Traverse of the Chamonix Aiguilles
Rich Bentley and Mike Brownlow at the Plan de l'Aiguille, Chamonix. Wet and tired but pleased and relieved to have completed the traverse of the Chamonix Aiguilles. Photo: Rich Bentley
"The traverse was a brilliant experience, the pinnacles and aiguilles were quite outrageous in their steepness and exposure."
Many thanks to Mike Brownlow and Rich Bentley for their photos and comments below from a grand traverse of the Chamonix Aiguilles in september 2010. The traverse is a classic tough alpine ridge outing and has spat out many hard climbers simply not used to the constantly difficult route finding in ascent and descent!
This is purely a report and some comments from Mike and Rich and their traverse and is, in no way, advice from 'High Mountain Guides'!
The Traverse:
Day 0: You can traverse along to the Great bivi site under the summit rocks of the plan in two and a half hours from the last Bin up the Midi.
Day 1: Climbed Crocidile and descended then climbed Caimen, flake that rebuffat mentions was really nice but had to reverse it and go up corner to the left because of a snowy ledge. couple of mixed pitches after that to the top then some abseils using 60m half and a 40m pull cord. Left my axe on 2nd last ab before the caimen breche, arghh!!! Climbed a very blocky loose chimney to the nw flanks of pt lepiney and had an amazin bivi with caimen one side and fou the other.
"From the Croc to the otherside of the Fou takes ages even though its no distance at all !! (A day and a half for us!)"
Day 2: Made a 30m exposed ab envers side then one cham side then pitch up to Fou col. Rock boots on (glad i had them) aided on a few pegs, couple of pitches then blocky ledge followed by dierdre and corner pitches (photo here) descended Fou, got to Blaitere breche, checked coll to right of south peak then coll between central and north peak then came back to breche and went straight up south peak climbed crack flake feature, had to leave rucksack on pitch before steep bit, poor rich who had major mission pushing it while i pulled. Traversed around south peak then down to col then down the Spencer coulour to the Nantillions descending the left bank, abalakovs and down climbing due to some black ice and one axe between 2. Bivvied just off the glacier at 11ish,
Day 3: Carried on down, viz deterioated, stayed on the ridge when we could have descended to glacier an easyish walk off, encountered some very loose rock towards the end of the ridge. back to the midi and cham for croisaant and coffee, all in all a good experience, but relieved to not be there in bad weather.
Raps & Ropes:
We must have done around 35 plus raps, including getting off the Blaitiere.
Using a 60m half rope and pull cord is just too scary. (Dangling on a single 8mm rope with all that sharp granite around!!! eek!) Weight wise its probably best to take a 60 half rope and a proper 40m 8mm (Can buy these in Tech Extreme for 45 euros). Or take two 50m half ropes.
You can start using the 40mm rope for tat once you are over the Fou.
The final raps off the Caiman are 40m and 20m, Not two 30m's as stated in guides. This is a pain cause Mike had to jug back up the doubled half rope.
Make sure the weather window is excellent and has an extra day more than you need.
Make a sacrifice to the rap gods before you go. We did'nt have a single rope jam, which was a miracle!
Bivvi Sites:
Great bivi site under the summit rocks of the Plan.
Good bivi sites on the shoulder of Point Lepiney.
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