jeudi 26 avril 2012

Verdon Classics



Chamonix might be the best place in the world for climbing and mountainering, but when bad weather sets in for two weeks, it could be a bit boring.
Raining , snowing… raining, snowing… Every crags or cliffs are wet. It’s time for a little road trip to south of the France.


Ena has never climbed in verdon before and was pretending it could never be as nice as her national Paklenica… Like a real, proud of myslef, chauvinistic french I had to prove she was wrong !


On the first day we have chosen « Tiquet Danger » in Escales cliff. It’s a pretty 150 m route with 5 very homogeneous pitches : 6a-6a-6a-6a-6a+.
It starts ... like many routes in verdon by abseiling from top. 


A bit scary ena :p ?
Then Climbing is really fantastic in a nice environment and on a perfect grey limestone : most probably the best in the world ;)

Next day in « La Demande » was a bit more « Alpine Climbing ».   This 375 m route is graded 6a+ maximum but 6a obligatory. Sometimes you have to kick your ass a bit climbing 5 m between spits. Anyway it’s good to take camalot 0,5 to 3.



« La demande » is a classic one, never very hard but never very easy too. It's quoted in arnaud petit’s guide book «  Mostbeautiful climbs all over Europe » ( Where is Paklenica ? ;)


When climbing the upper chimneys, have a thought about the first ascent by Coquenot and Guillot, in 1968, without any spits but a little of rasta courage.