Third (Central) Spur, North Face of Aiguille du Midi,
Mont Blanc Massif
TD
Chamonix greeted us with some of the heaviest rain I'd ever seen. On
the road from Geneva we were struggling to see and as we drove into the
centre of town it was obvious that the mountains were well out of bounds.
We headed to the OHM to see the all important weather report and it made
fairly depressing reading. Two days of heavy rain and then outlook
uncertain. We waited...and ate...and waited...and drank coffee...and more
coffee...and ate...telling ourselves that when the weather turned we'd be
ready. On the evening of day two we watched what we thought was the last
of the rain clouds blow away and planned to be on the mountain early the
next morning. We woke at 0600 and heard more rain. The
best laid plans..! So we had another day sitting around as the clouds
disappeared in the heat of the day and changed our plans. We wanted to do
a big route and sometimes that means that you have to wait; it's a
tactical game. After spending
the morning sitting drinking coffee watching a Puma photoshoot in the
centre of Chamonix we felt very, very ready. We had spent three days
reading guidebooks and had chosen the Third (Central) Spur on the North Face of
the Aiguille du Midi. A 1200m mixed route that gets the Tres Difficile
grade. Bottom half rock, top half ice and mixed. Neither of us knew
anything about the route really but we knew the face well. The walk in to
the base of the route is short and it finished right at the ice tunnel
that leads into the Midi telepherique station. It was the bit in between
that would inevitably spring some surprises.
That afternoon we got the cable car to the Plan station carrying
rucsacks ready for the route and a tent and sleeping bags seperately. We
strolled over to Lac Bleu and pitched the tent. Cloud kept rolling in and
we weren't getting to see as much of the route as we would have liked.
There were other people camped at Lac Bleu that evening. Some Finnish and
British climbers both hoping to do rock routes on the Grepon. We were all
hoping that the rock would dry. For us it would make the bottom part of
the route quicker. The others would be sitting around doing nothing if it
didn't. After three days
of sitting around we needed to do something and set off to the base of
the route to see how long it would take and scope it out. By the time we
returned to the tent it was dark and we had to be up at 0500 to start the
walk in.
0500 and we're up. Tent down and sleeping bags packed away. We set off
in the direction of the route and stash the camping stuff under a boulder.
Next time we see that we'll have finished the route and be on easy-street.
We see torches around the other tents; others are getting an early start
too. Everything seems to be dry and the weather's got that settled look. The walk across the glacier is uneventful and we arrive at the route
just as it gets light. We've made a good start. I know from experience
that the first pitch of the routes round here can throw up
surprises. As the glacier melts it leaves a dirty, loose, often steep wall
which can be problematic. In this case we soloed up slabby rock which
needed care in big alpine boots. Small, snappy holds sloping the
wrong way and lots of loose shaley stuff lying around. Wierdly there was a massive cable lying on the ground and we're
climbing right next to it. It's a discarded
telepherique cable from the Midi that's been dropped and left. No idea
whether it's anchored so you can't use it for anything but it's wierd,
incongruous to see it here. After 100m of this slabby stuff things improve
with easy climbing on good holds. The route description mentions two
gendarmes and we can see one obvious one high up but the other one's not
obvious. We follow the crest of the ridge until we're forced left beneath
what we take to be the first gendarme. Here the rock steepens up and
there's some tricky climbing. The guidebook says that the climbing on this
section shouldn't be any harder than UIAA III but this feels like VS in
big boots. We're either off-route or I'm not the climber that I thought I
was. We get through it and climb a very loose bit which heads up into a
couloir. Again there's loads of loose stuff and Ian's infront trying not to
knock things down. Finally the guidebook starts to make sense and we're in
an icy couloir with a section of V-. There's a bit of wierdness coming up.
A short diagonal abseil across a slab and some more horrendously loose
rock takes us up to beneath a steep rock wall. I'm pleased that the
guidebook is making sense now because we're a long way up and you don't
want to be off route on a face like this. An easy traverse takes us to the
crux of the rock climbing. A UIAA V corner which Ian climbs easily. Good
rock for the first time today. I take
the next pitch up a chimney heading for the top of the second
gendarme.
And this is where things start to go wrong. There's an obvious gully
which leads towards the top of the gendarme. There's tat up there and Ian
climbs up to it. He's soon into an 'elephants arse' groove with no holds
and there doesn't seem like anywhere to go. We're obviously not the first
to make this mistake as the tat now starts to look like evidence of past retreats.
Ian comes down and I start speculating up a thin slab to the left. At the
top I get an excellent view over the other side and it confirms that we're
not climbing down this way. I can see where the route goes and I've got to
get back down. We're losing time now. A single old peg allows me to abseil off but
I've seen what I need to see. We escape down to the right and get back on
route. A fine, easy ridge takes us to another huge buttress which is
spooky with all the loose rock. I'm leading and the loose rock makes
climbing more stressful than it should be. The rock's mainly not good
enough to take decent pro and I'm climbing carefully to avoid dropping
stuff down. After a few pitches Ian takes over the lead to give
me a rest. I'm glad of it cos the loose rock's making me nervous. Finally
we make the top of this buttress and are onto the ice.
We stop to put on crampons and are able to refill our drinks bottles
from melting snow. Again we set off; this time climbing ice on the left of
a large rock buttress. We know that there are seracs above us and neither
of us wants to leave the shelter of the rocks. Finally an avalanche comes
past on our left. Everything's too warm and we need things to cool down.
We push on, acutely aware that there are big seracs above. By the time
it's dark we need a rest. We're pitching the climbing because the ice
isn't good and making pretty slow progress. I lead up to the shelter of a
boulder and bring up Ian. There's a great anchor and some shelter which is
nice but it's not exactly spacious. We try
to make ourselves comfortable at -10c but a bivi wasn't planned and it's
impossible. The view of Chamonix from here is breathtaking but we're too
tired to find cameras. After an hour or so we're cold and see no benefit
in staying here. We press on. More pitches in the dark take us to a position where we
can see the Midi station but this time things are colder and we're doing
OK. Finally I lead across a slope towards seracs and realise straight away
that I'm in the wrong place. There's no rock pro and I can't get an ice screw
in. I climb back down 50m and we have a chat. We're both
suffering but I'm really feeling it; retreating down that pitch has done
nothing for me. There's
no way we can think about coming off from here - 1000m up the face. Ian
does the business on the next few pitches and I'm just following. After a
while I can see that he's boxed and we swap leads for a couple of short
pitches. By now the sun's up and we know that we're going to do it. Rounding a corner we see people on the ridge leading down from the
Midi-station. I kick slowly across an easy snow slope to finish at the ice
tunnel. Just keep concentrating and don't fall off. There are people around who are obviously having a great
time; we're knackered and dehydrated but very, very glad to be off.
The Third (Central) Spur is one of those routes that you might enjoy
with hindsight. The amount of loose rock on the route itself makes
climbing the route quite a stressful and physically exhausting experience.
I find climbing loose rock especially tiring because you're always having
to push holds back into the mountain as you pull down on them. You never
get to climb dynamically which can sometimes save energy. That next hold
that you yard up on with both hands might just be the one that spins off
into nowhere taking you with it.
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