epic into an adventure...he,s haard...he used to live in Rhyl! We top out to revel in a quick window of sunshine which manages to dry the rock in a matter of minutes. After the descent and our quick retreat back to Geof,s car, we look back and view our efforts only to get interupted by some lost Israeli,s at the top of the Sella Pass. Quite a cosmopolitan day all in all. Fantastic day, adventure climbing at its best, thoroughly addictive. [Photo] [Photo]

So we travel on and eventually hit the Olymic ski town of Cortina in the north eastern Dolomites set in a luscious, tranquil alpine valley, with gondaloes and ski toes radiating off from the centre like the spokes in a penny farthing. Oblivious of the abundance of free camping about the various passes we opt for the financially stable and secure option - the local municipal site.....without the advise of our family financial advisor, we take out a small mortgage to pay for the fiesty camp fees. Well the weather holds so we decide to try a route on the Tofana di Rozes monolith. We end up climbing a line on the left arete on the second tofana buttress and take random guesses at belays of how many layers each of us are wearing!

After an interesting nights sleep with pine cones the size of hand grenades bouncing off the fly sheet, my already traumatically affected nylon home is nearly ready for the tent graveyard in the sky! So the next day myself and Al travel to the Tre Cime de Lavaredo or "Drei Zenin" according to your nationality. The three limestone monoliths which are symbolic of the Dolomites due to their unique position and solitude are really an awesome site to behold.  WE decide to go for the Dulfer route on the west face of the Grand Cime a three star HVS up a huge corner crack. The overcast nature of the day combined with the altitude (about 2500m) means that the climbing is slow and sometimes painful as we both struggle to gain life back into our hands as we depart from the belays. Along the way we meet some Polish climbers, a financial advisor and a student. The financial advisor was giving us loads of beta and advise on the route, as you would expect, the student looked remarkably like the liquid terminator out of Terminator 2, so... we decided time was of the essence. We finally top out with a majestic view of the southern dolomite ranges only to be rudely interupted by a 4 hour descent down the classic route. As we arrive back at the car, the clouds mysteriously dissipate and we get the most awesome sunset you have ever seen with the dolomite peaks lighting up like a Christmas church scene..and the sky resembling some colonial, fiery desert planet scene. Nice! [Photo] [Photo]

So afer a few days of rain, sport cragging and some shorter routes on the abundant crags enveloping Cortina, we make our way back to the Tofana di Rozes to try an awesome looking line that we spied on the last route we did up there, the Pilastro route in the First Buttress of the Tofana. This wall stands at a massive 500m high with 18 pitches to wet your appetite. So after a wild bivvy at the local refuge, we get an early start and start the route in the shade at 7am. By 10am we are 6 pitches up and going strong, then the wall starts to steepen up in a nose like profile and the pitches start getting harder and more sustained. We arrive at two roofs, which go at UIAA VII+/VII or VI+ A1, which turn out to be hard so I end up aiding them both with exhilerating exposure. Al then gets a nasty polished and awkward chimney, which he manages to dance up then it's a case of getting up the last, sustained 8 pitches to the top. At this point both of us are exhausted from the exposure in the sun and the steep climbing. We eventually top out at about 5pm to be greeted by 2 English lads that we had met on the previous night. The four of us decide a quick departure is needed, even though we don, t want to decline from our tales of heroics and epics, as the thunder starts to seriously rumble. As we tumble down the scree slopes towards the local refuge, the hail starts pelting the back of our ears..so we all shift into 5^th gear and land at the hut just as the heavens open up. So a great day and an exhilerating way to end our last route of the Dolomites and of the trip.      

North France - Fontainbleau

Fontainbleu luys in the heart of a huge natural forest south of Paris and has some of the best bouldering you will ever find, with great sandy landings and something for absolutely everyone. Myself and Al spent a total of 2 weeks of our trip here and thoroughly enjoyed the place with the majestic Fontainbleau palace in the town of Font providing a nice cultured retreat from the heat and sweat of the forest. Donna and Marty also stopped by for a few days on their way back from the Dolomites and seemed to adore the place.

Different from the bouldering scene in Britain, Font bouldering locations have trails of bouldering problems (up to 60 problems) with everything from British 3a (V.Diff) up to the high number desperado,s. We had some great days just chilling out working problems, pleasantly enjoying the vibe as whole familys from grandchildren to grandparents ambled around trying problems, like a day at Glenveagh with the family with a few sandstone boulders chucked in. So as Donna ahd to cope with Marty becoming a bouldering junkie and Stu trying to nurse a bad elbow injury, Al was on form at the end of the trip here and really thrived on the many slabby problems. We are thinking of maybe getting a flight back to Paris in the Winter and hiring a house, both are cheap, with the more people, the cheaper and the merrier it is.