Newsgroups: uk.rec.climbing
Sent: 06 September 2003 04:15
Subject: Cham '03 TR
I was in Cham this July. I got quite a bit done despite the "poor conditions"; personally I much prefer it lean to too snowy, at least as it was this year you can see the crevasses!
The Rochefort arete was excellent fun, though coming down the steep bit in the middle was a bit fun on brittle water ice. I did something remarkably stupid here, too, but got away with it: coming down from the rock bit at the end I tossed my gloves down onto the snow for some idiotic reason - only the wind caught them and very very nearly blew them down onto the glacier far below. Anyway, we finished the day by doing the Dent du Geant (yes, we pulled on the fixed ropes; yes, it was still fun and YES, I wish someone would tear them down some day so I could go back and do it properly ;-))
Later on in the trip we did the North Face of the Tour Ronde, a route that has always fascinated me and that I've longed to do for a couple of years now. Anyway, crossing the bergschrund was excellent, as it was good vertical water ice. After that it remained icy, and quite brittle; especially on the upper half of the face the surface dinnerplated, often several times per placement. We ended up pitching the whole route and taking quite a while, but had a good time anyway; very few serious rocks came down. The central couloir was lovely, especially the steep mixed moves to leave it.
Other routes we did were the Cosmiques arete (is this /meant/ to be a rock route?!), a nice traverse of the Pointes Lachenal, the Petite Verte, the SE ridge of the Indexand some route on the south face of the Aig. de Charlanon the name of which I have no idea.
Adrian.
More of Adrian's writing here
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