Eperon Nord de la Grande Glière (3393m) with Tof - Vanoise

Content with progress over the past three months, my advisor at the Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine (LECA) let me take a couple days off to play hooky with Tof in the Vanoise mountains. I think we can all agree that it's important to step out of the office and experience the altitudinal gradient from time to time...  

The éperon nord (northern spur) follows the sun/shadow line for about 2000 vertical feet up to the perched snow field.

What's left of the Glacier Nord de la Glière still offers up some heady ambiance.  The route was never too hard (4c max), but definitely "grandiose" while offering a healthy dose of loose rock and routefinding challenges. 

A rare midweek summit grin!

The south side: we descended the ridge on the right (airy downclimbing, no rappels) and then walked out the valley. Tof was tagged by a falling rock early on in the day and the bruise began to really bother him on the descent...  for the record he did manage to guide three clients the following day hiking in the Chartreuse!

***Friends Kyle Scharfe and Caryn Rouse arrive from Montana this Tuesday -- the plan is to get it in Chamonix for 4-5 days and then transition south for an extended session in les Ecrins. Super psyched!!

Retour de la cordée Brad & Hillary: Roche de la Muzelle (3464m), les Ecrins

Regular readers of this blog I'm sure have noticed by now a consistent trend over the past several months: obscure, glaciated 3000m peaks in les Ecrins. Sure bets include long approaches,  rock that is difficult to protect and often loose, loss of pitons and slings on descents, "locals only" route-finding, and long days out far from the alpin' crowds swarming elsewhere. This latest chapter recounts Hillary and my first climb together since the dark days of mid-winter. 

Hill and I scrambled out of Grenoble at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and found ourselves an hour later in Bourg d'Arud at the beginning of the Véneon valley. Residents peered out their windows with skepticism as we began the 4-hour (book time), +1200m hike up to the Lac de la Muzelle at the tardy hour of 6:30pm. Hill set a relentless pace as usual, and I soon found myself redlined trying to keep up, charging up switchbacks in just boxers and mountain boots. 

One upside to beginning at 900m is the opportunity to see all stages (or "floors") of the mountain environment. We began in the "étage montagnard" which features old stone foundations and mixed beech and fir forest, followed by the "étage subalpin," a mosaic of pine, alder, juniper and grasses frequently ravaged by landslides and avalanches, and finally emerged at the beginning of the "étage alpin" at around the 2000m mark. Here the tree line is suppressed by grazing in the summer, making for   a smooth carpet of alpine sedge that eventually transitions to talus and névé around 2400m. Our destination was the Refuge de la Muzelle, perched on a lake at 2115m.

Our stay at the hut was cut short by the alarm sounding at 3:30 am. I think this moment - rallying for an alpine start after a long week - is the consistent crux of weekend warriordom. There is just no way your body is going to support the decision to get up and go at this juncture. Things started to make sense at sunrise, when the snow and clouds became lit with soft light. The clear night had made for a solid refreeze, which allowed us to march across the hanging glacier leaving only the faint tracks of our crampons. I love the feeling up there of being at the right place at the right time, even if the early-morning rendez vous is not easy to make. Especially during the summer season and without skis, it is essential to play by the rules and be on the glacier when the snow bridges are "locked up" and the mountain is at its safest. 

Hill deserves huge credit for rallying for a day that ended up being a lot harder than planned. After climbing a couloir up the north face, we embarked on a descent down the regular route of the northeast ridge. The combination of down-climbing, improvised anchors and exploratory rappels made for a heady brew of adventure and uncertainty. We both felt the stress and I was ready for Hillary to throw a well-justified tantrum, but instead she stayed positive and patiently kept piecing it together. Four hours after leaving the summit, it felt really good to touch down on the glacier and be back in "one foot in front of the other" terrain. Most of all it was awesome to be back in the mountains with Hill, and I'm so grateful that we're able to keep sharing time up there. 

Hillary taking her single mountain axe higher and steeper than called for in the catalog. 

Sporting our faux Mammut puffies that Jean Mi acquired during his most recent trip to Nepal.

We are ready to accept sponsorship.

Note the choice slung horn lower left.

MADE IN CHARTREUSE: Arch hunting with Christophe

            As part of the “prealps,” summits in the Chartreuse are far from the highest or the most prestigious relative to the Grenoble area offerings. The succeed and leave approach has little merit here, where skiing and climbing objectives are quickly eclipsed by the higher peaks of les Ecrins or the Mont Blanc range. On several occasions I’ve shown up for a casual outing in the Chartreuse, feeling like the real deal after a recent trip to this or that peak, only to become completely lost in the Chartreusien maze of forest and crag. The endless limestone cliff bands offer up a lifetime’s worth of poorly protected choss climbing, and opportunities for never-to-be repeated first ascents abound. At best the skiing is high-quality minigolf, while at worst it can rival the suffering and frustration of a misadventure backcountry skiing in the Adirondacks. My friend Darin and I still haven’t forgiven Christophe for insisting that we head to the Chartreuse on a stable, bluebird powder day this past March, a decision that lead to our getting cliffed out and turned around in a thick forest at 1600m (many trailheads in the region start at 2000!).

            I nonetheless look forward to visits to the Chartreuse in all seasons, and with Christophe in particular, perhaps because the pursuit of adventure in a backwater massif makes me feel at home.  And in addition to being a world class hiking venue, the wild limestone topography of the Chartreuse offers up an activity that can’t be found in the higher ranges:  arch hunting.  This past Saturday, Christophe motivated me for a nine-hour circuit roaming airy chamois trails in search of the perfect frame looking north across the Grésivaudan valley to Mont Blanc. 

Looking northwest toward the Lances de Malissard and the plateau that is the crown jewel of the park.