The Vanoise Diaries

Prologue
I'll start with a confession: when I first started climbing I was scared of heights. Five or so years ago, the first time I got to the top of the 8-metre high Brixton wall, I could hardly look down; my heart was in my mouth. Many months later, the first time I soloed up the Brixton wall to put the ropes up (as that was the way back then) I was nearly overwhelmed with dizziness and panic.

Roll on five years. I'm leading my way up towards the summit on the north face of the Aguille de Vanoise. My last piece of gear (the trusty pink tricam) is 20 metres below me, with Katy belaying another 10 metres below that. 300 metres below her, the valley floor - with nothing but cold dry air in between. Another vertical kilometre down is the campsite where we started the day. Sea level, where I spend most of my life, is another 1500m lower down again.

My feet are precariously wedged into a shallow snowy groove in the middle of a steep snow-covered slab. My frozen hands gripped onto a little gubbin of nothing. I'm (absurdly) attempting to kick steps in the snow, but the snow is soggy and soft, and my slippery climbing shoes are wildly inappropriate for the wintry conditions. My feet slide downward as the snow compacts. I scrabble around in the slush for a gear placement, but there is nothing to be found and there is so much snow I don't even know where to look. My knees are developing Elvis tendencies, and I'm swearing out loud.

I curse, then breathe, then swing a foot high and left onto a dry section of slab, rockover onto it, then tiptoe up the remaining 5 metres of slab to the relative security of the rock spikes of the knife-like summit ridge. I clip a sling, curse again with relief, then breathe.

The heights have changed but the fear stays the same.



Day one
We based ourselves at Pralognan in the Vanoise Alps in France. I had never been to that region before but thought I'd scope it out for a bigger BCC trip in future. It was a good decision: the Vanoise is an amazing area, beautiful and wild. There are far fewer people than around other places places I've been in the Alps, especially once you're out of town. There are loads of good valley crags to choose from, but it seems the speciality of the region is towering rock spires high up in the mountains and large glacial alpine routes. Pralognan itself is a large village with two campsites, a fair few outdoor shops, a couple of small supermarkets, a few restaurants and bars, a cinema, and even an ice rink. It is nestled in a narrow valley, immediately beneath a set of massive rock faces... a stunning location.

Getting there was easy enough: Eurostar to Lille, TGV to Lyon, car rental and a 2.5 hour drive. Only problems were that Eurostar has a crazy new policy of not allowing ice axes on the train (so we had to rent them out there), and we went to about 10 shops before we found one that sold the right kind of gas for my stove.



Day two
Sunny but cold. We potter about town for a bit (it's a holiday after all) then go find the via ferrata, only a few minutes from the campsite. The route goes up the side of a massive waterfall, meaning you climb directly through the spray. High up the route crosses over the gorge above the waterfall, via three wires strung out across the gorge. They sway in the breeze as you inch your way along. Good fun in retrospect, but I'm happy that Katy didn't have her camera out to record the look of sheer terror on my face as I crossed.

In the afternoon we check out one of the crags, five minutes away from the campsite. Plenty of routes, all blocky and balancy, seemed like every move was either a bridge or a layback. No one else there. Nice.


Day three
A poor forecast, but accurate. We awaken to the sound of rain lashing at the tent, and a fresh layer of snow settled on the hills only a couple of hundred metres higher up. It's August bank holiday Monday, and we're freezing. It's quickly apparent that it's a bad day to climb, so we potter, drink coffee and head out for a walk. We make our way through a verdant green valley, surrounded by rock spires poking out of jagged ridges that disappear into a thick layer of cloud shrouding their summits. Before long we hit the snow line. There are marmots everywhere – Katy counts 30 over the course of the trip. It's beautiful, though somewhat bleak amid the darkening skies. Eventually we hit a milky white-blue-green lake surrounded by scree slopes. Menacing black clouds come streaming up the valley. It's time to turn around.


Day four
Better weather forecast, so we trust it and aim for an early start. Our aim for the day: the Aguille de Vanoise, a remarkable fin of rock rising hundreds of metres from the valley floor yet surrounded by even higher glacier-capped peaks. Traversing the arete of the Aguille de Vanoise involves following the narrow crest of the fin over rock spires and along knife-edge ridges, for hundreds and hundreds of metres. Yet it never gets beyond French grade 4, Alpine AD. A huge day out, but technically shouldn't be too challenging.

The walk-in takes two and a half hours steeply upwards into increasingly wintry terrain. Sun reflects off the snow. We stash some of our gear under a boulder then continue up an increasingly steep and nasty scree slope to the base of the climb. We are concerned by the amount of snow still lying on the ground, but the ridge crest itself looks clear so we go for it anyway. Route-finding is a little tricky, but we head up a series of corners, over spikes and platforms and along narrow necks of rock. It appears to last forever. We pitch the first few sections until we find a rhythm, then start moving together, placing slings and the odd bit of pro as we go.

I had been given the impression that the route would be bolted. I was very wrong. We encountered around 8 bolts within about 500m of climbing – often placed after the crux moves.

The exposure is massive. You're a long long way from solid ground, for a long long time.

A few hours in and it feels a bit much. I stop at a small ledge under a steep chimney. I'm light headed, dizzy almost, and feeling weak. The Fear is kicking in. I start thinking about escape routes, quick ways out. And then it occurs to me, I've forgotten a cardinal rule. We've been moving non-stop for over 5 hours, and I've hardly eaten anything. The fatigue, the light-headedness, the fluttering stomach – it isn't fear, it's hunger. I'm not proud to say it, but I opened up an energy gel. Fifteen minutes later, and all was right with the world.

After a steep few sections the climb becomes a long traverse on the sharp ridge. In some moments, you move hand over hand clutching the edge of the arete, feet balanced on small holds. At others, the top of the ridge forms a narrow walkway, to be stepped along carefully. There are sections of down-climbing, and sections of steep ascent. Just as we think we're making progress we catch a glimpse of further rock spires – there's more to the ridge than you realise.

Eventually we hit a deep notch in the ridge. After a difficult down climb and a delicate traverse along loose rock, the route swings on to the north face of the Aguille. It's covered in snow, several inches deep. Our rock shoes start to look like a rather poor idea. But I creep up the slab in one very long pitch, heart in my mouth, and hit the eastern summit. From there the climb turns into a narrow track along the crest. Then a descent on a grassy slope, hideous in its steepness, punctuated by sketchy downclimbs on steep wet slabs of rock.

At the bottom, just as I can almost breathe normally again, an extraordinary sight: five chamois just in front of us, remarkably unafraid of our presence. They graze, glance up, and keep grazing. Beautiful.

We've been moving non-stop for nearly 11 hours. We stay the night in the Refuge de la Col de Vanoise, thankfully close by. Nestled into a grassy plain surrounded by rock spires and ice, the refuge is justifiably popular with walkers but we seem to be the only climbers around. We shovel as many carbs into us as possible then collapse for an early night, exhausted.


Day five
I've made a mistake. I think I've blown it.

The plan for the day: Pointe de la Grande Gliere, a perfect triangular rocky spike of a mountain jutting out over the valley. I have difficulty understanding the route description with my limited French, and that worries me. But the guidebook seems to suggest you go around a lake, up and across a loose moraine, up a steep scree gulley to a col, up the crest of a ridge, across the top of a steep glacier to another col – and that's where the climbing begins, straight up the arete. We were in for a long day. An early start is necessary: by the afternoon the couloirs start throwing down big blocks of rock. On the Aguille de Vanoise the previous day we could hear a near continuous thunder of rockfall in the afternoon once the snow started melting – almost all of it coming from the direction of where we planned to climb. The refuge had several signs up on recommended start times for different routes, and for the Pointe de la Grande Gliere it's 4am. But it's just hit September and the sun doesn't rise as early as it once did, so we chance it and set the alarm for 5am instead. If we move fast, we should be ok.

I sit bolt upright. I've overslept. I look at my watch – 5:45am. I've never overslept while getting up so early... A swift handful of cereal and a cup of tea and we're out the door – but it's hitting quarter past six and the sun is coming up. Our planned route is swiftly becoming a bad idea.

We start anyway. 200 metres later we change our mind … my slow, caffeine-deprived brain wakes up to the fact that it will be nearly impossible to get back down before the rockfall starts. Instead, a new objective: the Point du Dard (3206m), a point of rock sticking up on the other side of a large glacier. While there's still risk from the glacier going soft in the sunshine, the route is far less steep and less prone to rockfall than our original objective.

The approach should be straightforward, but the freeze-thaw cycle of the previous day means that half the route up a series of rocky slabs is covered in black ice. I fall over twice, thankfully on gentle ground. There are a few hairy step ups, and a few moments crossing scree fields where I lose the line of cairns entirely.

Eventually we hit the edge of the glacier. We gear up, rope up and set off. 10 minutes later, I look down. The 'glacier' that I thought we were on is actually just a thin layer of snow, with rock beneath. We've been using Stephen's maps of the area, printed in 1980, which show the glacier projecting several hundred metres further than it does now. The glacier we're on is the largest in the Savoie, but I wonder what it will look like in 30 years time - if there is anything left of it at all. Scary stuff indeed, and a very different kind of fear than my more ephemeral fear of heights.

There's no one else around as we cross this icy desert. The glacier is fairly straightforward except for a few heavily-crevassed sections, where we weave a cautious track amongst the cracks. The ice makes noise, a deep gutteral groan, all quite freaky.

Before too long we're at the shallow ridge of the Pointe du Dard and it's an easy scramble to the summit. The day is completely clear and the views are amazing – including to a high snow-covered mountain to the north that I'm guessing is probably Mont Blanc.

We've done the peak quicker than we thought, so on the way back we veer off the glacier to another easy scrambling peak, the Pointe de la Rechasse (3212m). The Rechasse is a long narrow ridge separating the main glacier from the valley and the refuge below. We join the ridge at its halfway point, drop our bags, and do the pleasant scramble along the crest to the summit. There's a rather kitsch statue of the Virgin Mary at the top, and an extraordinary view over the Grand Casse and the rest of the Vanoise.

On the return, we decide to follow the ridge for its full length, as the guidebook suggests this should be an easy scramble. And an easy and pleasant scramble it is, until we reach the end of the ridge at a large promontory of rock. There's a drop of around 8 metres on all sides. Beyond us, another spike of rock but with a gap too large to jump and no obvious way down from that rock either. We examine our options. On two sides it's overhanging and impossible to descend. The third side is merely vertical, but shattered rock, snow and verglas abound and -with big boots and big packs and no way of belaying – attempting to down-climb would be irresponsibly dangerous. By this stage I'm willing to abandon some gear to abseil off if necessary – but the rock is completely shattered and very loose, and I can't find a single suitable anchor anywhere. We head back up the ridge, trying to search out any possible descents onto the glacier – but nothing doing. Eventually I find a promising series of sloping ledges, dangerously covered in gravel but this is at least frozen in place for now. A few delicate moves round a corner and then ... the ledges give out, still several metres off anything resembling solid ground. There's no way down.

We open another energy gel, the second in two days. Desperate times, desperate measures... In the end, there is no choice but to retrace our steps back to the col halfway up the ridge, adding at least an hour to an already-long day, and scramble down a scree slope onto the softening glacier. We head down the slabs – thankfully ice-free by now and eventually back to the refuge. We pause for a cup of tea and a breather, and then onto the knee-wrecking descent into the valley below. At last, we return to the village. We've been moving nearly non-stop for over 12 hours.


Day six
On a short trip, your ambitions are almost always greater than the time available. On this trip, we had only six days of climbing available to us, and even that was cut short by the weather. With the kind of ambition you only get from a recent arrival into an extraordinary landscape while your legs are still fresh, our original plan entailed doing the walk in to the Plan des Goulle refuge today with a view to climbing the steep ice couloirs of the Grand Bec (3398m) the following day. But after the ravages of two 11+ hour days in a row, my body just wasn't up for the job. I needed a rest day.

So we started the morning slowly, then ambled along to the local crag only five minutes from the campsite. With climbs of up to five pitches, beautifully solid un-polished rock, and no walk-in, the crag would be absolutely rammed with people if it were in the UK. As it was, we were the only ones there for most of the day. We started with a 4-pitch route up a set of slabby grooves and corners, no more than 4c according to the photocopied topo we got from the tourist office. Katy led first. Above a broad ledge I then started to lead up the second pitch. It was hard going – but I was still tired from the previous two days and had presumed I just hadn't got my climbing head together yet. Then I hit the crux, balancy, precarious and run-out. It was too much for me. I backed off back to the ledge. I looked at the guide and eventually realised I had been following the line of a 6b climb – the 4c route was up an easy chimney to my right. The rest of the route was rather pleasant by comparison, but very exposed – particularly tiptoeing up a slabby ramp to the top.

After the 4 pitch route, we took turns on a pleasant 5c singlepitch, then a two pitch route where Katy led a 5c pitch that must be the most hideously run-out and sketchy of the whole crag (everything else is almost grid-bolted). For the final climb of the day, we went up the four-pitch Arete – pleasant climbing punctuated in its second pitch by a wild traverse over the top of a high overhang, technically not too hard but with nothing but air beneath you. We topped out as the sun disappeared behind a mountain. 12 pitches isn't bad for a rest day.


Day seven
Our final day of climbing and we aim to make it a big one. Our plan: the Grand Marchet, a vast face of rock that towers over the campsite. Most of it is steep, immensely long and rather hairy (the guidebook lists several 'abominable' routes), but the east ridge is a mere seven pitches long – mostly 4c-ish but with a 6a sting in the tail on the final pitch (there is apparently a 5c alternative but it's not shown in the guidebook topo and I'm not confident of finding it). I have to admit to being a little nervous. I've led 6a on well-bolted valley crags successfully albeit with some difficulty. 6a 6 pitches up, on a sparsely bolted mountain route, sounds like a different story. I don't sleep well.

We get up early. The walk in is stunning, through meadows and past cascading waterfalls, but it's also very steep and strenuous. An hour and a half we arrive in an incredible cirque of rock, gated by sheer rock towers. I'm already exhausted.

To get to the start of the climb we have to head up an extremely steep slope of earth and scree. It is nasty to the extreme. Every step causes new cascades of stones down the slope below; nothing is solid.

The route looks amazing if a little serious. But there's a problem: I can't find the start. The guidebook depicts a wide ledge to a grassy promontory, where the route starts next to a boulder. I can see the promontory and boulder, but there is no ledge, no clear way of getting there. There's a French pair climbing a harder route further up the slope, and one of them shouts to me. I don't entirely understand, but he seems to be indicating that the ledge has collapsed, and as a consequence the route now starts from a single bolt on the face above a steep drop, and goes up a wide groove piled up with loose rock before rejoining the main route on the arete. The new first pitch isn't bolted.

Moments later the second French climber takes a whipper of a fall and dislodges a toaster-sized rock that comes bouncing down the slope straight towards us. Katy and I dive in opposite directions to get out of its way and the stone thunders on past, eventually coming to a halt hundreds of metres below. We're unharmed, but needless to say a little freaked out.

I stare long and hard at the route. I had been a little concerned at the prospect of the last pitch, but now it's the first pitch that is concerning me most. It looks like dead easy climbing, but with so much loose rock it would be tricky to ascend without dislodging at least some of it. And the nature of the terrain means the belayer would have to anchor themselves to the bolt – so would be unable to dive out of the way in case of rockfall. Perhaps most seriously, once the first pitch is ascended, the climb would be rather dangerous to retreat from as the abseil would inevitably bring down large quantities of loose rock.

I stared at the climb for a long time, full of indecision. I felt slightly unwell from our rapid ascent. When writing about these things, the temptation is always to make the situation sound extreme – but in truth, I was just simply afraid. Afraid of falling, afraid of failing, afraid of catching a rock in the face and breaking my teeth, afraid of getting stuck on the route and getting caught in an afternoon storm, and just plain old afraid of the height and exposure and general seriousness of the situation.

So we backed off, before even clipping a single bolt. Then we started the long walk back into the valley, where we would spend the afternoon doing pleasant single-pitch sport climbing in the sunshine.

Sometimes there is immense value in confronting your fears, and pushing through them. There are times however when I think it's ok to let fear get the best of you, to trust your instincts, and to back off, regroup and start thinking again of the next climb.

Non, je ne regrette rien.

- Jonathan Gaventa, September 2010

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