Goulotte chéré

What is great with Disneyland is you can choose your favourite carousel. Depending on your mood and wishes. It’s bit the same in « Monutain Disneyland » aka Chamonix.

You have several carousels (Aiguille du midi, Brévent, Flégère, Grands Montets…) and a lot of different toys (Skis, ice axes, rock climbing gear, paraglides…) Depending on the wheater, your mood and wishes, you pick one or two and just spend a great day in the range.

After  nice couloirs we decided with ena to go on ice climbing. Ice climbing in april, what a strange idea ! Don’t worry, « Goulotte chéré » on Mont-Blanc du tacul is often in good condition at this time. And it’s a perfect choice to discover or improve in « gully climbing style ».

Approach is obvious and this line is a really classic one. (sometimes crowded !!)

Belays are really good and 6 pitches of not too hard not too steep ice lead you to top of « triangle du tacul ». The gully is graded 4 and never steeper than 80°.

You need 2*60m rope, 8 ice screws and fews camalots. Once on summit you just abseil down, pick your skis and go down by the nice « vallée blanche ».

One more great day in the office ;)

And the day is even better when you have the surprise to meet friends on the way down.

Vanessa François is a dear Belgian/Chamonix friend. In 2010 a mountain accident let her disabled… It was really nice to meet her in the middle of Vallée blanche, achieving one of her little dream : skiing one more time this great hors piste, but with her skichair. Congratulation to you Vaness and all your team and keep this nice smile which suit you.

http://www.vanessafrancois.com/?p=954

Antoine.

Glacier rond

Recently I have been skiing to Alagna in Italy. Alagna is known as « the Freeride Paradise ». With friends of Croatian Mountain Rescue (HGSS) we have been discovering the nice and great hors piste around. It’s true it’s a really nice aera, with lots of cable cars which leads you to long, classic and interesting skiing lines.

But if Alagna is the « freeride paradise » what about Chamonix ??

We could call it the « Steep skiing paradise ». The aiguille du midi cable car brings you in half an hour from center of the town to high altitude kingdom. 3800m, nice glaciers and amazing hors pistes.

Just speaking about the worldwide famous « Vallée blanche ». 20 km of hors piste skiing on an glacier aera. 7 differents skiing lines from quite steep to easy going, the nicest view ever… completly unique in the world.

But if you are interesting in steep couloirs, the North and North-West face of aiguille du midi is the place to be.

Ena Vrbek and Arnaud Bayol has never skied down the NW face before, so we decided together to pick « Glacier Rond ». It’s the attractive slope you see on the right side of Aiguille du midi while driving on autoroute blanche just before entering Chamonix.

It use to be a really difficult deemed route, but it’s true nowadays it’s skied down almost everydays… by freeriders with 100 mm skis under their feet.

It doesn’t remove the committment of the line. The huge serac at bottom of the descent doesn’t make you want to miss the first turns and fall like a puppet !!

 

This first part is the steepest with icy snow or just ice underneath your skis…Watch out…

After this nice first slope, you turn on the left to take a West couloir. Entrance is bit rocky and you really have to controll your speed.

After that, it’s just pleasure. Less than 40° on good spring snow or even better powder in winter.

You jump the little « rimaye » at the bottom of couloir and now you have two options.

First is to reach mid station of aiguille du midi gondola and why not have another run (Marco Siffredi use to do 4 runs in a days while training periods before expedition)

When snow conditions are great like this year, you can go down by right side of

 « Glacier des bossons » until town of Chamonix.

In that case it’s a 2600 m hors piste! A bit like Disneyland but for alpinist and skiers.

Enjoy ;)

Il Paretone di Arnad : Diedro Jaccod

Quand l’hiver chamoniard se fait trop rude, il fait bon se rendre en Italie. La grimpe au soleil, les Capuccinos, la dolce vita… ma c’est l’Italie comme dirait sgaganauss.

Le val d’Aoste se prête parfaitement à ce jeu. Le topo « Mani nude 2 : Arrampicta sportiva in valle d’Aosta » répertorie les plus beau site de couenne du coin.

Mais un secteur est particulièrement intéressant pour les voies de plusieurs longueurs : Il paretone di Arnad, aussi appelé « Dalle de Machaby ».

Comme son nom l’indique, la grimpe est peu incliné… ou plutôt dans le sens facile. Les voies sont bien équipées et le granite est super classe le tout dans un choix de quasiment 50 lignes. En bref un site parfait pour le perfectionnement aux grandes voies.

Avec Ena, nous avons choisi le « Diedro Jaccod », qui en 250m et 9 longueurs nous emmène au sommet du Paretone. La grimpe est vraiment homogène : 5c+/5a/5a/5b/5c+/6a+/5c+/5b+/5b+.

L’altitude modeste du sommet (796m), l’orientation Sud Ouest en font un spot parfait pour l’inter saison.

Alors si vous êtes pris d’une envie de grande voie accessible, d’une envie de grimpe au soleil, direction la Vallée d’Aoste et « il Paretone de Arnad » pour un peu de dolce vita.

Tonio ;)

Croatian Attack on EMHM ice fall

« La massue » was my dreaming ice fall. Like every dream I was not really sure to achieve it, and I was wondering about keep on ice climbing after this one…

The truth is I like ice fall too much to stop it… I just think that it’s good to climb lines like this not so often…

I wanted to climb something I never did, a bit easier and way more safe ;)

Croatian friends were at home in Chamonix and were motivated by ice climbing too.

Together we pick « EMHM icefall » in order to play with the tools and have a nice day in the range.

They have very few ice fall in croatia and it was a pleasure to bring them in my playground.

Vedran Salopek, Dragan Dragicevic and Ivica Jurkovic are mountain rescuers from Ogulin station. Ena Vrbek is also mountain rescuer but from Zagreb station. They are all aspirant to become rescue instructors and they are great friends. (A bit more for Ena ;))

On the 2^nd of march we took our skis to approach the ice fall.

We climbed the first easy (60°) pitch together and then we divided into two teams.

Vedran, Dragec and Ivica have been on the right side of the wall (EMHM de droite).

70m of nice ice, two pitches graded 4 with almost vertical section (85°) and they arrived on top of the line.

With Ena we have chosen the left side of the same ice fall (EMHM de gauche). Two pitches too but a bit more steep (90°) and graded 4+.

After 2 long abseils we arrived to our skis.

A nice ride on the bottom part of Argentière Glacier brings us to the car.

One more great day in the mountain. Ice, Sun and Friends… What a great coktail.

See you next year Ogulin’s friends. Don’t forget to bring your delightful Rakija and let’s go in the mountains ;)

Ante ;)