Team Send of the Aiguille du Pouce

The Mont Blanc Massif from the Aiguille du Pouce

     I had never done any rock climbing on previous trips out to the Alps, mainly focussed on the snow routes to the summit. However Ben and Kirsty had hatched a plan on their five week road trip around the Alps and Dolomites. They had always wanted to climb the South Face of the Aiguille du Pouce, taking the Voie des dallas, a 350m route which weaves its way up the face. As neither Piers or I had done any climbing on rock in the Alps, we were a bit unsure as to the conversion of grades, thinking it might have been a bit out of our depth with several pitches of 5c and 5b. Ben said we’d be fine so we went along with it, easy enough for the lad who has onsighted E5 to say. 

The team camping up by the old Index lift

     We caught the last Index lift up and camped by the old lift station ready for an early start the following morning as Ben and Kirsty needed to be driving back that evening to catch their ferry the following day. A 5am start led us up a loose and ever steeping gully of scree and choss towards the col above where we first saw the Pouce. It looked huge, the route being 15 pitches and a long ridge traverse to regain the col on descent, but first we had to climb it. We descended over the col and into the corrie below with no axes and crampons required at the moment, we only had a couple of small snow patches to cross. We reached the bottom of the route and looked up, it was big, and very committing for us with our 50m single rope. I was nervous about what lay ahead, uncertainty at its difficulty and the amount of gear up there, the guide saying it was only partly equipped. 

Cold fingers and toes on the lower slabs

     Piers led off on the first pitch crossed a bold ledge and slab to reach the first belay. The rock was cold to the touch, and my feet felt numb in my rock shoes as I padded up the slab. It was 7:30am. Piers wasn’t to happy with the rock, we probably should have picked a shorter less committing route to acquaint ourselves with the rock and style of Chamonix climbing. The next few pitches were proving to be the crux pitches as I said I would lead through them. These pitches were bold as I lead off, the very occasionally bolt providing some protection up the compact rock. The crux pitches followed and provided some bold slab moves between poor pegs with very little weaknesses in the rock to place my own protection. We moved behind Kirsty and Ben up the route often a pitch behind meeting them at belays. 

Heading towards the sun several pitches up

     The pitches seemed to blur together, as I focussed on each pitch separately rather than the whole route. I often take this approach on multipitch routes, breaking it down and grind away at the route, rather than being distract by the top pitch when I am only one up. Pitch two, three, four and five were done, and after pitch six and seven  then meat of the route and hard pitches were complete. We moved around the face and into the sun at the beginning of pitch six and it was beating down onto my neck straightaway, as I heated up in my windshirt. These harder pitches followed some definite features, stiff thin cracks riddled by pegs and scars. As we moved onto the easier pitches above, we climbed rounded ribs and small corners which didn’t have much definition making route finding harder. 

Is there any gear this way?

Team on the summit of Aiguille du Pouce

     Up and up, pitch by pitch until we reached a the loose chimney of death as we named it. This jumble of huge boulders looked ready to topple at any moment and we hid round the corner as Ben and Kirsty climbed as quiet and controlled as possible not to dislodge anything down in our direction. Kirsty climbed out of view and sounded that she was away from the choss, it was my turn. I climbed as controlled as possible, bridging my way up through the jumble, weaving between the blocks until i was out of the danger zone, up towards the scrambling finish. As Piers appeared over the top of the blocks there was a sigh of relief from us all. Rock boots off, trainers on, with a short scramble to the summit. 

Making our way onto the ridge from the summit

Ben and Kirsty picking their way through the ridge

     From the summit, the guidebook suggested an hour and a half back to the Index lift. We got the coils on and started making our way along the ridge, which was very undulating, and cairns came and went. It became very time consuming, with lots of rock steps up and down and just took time as the rope was a necessity. We arrived back at the col after an hour and a half just on the ridge, and started battling our way down the gully towards the lift and our stashed gear. Back in time for a busy lift, tea and medals in the valley.