Antoine and I climb Grépon–Mer de Glace: tough Chamonix granite, the Knubel crack and an emotional summit, followed by a long descent via the Nantillons.
Third stage of the rocket today… The alarm stings a bit this morning. One of those days when it wouldn’t take much to fling that insolently ringing phone across the room and go back to sleep until noon!
We’ve decided to let three teams go ahead, assuming they’ll be faster, so we can climb without the pressure of anyone breathing down our necks… As it happens, a coincidence of schedules and cooperative weather means four other teams have the same plan as us today: Grépon–Mer de Glace.
Grépon–Mer de Glace: grade IV+ that makes you work!
Once across the bergschrund, we settle in for a wait. The teams ahead aren’t moving quite as smoothly as we’d imagined, so we take the opportunity to admire the view… Before the abseil giving access to the upper part of the route, all three teams ahead make the same route-finding mistake, allowing us to move back into the lead.
The higher we climb, the better the climbing gets! And the harder it gets! Above the niche des Amis, the Chamonix IV+ climbing and the efforts of the previous days begin to make themselves felt. Those IV+ pitches up here look suspiciously like lowland 6a! After two long pitches, Yannick and his client catch up with us. They’ve been in rock shoes from the start, which finally convinces Antoine to ditch his mountaineering boots for the finish!
I can tell Antoine is getting a little tired of these oceans of granite, but we’re close to the top… Still, we’ve both read the topo, and let’s be honest: the hard climbing is above us! The last two pitches leading to the Balfour notch are a fine distillation of Chamonix climbing, with every style thrown in, from slabs to cracks that are just too wide!
The Knubel crack and an emotional summit
At the Balfour notch, only 20 metres separate us from the summit: the famous Knubel crack, the massif’s first V+, and a lovely piece of climbing history… I sense Antoine would happily make his escape… But the chance to climb without a pack, and the lure of the summit, give him the boost he needs.
Arriving on the Grépon is magnificent. The final move brings us onto a summit the size of a table, tucked into a ridge of dizzying pinnacles above Chamonix. We’re moved to be here!
The Nantillons: the summit isn’t the finish
On the Grépon, the summit is a long way from the finish. But today, with conditions still fairly good on the Nantillons glacier and Antoine happy to gallop down snow slopes, we’ll take “only” three hours to reach the cable car, after countless downclimbs, acrobatic abseils and assorted other delights…
We finish at the cable car snack bar with Yannick and his client. Thankfully, Yannick is there to tell Antoine how well he’s done, because he no longer believes me!
Bravo, my Roberto! It was an ambitious programme, and you handled it brilliantly from start to finish, despite a sadistic guide who kept you in mountaineering boots a little too long!
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