The Big Pretty: Col Est du Pelvoux (3609m) -- Couloir Nord

After a couple of monumental failures (see the post from June this past summer), my friend Rui and I finally completed a high mountain route together. We were looking for a glaciated objective, accessible in a day and without a téléphérique... the Glacier Noir in the Ecrins naturally fit the bill. I mentioned to Rui that the route would involve more hiking than a typical Chamonix objective, especially on the descent, but I don't think Rui quite understood what I meant until we were looking down from our high point at larch forest 6000' below, no cable cars for miles...

I'm psyched that we were dumb and tough enough to persevere and succeed on this route, for a couple of reasons. First, we rolled into the parking lot Friday night at 10pm, and then set alarms for 2am to kick off our 15-hour day. So the hagard factor was definitely high. Second, we had hoped that the half meter of snow fall last week would have padded things out and made the route less bony than typical autumn conditions (most parties climb or even ski the route in May or June). It turns out the new snow did not stick to the 50-60° glare ice, so we ended up doing close to 700 vertical meters of front pointing. My calves have never before gotten so rocked, and I can only describe the experience in the final couloir as being downright painful. That said, the full moon AM approach, interesting climbing down low on steeper ice sections, the satisfaction of emerging out of a cold, dark north face into sunshine and gentle snow slopes, not to mention the beautiful fall light filtering everything we saw, made it all worthwhile.

There are at least a half dozen other of Rébuffat's 100 Plus Belles itineraries in the sector, and I am already looking forward to going back with better conditions and stronger legs...