Climbing, coffee and chaos

A memorable holiday in the Alps

Climbing often attracts people who are like the human equivalent of Collies Left to our own devices all we want to do is climb every piece of rock in sight. Combine this with making it your job, a good run of weather and a need to make a good amount of money you end up with something akin to how I spent spring and the start of summer of 2023. After a family wedding in mid-April every day then on was spent on the hill or crag and by the end of June I was starting to feel a bit burnt out, I needed a holiday!

I had never actually tied on with Jack Thompsett although having known each other for a few years we both had an inkling that we would work well together on bigger routes; and almost most importantly where both on the same page when it came to how much risk we are willing to accept. So, when he asked if I would be keen to go out to Chamonix in July with the promise of a big route or two and some nice rest days in cafes, I set aside two weeks and psyched myself up for some serious chilling! After all this was Jack. That man bloody loves a café!

After a very soggy lap of the Aonach Eagach in Glencoe I waved goodbye to my clients for the day and started the long drive down to Jacks in North Wales. Arriving in the early hours the following morning I had a bit of sleep and then proceeded to make “full use” of his new deluxe coffee machine. A whole bag of fancy coffee beans later we left Jacks partner Kati, housemate Josh and Llanberis and were on our way to the climbing mecca that is Chamonix.

Cruising down the motorways we looked at forecasts and discussed plans. It was clear there was a very favourable weather window that would only last a few days just as we arrived. Wanting to acclimatise for bigger objectives later in the trip it would be nice to immediately “get on it”. We racked our brains for something we would both be keen for and make sense logistically. An impromptu phone call with Tom, in which he was actually trying to sell Jack his old car, sparked our interest in a route neither of us had heard of before. The “North West Ridge” of the Grand Charmoz seemed to suit the bill perfectly. Having not heard of anyone having doing it before, being long-ish (around 950m of climbing), the terrain having very distinct sections of pitched climbing or moving together and with the option to either carry on along the Charmoz-Grepon traverse or abseil down the Cordier Pillar it fit all the criteria we were looking for. The Grand Charmoz sits proudly in the skyline above Chamonix and having climbed it once before three years prior (via the Cordier) it felt like a “relaxed” objective? I was especially intrigued when I saw on UKC the only logs had been from big Greg Boswell and Ally Swinton (two fellow Scottish “enthusiasts”). We managed to drive a fair way after the ferry to a French “aire” before calling it a day (the infrastructure and road network in Europe never ceases to impress me when you compare it to our dilapidated road network and services stations in the UK). After a night dealing with a treacherous night of not getting robbed, we pootled down the road to Chamonix the next day.

Arriving mid-afternoon, we were greeted by an enthusiastic Matt Pavitt whom filled us in on all the gossip whilst we packed as fast as we could as to make the last lift to the Plan de l’Aiguille. Leaving my van keys with Pav (and allowing him to stay in it whilst we were away) we hopped on the lift with the customary baguette strapped to the rucksack (“how to spot a brit in cham”). A familiar jaunt across some boulders brought us to our bivi spot for the evening overlooking our line for the following day.

Feeling anything but fresh (a consistent theme in my life my girlfriend loves to remind me when I complain about being knackered…oops) we settled down to a night with all the usual feelings of trepidation.

4am Oh god, it never gets any easier. Just get up and go.

We leave our bivi shelter and head across the glacier to the base of the route. The route starts up a broad open gully leading to the col on the main ridge itself. Jack took this block with a mixture of moving together and a few short pitches at the top. Arriving on the main arete you are greeted with an incredible view towards the north face of the Dru, the Verte and the Mer de Glace. At this point we started questing up the wrong line although this was quickly rectified with a short abseil back onto the line. Moving fast swinging blocks up the easier ground with the morning “alpine glow” felt really enjoyable. Some slightly looser than preferable ground brought us to the bottom of the first of the proper pitches of climbing. Here we took a welcome break to put on rock shoes and pootled up an enjoyable pitch to 5b complemented by the litany of pegs and fixed gear which adorn many routes in the Mont Blanc massif. At this point the route changes in character and there is more pitches of climbing as well as still some moving together. A memorable moment in this section is the overhung 5m 6a crack which feels pretty powerful especially with a rucksack and thin air.

Upon reaching a very small, exposed, stance equipped with multiple pegs and insitu wires one of the real memorable (ridiculous) moments of the route lies ahead. The next section involves a 20 metre horizontal and 10 metres vertical abseil, a real test of your ropework. Loving a bit of rope shenanigans, I set off aiding across away from the anchor whilst abseiling. The ground below is slightly overhung down a shear face all the way to the Nantillons glacier. Upon reaching the last possible bit of gear (a poor sling about 2 metres to the right of the last bit of fixed gear), I abseiled straight down, swinging a wee bit as I went, to get into the corner below. Grabbing the holds in the corner I carefully reascended 5m or so back up onto a sloping ledge and a bomber anchor. What fun! During the first ascent of this route by Pierre Allain and Marcel Schatz in 1950 leading out on this section must have been wild! Jack then followed across making almost as many noises as I did as he removed all the additional gear and abseiled straight down even further from the wall than I had been. A bit of hauling off the new anchor brought him back onto the rock and the sloping ledge with me. Another pitch of climbing brought us back onto the crest and a large comfortable bivi ledge below the last few pitches of 6a/6a+ climbing. We did some serious chilling on this ledge for perhaps a bit longer than we should, taking in the views and having the first of what was to be many French quiche over the course of the summer. At some point we decided we should probably crack on and I wobbled my way up the next pitch to the bottom of the fabled 6a+ slab. It must be said starting the initial section of this pitch is notably harder than anything else on route and involved some weird undercut feet and pressing out into a few friction based moves. I must admit, I was happy to be on toprope for this section! This pitch brought us almost to the top of the Grand Charmoz were we saw the first of accouple teams on the Cordier Pillar.

Being around midday at this point we had an optimistic chat about carrying on the traverse but where both keen to cut our losses here and start abseiling down the Cordier. Initially the decent was going well until a French team who had started descending at the same time as us started to become a problem. At one point threading the same million as us, in effect trapping all the ropes. When I go down to Jack, he was having bit of a barmy with them and generally we where just getting in each other’s way. Towards the bottom I abseiled too far to the right and ended up off line hanging on a blank slab. Thinking I could correct this I did some pendulum across to my left thinking I could get to an anchor or create one with minimal gear. This was not to be and I wasted quite a lot of time trying to get up to an old insitu sling resulting in a very uncomfortable hanging stance off a sling of questionable vintage which was difficult to back up. Jack came down to me and we did our best to get back onto the the line of the route. We made it down the rest of the abseils only getting our rope suck on the second last one for the first time in descent, not bad concidering the 6 or 700m of rappelling. Getting down onto the glacier again we did the usual speed shuffle down hoping to avoid the inevitable rockfall.

Two weeks later I would be sitting at home in Fort William when Will would come running down stairs to inform me a friend of ours Jordan had broken a custom rucksack, he had got off Will on this very glacier. Much annoyance then occurred from Will! How could one of his bombproof rucksacks be broken? Only a few hours later Jordans climbing partner “big” Dom messaged us to say that Jordan had been hit by a big rock descending the Nantillons Glacier and had to be helicoptered to hospital with! Lucky to be alive and faith restored in Wills packs!

As was to be expected we missed the last lift down and decided to just sleep on the decking to get down in the morning. With the first route of the trip done we settled into a few days of chilling in the valley visiting the usual accoutrements of cafes and meeting pals.

With another weather window on the horizon for thew weekend we fancied something a bit “heftier”. Neither of us had ever climbed on the south side of Mont Blanc. This side has the allure of being home to some big historical classics and hopefully quieter. We hatched a plan alongside Matt and Ollie to head to the Eccles Bivouac huts below the Innomina ridge and climb on either of the big pillars leading right to the summit of Mont Blanc.

This is where some of mine and Jacks tactics become a bit interesting. We decided we would walk into the Monzino hut to spend a night, then walk into the Eccles early the following morning whilst the glacier was hopefully frozen. Spend a whole day chilling at the hut before launching up a route in the early hours of the morning to hopefully descend in a single push. Our hope for this would be the extra night would allow us to conserve energy and acclimatise a bit more before racing up a technical route to the highest point in western Europe. Calling for a stripped-down approach we both only had our layers, a big belay jacket, a stove for water and a bivibag to both cuddle in.

“Aye it will be grand. These things usually work out?”

Sitting in the queue through the Mont Blanc tunnel whilst Matt played the “Brothers Grimsby” through the cars speakers will be etched in my memory (for the amount of embarrassment felt). Happy holiday goers looked on in disgust at the profanities blasting out. Jack and myself then approached the Monzino Hut up the breathtaking Val Veny. The Hut was relatively quiet and housed a beautiful old sheep dog, who through our extremely poor Italian and the hut guardians poor English apparently has to be helicoptered in as he can’t walk up any more. The via ferrata probably doesn’t help. The views around the hut are incredible, one of the most inspiring places in the alps! The next morning, we walked up the heavily crevassed glacier to the Eccles bivouac hut. This is where are problems started coming in thick and fast. Upon reaching the steep snow slope which both huts sit, we caught up with Matt and Ollie who had just attempted to open the door to the newly constructed hut. Whilst opening the door, they had met some very angry French climbers who told them to piss off and that there wasn’t any more space. These climbers had already been there one full day but the higher-than-expected temperatures had led them all to bail on their objectives or sitting it out for another day in the hope conditions would improve. So, the four of us settled into the dilapidated old shelter that sits perilously overhanging the face below. To say this shelter was in poor condition would be a bit of an understatement. Access to the shelter is through a hole in the side created from one of the many large rockfalls which have smashed into it. With 9 rather cosy bunks and a litany of blankets we settled in. Not long after did a team of 4 join us in the hut. A guide, his client, the guides girlfriend and her climbing partner all settled into bunks and we all happily started to melt water for the day. More people kept coming (often having already tried to access the other hut and being told to go away very rudely) and we kept trying to fit everyone in, two to a bunk, apart from the client and the partner of the girlfriend who insisted on having their own beds. The hut now becoming so cramped doing anything let alone melt snow was becoming an issue. How were we all going to get enough rest for some of the biggest alpine routes of our lives?

The afternoon rolled around and things where really heating up. Some teams could be seen to bail from the red pillar (due to high winds) and around 4pm we decided we had had enough ditching some extra food and gas with the boys and some other teams in the hut we thought we might try and start up a route. Even getting out of the hut showed how futile this was. The snow was saturated beyond belief and any movement would result in sinking at times up to your waist. Calling a retreat, we found our bed in the hut had already been taken by a team who had arrived in the 10 minutes we weren’t in it. Deflated but confident in our decision to bail we started heading down the glacier. Crevasses which we had been able to step over on the approach were now considerably larger. Different methods had to be deployed to navigate our way around them safely and the stability of the extremely soft snow didn’t aid progress. At one point, still in view of the hut, we used a bucket seat to protect crossing of a big crevasse, much to the amusement of those in the hut apparently. Possibly one of the most British techniques to deploy. Upon reaching the Monzino we had a can of coke and then headed back down into the baking valley below to try and get back to our van in Chamonix that night. We got down and managed to hitch along the Valley to Courmayeur for a pizza and to book a night bus through the tunnel. Happy with our plan we ambled to the bus only to find, despite having already booked and paid we wouldn’t be allowed on without our passports. Fuck, our passports where in Chamonix. Just before midnight on the wrong side of a border with no way across we did the only thing we could and started walking to the tunnel praying for a hitch.

Most teens have at some point, in their more regrettable moments, woken up outside confused and unsure how they got there. Think Glasgow bus stops, some strangers floor, a ditch, the pavement outside your flat or a park. Having no success with getting back through the tunnel we settled down to a night in the park lying on the ground with our down jackets on, tragic. This truly was the pinnacle of alpinism! We lay there not really sleeping worried about getting mugged and as soon as the sun rose, we headed straight for the entrance to the tunnel. Desperate for a lift we tried calling people we knew and stood for almost 3 hours before some kind soles gave us a lift. Thankful for it all to be over, we enjoyed a nice day in Chamonix finished with watching the climbing world cup finals. We heard that the others where still alive and were descending after getting to the top of the Red pillar but high winds and unfrozen ground had repelled them.

What followed was a few more café days waiting for weather that didn’t arrive. The best news that week was Jack had been accepted onto the IFMGA British Mountain Guides Scheme! We had some more chaos which is best left to one’s imagination. Then all that was left was the grim drive back to Scotland via some routes in North Wales, the Lakes and a fat Burger in the north of France which almost meant we missed the ferry!