Matterhorn NF - Bonatti Direttissima

01/10/2011.  Last weekend I had planned to go climbing with my buddy Walter Hölzler who I met in Yosemity 2009. Walter is one of the most solid and experienced climbers I know, so I was really looking forward to a climb together in the alpine. Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding it didn't work out in the end. Sorry about that Walter! This winter for sure...

Instead, my good friend and roommate Nikolay Primerov came along and we set off to Zermatt for a go at the Bonatti direttissima on the north face of the Matterhorn. Niko and I’ve wanted to do an alpine climb together for a long time but never found the time so it was great to finally be on the way. In Zermatt we got some good beta from Pati (thanks!) but still decided to bring bivy gear, two ropes and a large rack. We’re not climbing in the same league…

After a short nights rest in the Hörnli hut we set off and crossed the bergschrund around 5a.m. The first 100-150 meters of climbing were surprisingly steep with little protection. By sunrise we had reached the traverse of the angels. We made good progress up the first half of the face and the main difficulties but then altitude kicked in. Not wanting to make any stupid mistakes we took it easy and arrived at the summit around 7p.m. just in time for a magnificent sunset.

I'd say that conditions were good on the first third of the climb and OK on the rest. Lot's of bad rock and little protection. Impressive and worth noting is that this was actually Niko’s first north face! This might seem incredibly irresponsible but I must add that Niko’s a previous world champion speed ice climber and no stranger to hard mixed climbing.

Psyched!!

















I had the honor to wear the hat from the Russian national team ;-)

End of the traverse of the angels

Lots of loose rock...

Higher up on good ice (a bit tilted...)

A tired Niko taking the last steps to the summit

Panorama of the Mischabel massif and the shadow of the Matterhorn

Next morning

Now the weather is getting worse. Good for me, as Magnus and I are leaving to tibet in only 9 days. I need to work and prepare.

Grandes Jorasses NF - New variation/route on Pointe Young?

24/09/2011.

Who can be naive enough to believe that they've climbed a new line on the north face of Grandes Jorasses in 2011? Still, whether a line has been undocumentedly climbed or not doesn't change the adventure and fun of heading up into the unknown.

Last weekend Michael and I were back at the Jorasses planning to either have a go at the Bonatti/Vaucher or a line that I'd spotted on Pointe Young last year. I couldn't find the route in any topos but it looked like it could go. Since the Bonatti/Vaucher wasn't looking that great, we decided to have a go.

Right hand side of the north face ©Ben Tibbetts

We were both unacclimatized and felt like shit on the bivy. The next morning I had no motivation to climb so when Michael came down after an attempt on the sketchy bergschrund my mind was already having brunch at Elevation in Chamonix. but...he had left an ice screw up there thinking I'd also like to have a go. I went up to retrieve it and after a few meters of climbing motivation was back...

Conditions were generally great but with some longer sections of thin unprotectable ice. About 400 meters up (where the routes splits into Knez-Skok & Desécures/Robach) we continued straight up through a system of narrow steeper gullies with thin ice. After ca 350 additional meters we topped out at a notch on the NNW spur of Pointe Young. Two 60-meter abseils and a short traverse lead us to the col des Grandes Jorasses and a smooth descent down to Italy and good coffee.
 
We simul-climbed the route in 5 pitches encountering no difficulties higher than M5. It goes without saying that we found no traces of previous ascents but that can of course not be excluded. In an email, Grandes Jorasses expert  Luca Signorelli writes:
 
"It looks like you did the continuation of Cristal Palace originally missed by Ivano. I doubt it has been ever climbed the way you did, but the problem with the R flank of the North Face is that it had a lot of undocumented or poorly documented activity by locals. You may safely claim it as a major variant and see what happens!  Keep in mind that there's a lot left to do on GJ particularly on the Italian side, so a new route claim.wouldn't sound outrageous! "

The approach is a bit trickier this year

It looked liked four people had climbed the Colton/MacIntyre but after that we had to break trail

Perfect conditions on the lower parts

Approaching the crux pitch

Canzio

Italian descent

Michael's German guide book talked about the approach to the Bocalatte hut via the glacier...

Eiger NF- Chant du Cygne

 21/08/2011. With a forecasted freezing level at 4700 meters, I either tend to spend the day in the lake or in the shade. So, back to the Eiger but this time for some rock-climbing on the Geneva pillar on the right hand side of the north face.

Things started well...when it was time to cook dinner our only gas cartridge turned out to be empty. Luckily we had enough wine and cheese not too suffer and as light was fading we settled down in our sleeping bags below the north face. Little did we know that not only 40% of the Swiss vote for UDC (extreme right party), but also the cows are xenophobic. As we were falling asleep we saw a cow running in our direction. We tried to scare it off by screaming and throwing stuff, but it got aggressive and figured we should leave. So, it started licking, biting and impaling Riis’s sleeping pad. Luckily, a hiker showed up, who helped us to hold the cow as we gathered our stuff and relocated camp. The rest of the night we slept under the lift station with the odd wake up by a hungry fox.

The climbing itself was very enjoyable with the first 18 pitches all between 5c-6c. There are some long run-outs on the easier pitches and some sections of bad rock but, in general, great climbing and correct gradings. Following my injury, I'm on a strict no-crimping-diet (and I'm weak), so Riis and Jean had to fight it out for the slabby crux pitch (#19). We all found it to be absolutely nails and an incredible sandbag for a 7a.  After a number of long falls we actually started worrying about getting up until Jean finally led us to the top.

A great topo can be found here:
http://8anisme.blogspot.com/p/le-chant-du-cygne.html

The Geneva pillar is the distinctive pillar on the right (the one that looks the highest)

Bivy before the cow

Psycho cow and German hiker






















Me on the second pitch

Jean starting the head-wall

Riis on the crux pitch

The route finishes on the west ridge, below the actual summit.

Grand Capucin - 'O Sole Mio

13/08/2011. After Riis' and my attempt on the Triple Direct, in September last year, we (Caroline, Riis and I) were keen to get to the top of the Grand Cap this time.

To avoid the crowds we didn't stress too much in the morning (excuse for too many coffee breaks on the way). Our plan was to climb the Swiss route but a team of six Italians were trying to set some sort of group-aid-climbing record and was moving very slowly. Luckily, Caro found a topo for 'O Sole Mio at the start so we decided to switch objectives. It turned out that starting climbing at noon also implicates a lot of water running down from the snowy ledges, making the climbing fairly aquatic and interesting. Anyways, a great outing with fun company and it felt great to be back on Chamonix granite again!

First real pitch

Riis in a wet crack...

Caro getting a shower

Last difficult pitch

Back down just in time

110521 Col du Plan NF

I found some pictures on my camera from a ski descent of the north face of Col du Plan that I did together with Jean Verdonnet in May. Icy conditions like most other runs this season...

Starting from the col, conditions felt fine. So, I did my first turn and slid on blue ice for ten meters.

Me a bit sketched out after a ride

Jean further down

Exiting the gully

Spring and Summer skiing

Last October I injured my finger and haven't been able to rock-climb since. It´s been depressing but I've tried to make the most out of it and stay active in the mountains by mixed climbing and skiing. Finally the finger is starting to feel better so two weeks ago I had my comeback by climbing the miroir d'Argentine together with Giada. It felt great to be back on the rock! Just like last time I didn't bring a topo and ended up climbing 250 out of 500 meters off-route! I onsight soloed the same route last year, which now seemed completely insane to me. It's funny how perspectives change when you're out of the game for only 8 months.

When it got too warm for mixed climbing I started doing a lot more skiing. I don't really have time to post any pics but Seb has a few nice posts on his blog. First up we had an exhausting day tour up the Dom des Mischabel going from 1350m to 4550m in one go.

Dom des Mischabel

The planned west face was very icy but we got some nice powder close to the summit. Still, hard conditions or bad weather seems to be the common theme for most of the skiing seb and I did recently.

Blümlisalphorn north face

The last two weeks it's been snowing loads in Chamonix and the rest of the Alps so we went to check out the NF of the Breithorn. We learned the hard way that Zermatt has pretty much been spared from the recent snow.

Breithorn north face: Triftijgrat

Eiger West Face

The past two times that I've descended the Eiger after climbing the north face I've always found myself thinking it is a pity to walk down, and not to ski, the west face. So, when my friend Luca Pandolfi proposed to go and ski it last week, I was quite psyched. Luca’s an avid steep snowboarder and he’ll surely post some more photos and videos on his website (http://www.lucapandolfi.com) soon. The skiing in general was a lot better than what I had expected (and the top part more challenging). Here are some pics from last Saturday.

Boot packing up below the seracs

Luca and the Mönch

Another esthetic line

High on the face

Spring pow

Real pow

The north and the west face