Over the last couple of weeks I have been in Europe and with all the bad weather in the Alps it seemed like a good idea to go to Ailefroide alpine climbing.
Ailefroide is in the Ecrins Massif in the South of France and usually misses a lot of the bad weather that gets sucked towards Chamonix and the rest of the Alps, making it a good option if the weather is mixed. Not only that, the Verdon Gorge, the Ardeche Gorge and Ceuse aren’t that far away if the weather craps out and you want to go and bag some rock climbing.
The Ailefroide campsite is lovely, it’s large, allows fires and even has a pizza van that for 10 euros will provide you with the best pizza you have ever eaten. I was there with my girlfriend Robyn who hasn’t done any alpine climbing before and wanted to experience some harder, longer, more physical days after forgetting about our Dolomite routes last time. We’ve done loads of very long rock routes together and some were quite hard but we wanted to mix everything up with crampons, ice axes, long walk-ins, a good summit and long a descent, which sums up alpine climbing.
We had done a few things before getting here. Bouldering at Fontainebleau, downhill biking in Les Deux Alps, a long multi-pitch and now it was time to turn our heads to something different. I wanted to go and do something on the Barre des Ecrins, the highest peak in the area at just over 4,000 meters high but the hut was full due to the break in the weather and as much as the hut warden said we could sleep on the table I didn’t fancy it.
Instead I flipped through the guide book and went for the South Ridge of Pic du Glacier Blanc 3,527 meters high.
The South Ridge of this peak is reachable in a day by a fit team but as Robyn hadn’t stayed at a hut before I thought it best to have the whole alpine experience, people snoring, no sleep and early starts. The descriptions for the route was “A fine, introductory route which is on generally good rock” – sounds great for what we were looking for, doesn’t it? I will get back to the guide book later.
The walk from the car park to the Glacier Blanc hut where we were staying was lovely – never steep, lovely views and a few friendly marmots to play with on the way up (don’t feed the marmots kids). The hut was comfy, the four course evening meal provided was awesome and it even included a cheese course, wow.
Bed time at 8:30 pm never really suits me. I am normally getting in from a day out at that time and about to sit in front of computer and sort my admin. Either way I tried to go to sleep without much luck – always the way. Four Spanish climbers walked in late and proceeded to shine their head torches around the room shouting – thanks to all of dorm 8 – c**ks
At 4 am we were up and eating breakfast and getting ready to set off. The weather outside was clear and as we walked off the sun rose and the clouds dropped off into the valley giving some spectacular photo opportunities. A great start to the day and very alpine in every way. The sun, clouds and the amazing alpine flowers that give colour at your feet that would otherwise be dull rock. Stunning.
We walked along the glacier giving Robyn a chance to try out crampons and swing an ice axe at me, getting the hang of all that stuff I learnt 12 years ago and take for granted. The route we were climbing was a long ridge and was obvious from the hut, however the weather was starting to come in and the whole of the summit of the Barre des Ecrins was engulfed in cloud and the line of people going up the normal route was huge – I was very happy not to be part of that line, instead we were going somewhere a little different.
There were a few old snow slopes on the approach to the ridge and I had to cut a few steps, trying to show Robyn all the different types of ice axe use before we got on with main event. We reached the start of the route at around 8 am, a quick bite to eat and I started up the first pitch.
Climbing in big boots, ruck sack on etc etc I had decided not to take any quick draws just a few slings, 2 hexs and a couple of wires as the climbing was grade IV (around hard serve UK grade) and it shouldn’t be a problem. The climbing wasn’t hard but the quality of the rock wasn’t great. I had one 60 metre rope that I had doubled to twin 30m making sure that I was keeping the pitches short and fast. Fast and light – alpine style, or so I hoped.
We were going well, the route was easy enough and I managed to protect everything with flicking my rope around spikes and the occasional sling here and there. Back to the description “A fine, introductory route which is on generally good rock” – the rock was shit really, lots of small loose blocks sort of mixed in with big loose blocks. Maybe that is a good introduction to alpine climbing? maybe it is hhhmmmmm!!
Robyn got a tad worried here and there probably due to me running up the route occasional placing gear due to the weather coming up, trying to keep the pace up. I don’t mind being in bad weather at all and I quite like loose rock climbing but the descent off these sort of routes is usually worse than the climb and having not done this peak before I wanted to crack on.
The ridge reared up, right at the point the guide booked described the route as flattening off and making a 25 m abseil to a Breche. It took me 5 minutes or so to work out what the f**k was going and finding the abseil station. Which for those that want to know is “step round the arete to right and go up 20 meters to the crest, then down climb to the abseil station that is out of sight”. From here the ridge got much more interesting going left, right, up, down and around – lucky us. I started liking the route more and more at this point – quality climbing all the way, loose but quality in that special way. “Talk to me, I am scared” I heard shouted a few times from between knife edge fins, got to keep the happy needle in the green I thought “doing well”, I shouted – good coaching that.
The summit took a while to get to. I am not sure how many pitches, we moved together a lot and I didn’t really ever build a belay. It’s not a good route for novices to climb, you would get lost a few times but it’s good for the middle man. We were just below the clouds on the summit and the descent seemed straight forward enough, we descended east off the peak, down a snow ridge and another steep loose face. The guide book gave two options east or west and our route ‘east’ seemed easy, obvious and safe enough, as long as you’re not wearing roller skates.
The walk down from the summit to the car park was long and no sooner had we made it down off the summit ridge then the rain came in. We put our waterproofs on and got soaked all the way to Ailefroide where the rain didn’t stop for 27 hours.
Good route? Yeah, it’s good. The route gives a good intro to everything alpine – we got to go along a glacier, up snow slopes, a long ridge, easy climbing in big boots, snow aretes, steep descents and a long walk off. Alpine climbing baby – I do like it very much.
Pic du Glacier Blanc 3,527 m via the South Ridge.
The next day the rain came in more and more and the river and gorges were all thundering with water so we strapped on the waterproofs and went out and bagged the via ferrata over the gorge at the base of the town. Go and do it, it’s bloody brilliant, very new and exciting.
