In Chamonix, while enjoying an espresso and a croissant on the patissiere's terrace, your eyes easily reach perhaps the most majestic peak of the entire massif. Les Drus, or more precisely Petit and Grand Dru, rises above the valley, almost like a dagger, almost a thousand meters high granite rock.
Les Drus! The Lesueur route follows the ramp/dihedral line starting from the upper edge of the lowest snowfield on the wall, continuing all the way to the top of the Grand Dru. The clearest line on the wall.
The western wall's massive e.g. The rock slide that dropped the Bonatti pillar is still on everyone's mind. The huge gray rock area captures the attention without denying it. Today, even the famous American Direct route, which runs along the outskirts of the west wall, is not recommended for climbing in the summer. Every year, however, the teams try it regardless of the risks - often leaving with a hand in a package on a helicopter ride.
Les Drus is safest to climb in winter. And now I'm talking about the west and north wall routes. Brushes and the south wall are good summer options, but of course not so spectacular.
I have wanted to climb the north wall for many, many years, but in recent years there has been little ice. At the same time, the dry tooling culture and know-how has grown. The wall's basic route Allain-Leininger has changed in ten years from a summer rock-climbing adventure to a pure winter line, the Voie Lesueur has become an even tougher big tiki after the winter ascent of Ueli Steck and Jon Griffith in 2012, and the legendary Voie des Guides has become a modern dry line somewhere around M8+ with a few repetitions.
You have to adapt to the circumstances. At the same time, my own ability to climb with hakus and the kondis in general has grown, making it possible to think that maybe the routes on the wall could be climbed without a hero boat.
If the opportunity came to the wall, Voie Lesueur (850m, M7) seemed the most suitable option. The line built by the Lesueur brothers in the summer of 1952 has become a kind of favorite for tougher routes in these dry winters. It's also a logical, ramp-like line running in the middle of the entire north wall.
The change in climbing culture is also indicated by the always scolded grades. Originally, the line was ED3/ABO, then Steck rated it as M8+ in 2012, and as the repetitions increased, the current M7 fell into place. In recent years, locals specializing in granite mix have suggested M6+ as the grade. It's true that if you go to the drake sanctuary Zoo and compare the physical difficulty of the Lesueur route with the bolt courses of the same grade - maybe the M7 is a bit of a bummer. Everyone can decide for themselves how absurd it is in the end to even compare them to each other, but above all this tells about the growth of the skill level.
Voie Lesueur
I went to Chamonix for spring-winter to practice skiing, but of course I also want to climb something. I'm staying here until the end of April and I set a limit of one bigger alpine route per month, so that there is at least some focus on skiing.
March 22-24 that day the forecast promised windless and cloudless weather, which knew that now if ever we should go big. Fortunately, I was lured by Etienne from France to relax between busy work weeks on the north face of Dru.
The approach is normally handled by descending from the top lift of Grand Montets to the Nant Blanc glacier, but now the cabins can only be admired from ground level after the fall fire. Compagnie du Mont Blanc's cycle of misfortune just continues because the Bochard lift, which takes GM to the second highest, was also broken. This made it even more difficult for Dru to approach, but at the same time it would make everything even more wild.
In the end, we went up on the Herse chairlift, skinned to the top station of Bochard, descended Poubelle gorge (I climbed down) and skinned to Dru's summer bivouac in the incredibly hot sunshine through the boiling powder bowls of Pas du Chevre. On the bottom of the skis, there were constantly three-kilogram balls stuck to the skis. Soon it was no longer possible to remove them because the situation was so desperate. The backpack weighed a ton and the journey did not progress. An extremely heavy approach, even though the distance is quite short.
Sunsets on the Nant Blanc glacier are guaranteed quality with Dru looming behind like a giant tombstone. Sleep, albeit a rolling one, came quickly under the starry sky thinking about the next days adventure. Too much time had already passed since the last night out.
A painful sky in the boiling cauldron of Pas du Chevre. Dru's western wall guards on the right.
Under Dru is the best bivouac spot to watch the sunset in the entire valley.
Mountain life.
We didn't set off until half past five, which was unusually late. In deep snow and bright moonlight, we rode to the beginning of the Allain-Leininger route, which we would follow for the first couple of hundred meters before joining the Lesueur route. This is the established and most logical start to the line.
In the edge ditch, two Germans appeared out of the darkness without lamps and announced that they wanted to follow the same route. A small competition setup was created immediately when I started to climb the child lock at the beginning, which would open the way to the simul section.
For the first time ever, I managed to drop a search on an alpine route. Clang, clang, clang! The pick clattered down the pipe and disappeared from sight. I secured Etienne halfway down the length of rope, then lowered him 30 meters to the glacier where Nomic was found. At the same time, another German had slipped into the stand with lightning speed. The pressure increased, because after the snowfields you wouldn't be able to pass. At least pretty.
“Don’t do that again or we don’t have time to finish the route.” Etienne kiipesi nopeasti vierelle ja singahdin verenmaku suussa simuliosuudelle. Saksalaistenkin vauhti hidastui ja pääsimme varsinaisen annin kimppuun paalupaikalta.
Etienne took the first lead block and led the ropes up. The route hit me in the face immediately. Even easy lengths of rope twinkle while keeping the mind happy.
The line is great because it follows clear weaknesses. We climbed with a single and half rope, so that we could hook the cruxes, but also if necessary, secure with two. In the end we switched to just pulling the half-rope behind to speed things up.
Following weaknesses. All the pictures are almost of Etienne because only I had the camera.
Sometimes it was best to climb with bare hands. Enough hand jams were done.
The trip included four ice screws, one and a half racks of camu, a few wedges, eight extensions, light bivouacs and a fin. The backpack didn't weigh too much, but still, double-crossing the lower crux with the backpack on my back gave me a small pump in my forearms. The search spots were good, but the bulge that fell over was still quite Athletic in the middle of the big north wall.
The first mug. The going is just getting steep.
The lead changed to me and after a long M5 section we were under the second crux. Etienne was able to really entice me to dare to attack the steep and wide river. And it was cool to climb something on the M7's hujakas in that environment. Leaving the backpack to soak was a great solution and I even enjoyed scratching the irons with non-existent crystals. As usual, the upper M5 felt much more difficult. Smooth sanded crack forms crowned against the snow mushroom for stemming.
The world's hardest M5 before the world's hardest M4. The backpack traditionally gets stuck in some rope.
The day continued with long climbs and the most difficult M4 in the world. Apparently, the collapses have changed the route so much that the difficulties no longer match the topo.
The end of a long traverse. Some of the teams have bivited inside the flake shown in the picture.
We got to the planned bivi shelf before six, but what remained to be decided was whether we would climb the upper crux ready for the next morning and fix the rope along which we would descend to the shelf. I didn't have enough enthusiasm anymore, even though I knew that I wouldn't be able to climb the 6b boulder freely in the morning rush. It was enough that we had climbed all the other sections cleanly and smoothly. However, Etienne decided to try and almost made it to the end of the sequence, but the day had taken its toll.
Etienne 6b under the boulder problem. Note the wooden wedges of the ensinouse cracking.
With the rope fixed, we landed on a two-square shelf to spend a very uncomfortable night. The platform was headed towards Chamonix, and I could only sleep on the left side. Etienne made his night even more disgusting by pouring hot water on his sleeping bag. At the same time, it ran out of tea water, so drinking had to wait until the morning at the risk of running out of gas.
But it was a wild place to spend the night. The lights of the cities still glowed tens of kilometers away. So close to civilization, yet so far.
The views were to be avoided at the bivouac site. The bivi itself only gets two and a half stars.
The boys don't know what kind of night is ahead.
After the morning porridge, we pulled ourselves onto the upper crux with ropes, from which we continued a couple of difficult sections, climbing with our bare hands on sledges up to the concrete ice of the north couloir. Forging the ice with dull picks and irons made the nerves explode as the calves throbbed. It was lucky to get to the rock, even though there was the weakest secured part of the route on dead-end gravel. And this gravel was not horizontal but vertical. The scars of rockfalls are clear. Cracks also revealed the highly sought-after rock crystals that are usually encountered on less frequently climbed routes.
The airy Traverse reminded me of the crossing of the gods on the north face of the Eiger, but now only steeper and with worse pitches. Kuomotus knew the end of the route, because only two long simul sections led to the east ridge and finally to the top of Grand Dru in eleven countries on Sunday morning.
North couloir.
Crossing on gravel. It wasn't necessary to make sure too much. All the different colored lines are stone with a bumpy surface, which disintegrates when touched.
The sunlight even made the face look summery. I quickly climbed on top of the top gendarme to take the pictures, because I had always thought that you couldn't climb there. Etienne couldn't be bothered and went to tune the rappels.
Cumbre!!
We descended quite a few times through the dry north couloir, which was insanely steep and almost ice-free. The stone anchors were sometimes questionable due to the lack of binding ice, and hanging out in the narrow tube didn't feel very safe anyway. We also passed the Germans, who were far behind, during the descent. They were at least half a day after us.
We got on skis at two o'clock and headed straight down to Poubelle under the couloir, which would be our way out of the Nant Blanc glacier. You can imagine how wading through knee-deep mud with skis and all the skis in the backpack made me feel low. It's good that you managed to move forward one step at a time. It took a couple of hours for the two hundred meter run. A sharp end to the adventure, which fortunately turned into a wonderful one as we descended the freshly ridden slopes to Argentiere.
The route largely went according to plan. At the same time, it is the most continuous and most difficult alpine route that has been climbed so far. I calculated that we climbed about twenty lengths of rope, including the long simul sections. There were about four pieces of easy lace. All the others were in one way or another prone to climbing.
Pakko myöntää, että tuli taas mietittyä mitähän ihmettä sitä palelee ja pelkää jollakin varjoisalla, lopulta merkityksettömällä seinällä, kun samaan aikaan voisi olla tyttöystävän luona tai vaikka nukkua lämpöisessä pedissä ja lähteä hiihtämään puuteria seuraavana aamuna. “Ei enää vähään aikaan tätä!”
Well, the activity is very cool at times, but the best feeling comes when you get safely to the valley and think about what you did. And that first fresh glass of water...there's something about it!
After the second glass, I was already thinking about which shady wall I would like to climb next.