Conditions in the Mont Blanc massif are pretty dry and generally not perfect for the usual goulotte climbing which normally is great for this time of the year. One of the places that nevertheless are in a good shape is the north face of Grandes Jorasses – one of the classic 6 north faces. This mythical mountain face sports serious and long routes in the TD+/ED range, no route less than 1000m long.
This is exactly what my climbing partner (Stian) and I went to take advantage of today. We had put our eyes towards a route that combines setions of the Slovene route and the Croz spur route. We had found information from other climbers giving a good idea about the conditions of the route (see: http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=4982
2).
Unfortunately Stian suffered from blisters on the approach to the hut yesterday. Still hoping it would not be too bad, we left the hut around 2:30 this morning plodding up the glacier. The glaciers are quite bare and icy and the gradual rising slopes just accentuated the pain.
After about 1h we turned around. It wouldn’t work climbing a 1000m ice & mixed route with painful feet. Another team had the same problem and also had to abandon – Just wasn’t in the cards today!
Soon, quite different holidays coming up – surfing in much warmer climate ….The Slovene-Croz route will be on the list for later 🙂
Here a picture of the NFace of Grandes Jorasses last evening w. our intended route.
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