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| 'Greenspit' - Valle dell'Orco |
Switzerland
and stormy climbing
We
went towards 'Le petit Clocher du Portalet' near Martigny.
This is an amazing granite spire at more or less 2500 meters
altitude. After an approach of 2 to 3 hours with all the gear and
food we've put up camp in a one hour distance walk of the spire. In
advance we checked the weather forecast and knew the weather gods
were possibly going to be angry those days. The same day we walked up
to camp we left for our first climbing day at the spire. Sean already
had been a couple of times to this spire and had already done most of
the lines, his motivation to return was the line 'Darbelet'. I was
just so impressed about this spire it didn't really matter what I
climbed. This line is a multi-pitch with first some easy pitches and
at the end two really impressive lines. The first line is a thin
crack of 40 meter with small protection and some pitons. The amazing
thing about this line is that it's so sustained you have to stay
focussed and precise the whole way long with a little crux at the
end. We tried this line a couple of times in between some little
storms. We only got to try the first hard pitch because of a wet
second pitch but it was already enough hard moves to search out. The
second day we did the same but finished with an easier line that
brought us to the top. Our third day we went down again to
civilization because they predicted a whole day of storm which we
didn't really notice.
This
was a short but nice and interesting stop on our way to Valle
Dell'Orco. By the time we climbed in Switzerland the temperatures
in Orco got colder so we could go on towards our original
destination.
The
send of Greenspit – The impressive roof crack of Didier Berthod!
Both
of us had one particular goal for going to the Orco valley, the goal
was to repeat the famous climb Greenspit. This one traditional line
that is considered to be one of Europe's most difficult crack climbs
was first free climbed on natural protection by the swiss climber
Didier Berthod. In 2008 Nicolas Favresse repeated this climb and did
a 2th
ascend.
Greenspit
(8b/+) is a hard roof crack on a big granite boulder in the Orco
valley. This is the only line on this boulder and the most obvious
one. It's only about 12 meters long but it's some super technical
crackclimbing. After a week of working out the amazingly physical and
still technical moves I realised to climb Greenspit free
while placing the protection. This line has only been climbed
free a hand full of times by really strong climbers. I don't really know exactely how many ascends Greenspit has.
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| This is where the crux move starts! |
We
had about one week to try this line. After two days of figuring out
the moves, the projecting could begin. With a lot of tape and pain we
each did about tree try's every day, our body's were wracked of the
jamming. That's the crazy thing with a crack like that, at first it
can feel so impossible and then afterwards if you figured out the
moves it can feel way better and the moves will cost a lot less
energy. Climbing a crack asks so much feeling with the moves and the
coordination of the body in the crack. Some try's it just didn't feel
possible to do the moves, it didn't work, followed by a try
everything just flows. In total I tried this line five days
with some rest days in between to let recover my hands and body.
For
me the biggest victory about climbing this line is the fact I really
focussed on this line and I enjoyed almost every moment without to
much 'brain farts' like Sean would call it. I believed in the
possibility I could climb it and had just one goal, sending it. The
first day I tried this line with Olivier and Florian in July I would
not even dare to think I could climb this line. I was so intimidated
by at first. I'm so happy with this ascent, it gives me even more
motivation to look for more cracks and interesting lines like that.
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| There is still one Greenspit! |
Those extra pictures are taken by Olivier Delcosse in my first try at the end of July. Thanks Oli!
