Le Petit Clocher du Portalet - On sight party!

Divine Providence sloped our bodies and brains for two days. We had to pay the price for the three hard and long days being in the mountains and abusing our bodies getting up the Mont Blanc taking the difficult way. Two days we did nothing but eating and hanging out. The two of us still bringing up memories of the climb enjoyed being lazy. No beer or wine for celebration but food! We ate salty pancakes in the evenings and sweet pancakes in the mornings, a real stomach party. 

First climbing we did again was in the sport climbing area of Bionassay, near Salanches. There we climbed for two short days on some perfect limestone. This is a perfect area for when the weather in the mountains is rough. Because of the amount of thunderstorms they announced every evening we took off towards Switzerland where we climbed in Petit Clocher du Portalet for two days. Le Clocher is at a height of 2800 meters so there’s not much snow any more. The same day we climbed in Bionassay we left for Le Clocher. The morning after we hiked up the 2/3-hour hike at 7 am to climb a route before the thunderstorms would come. 

Me in the 7b+ diagonal crack.

We didn’t climb just a route in le Clocher. I had a goal I had in mind for about a couple of weeks already. I did a successful on sight attempt in ‘Ave Cesar’, a real 6-pitch 7c. This is by far my best on sight on trad and granite I’ve ever done. The line climbs first an easy scrambling pitch followed by a short 6b+. Then the party starts. An amazing 7b+ pitch starts off with a hard and technical boulder on tiny crimps leading towards a slightly diagonal crack (20m). To on sight this first one focus and perfection where necessary. This ‘warm-up’ pitch was followed by a wider 6c. 

Then the two crux pitches (both 7c) loomed at us. The first one was a short but thin fingertips crack of 9 meters long. Slowly but calculated I found my way up this one to. The feed where small and preciseness was important to make slow progress. Happily I arrived at the anchor off the first one and amazed I looked up towards the longest and hardest crux pitch of Ave Cesar. A 35-meter long perfect 0.75 BD crack with a thin crux at the end was waiting at us. I wasn’t scared for the ‘ringlock’-climbing in the green camalot size because off my big sausage fingers. I went smoothly up towards the crux where I cracked trough the crux on some vertical crimps and fingertip jams. Also this last and hardest pitch I could on sight. This was an amazing feeling. I realise that our last few weeks climbing on granite seriously affected my climbing style. It’s nice when things go smooth and controlled. 

Tim in the last crux pitch.

Me in 'Esprit de Clocher'

After this perfect day we climbed another 6-pitch route called ‘Esprit de Clocher’, a classic 7a we could do in a little less then 3 hours. Not only the feeling with the rock but also the efficiency as a team between Tim and I is going well after several weeks of multipitch climbing. 

Now we’re heading off towards our next destination for some days. This time it’s not going to be any multipitch climbing any more. We need some crack single pitch climbing now…

‘Ave Cesar’

5^th- 6b+ - 7b+ - 6c – 7c – 7c – 6b+

The Nr. 0.75 BD Cam crack!

Tim in the bouldery start of the 7b+. 

Tim's Cruxinnn!!!

  

  

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Divine Providence – A hard but satisfying journey

The G.P.A. on the left and the arête de Peutrey on the right that leads towards MB de Courmayeur. 

My calves were screaming for some flat ground, we had been climbing on a 40° snow arête for about 3 hours on our third day climbing one of the best climbs I’ve ever done. When I looked up I saw Tim just pulling over the lip of the mountain. It was Mont Blanc de Courmayeur. Tim was on top and screamed loud, I still had to climb 20 meters before I also topped out. Those 20 meters were amazing; the view, the sun, the feeling, the satisfaction, the relief,… Most of all knowing we had just free climbed ‘Divine providence’  (ABO 7c, 900m) on sight and where going to top out on the Mont Blanc for our first time. What a magical moment. 

One of our objectives for this trip was to try and reach the top of the Mont Blanc climbing one of the most difficult and complete lines. We were told of ‘Divine providence’, a route that climbs the 900-meter wall of the Grand Pilier d’Angle on the Northeast side of the Mont Blanc. The two most important reasons we wanted to attempt this classic but difficult climb was to climb the nine amazing crack pitches in the middle free and reach the top of the Mont Blanc for our first time. 

François Marsigny and Patrick Gabbarou have opened the route in 1984 at a grade of ABO A2/A3. Lately it has been free climbed more often and the route became more popular. 

Me from belgium, me not trust 'serac'

Although the Grand Pilier d’Angle is on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc, we started our trip at Aguille du Midi. Most of the time people attempt the route starting from the hut ‘La Fourche’, which is pretty close to the base of the Grand Pilier d’Angle (G.P.A.). From Aguille du Midi we had to hike three hours more before reaching the base of the wall. Sunday morning at 7 o’clock we took the first cabin up, nervous and full of excitement we hiked passed the Combe Maudit, were we camped a week ago, towards our objective. Passing two col’s (the col of the hut La Fourche and col More) we arrived at the glacier underneath the G.P.A. Crossing the glacier was the part of the whole climb we stressed about the most. Above this glacier a lot of ‘seracs’ (=huge overhanging package of snow and ice) are ticking as a time bomb before falling down. 

The Grand Pilier d'Angle where you clearly can see the good rock!

Once we rappelled down of col More, the Mario game started. We had to run across this glacier as quickly as possible. With tons of adrenaline and focus we ran over towards the base of the wall. To reach the wall we had to cross the ‘rimais’ (crack between the snow and the base of the wall). I was going ahead, I chose to cross towards the safe rock passing a snow bridge over the rimais. While I was crossing the bridge I talked to myself: ‘This is not going to break when I cross, this is safe, it will go, this is safe’. But than, before I knew the snow under my crampons disappeared and so did I. I didn’t fell to far, the good reflection to smash my ice axe into the snow stopped me from falling farther. Climbing out of the rimais I told Tim that everything was fine. Reaching the rock I made an anchor and belayed Tim who at his turn also fell into the rimais. 

Mid-day; we reached the wall, crossed the glacier underneath the ceracs safely and were ready to climb this piece of rock. The first 400 meters of the wall where easy climbing, 5^th grade with some 6^th grade sections. We climbed the terribly lose rock, both with a backpack on just until we reached the first bivy ledge at 10 pm. Although the rock was loose the climbing was interesting. Instead of pulling on your arms and hanging on rock it’s important to stem between the rocks and try not to put to pull too much on the holds. Scary … I feel the last few weeks gave me a lot of confidence climbing on granite. I feel comfortable and can stay calm in awkward situations.

Just melted some water for the day!

Our first night on the wall was amazing. We found a good bivy ledge, cooked a little dinner and drank some hot water with bouillon (soup). Also we were lucky to find a little snow near the ledge that we melted and used for cooking. The next day we started late, at around 8 am we started climbing the nine pitches in good and solid rock. The scrambling from last day was over and we were ready for some perfect classic cracks. A big solid, steep granite wall was waiting for us.

Great sunrise in our exhausted faces!

With porridge on our stomach we started the day with an amazing chimney with a tunnel move behind a huge block. Not to bad for a warm-up. The next pitch was some more serious business. We got woken up completely with a short 7a+ of 15 meters. The climbing is technical and precise on this kind of granite. We also didn’t climbed with the heavy backpacks anymore. This time the rock was steep enough we could haul our sleeping gear, cooking stuff and food up the wall. For some harder free climbing we needed to be free of heavy bag packs.

I'm hidden in the chimney behind one of the blocks!

Me in the technical 7b pitch of the overhanging dihedral! 

One more amazing 6b leaded us towards the highlight of the wall. A big overhanging dihedral was looming at us. The dihedral was split up in two long pitches, a technical 7b and an endurance 7c in the last and steeper part of the dihedral. After one long day of hiking and climbing we finally reached the crux pitches. The goal was to try and climb those two pitches free and on sight. I took the lead and went for the on sight attempt. The first dihedral pitch demanded a slow but controlled climbing style with a little crux at the end. Successfully I made the anchor and Tim followed smoothly. The second and hardest dihedral pitch was more overhanging then we thought. Quickly and efficient I climbed past the hardest moves in the start of the pitch and speeded up the long dihedral that leaded into a perfect crack at the end. Pumped but satisfied we realised we both climbed the hardest pitches free! 

Tim in the last part of the crux pitch.

Now only four more pitches followed. The last harder pitch was a short 7a with a little roof. The sun was gone and the cold temperatures of the mountains started to hit our bodies. With cold hands and feet, Tim climbed the last hard pitch and even linked it accidently with the last 6b. Frozen I followed him up to his belay. Now the real crack climbing was over, 250 meters of easier ground followed. From now on the hauling was done and the big backpacks had to go on again. We took of our climbing shoes and switched them for the mountain boots to be lighter and have warmer feet. This next part is what seemed as an endless part of the climb. Easy but loose scrambling with sometimes some snow we climbed simultaneously up towards the top of the wall. 

Me on the belay of the crux pitch. 

Reaching the top of the wall didn’t mean we were done climbing. Still there was the ‘Arête de Peutrey’ that leads up towards the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur (the summit just before the Mont Blanc summit). The first part of the arête was rocky and loose. Slow, really slow and tired we scrambled at a height of 4000m altitude over the exposed and loose arête. This is the part that scared me the most. We had climbed and hiked two long days, were tired and did not know exactly how far we still had to go towards the top of the Mont Blanc. A couple of hours further we arrived on the big snowy arête of the mountain. I went ahead with Tim about 20 meters behind. Climbing with one ice axe on the steep snow I realised we were not going fast. Every step I made I sank away in the snowy arête. Walking in this powder snow is not only really tiring but is also scary on this exposed arête. It was 10 pm and it was getting dark when Tim screamed: ‘Siebe, is it smart to go on in this kind of shit snow? This arête has been in the sun the whole day, it’s going to take ages before we reach the top!’ After we discussed our physical situation we decided to return from the snow and go back towards the rocky arête to find a place to spend the night.

Our 'body tensioned' second bivy!

A bivy ledge like the one we had the night before we were not going to find again. We took the best spot we could find between tons of loose blocks and installed a little anchor. After some pasta an epic night could begin! In some kind of sit/lay down position we tried to sleep close to each other using some body tension to stay in position. The frustrating part was that once we would fall a sleep, we would literally fall off because we lost body tension. An epic night I would say. 

At 5 am we made another porridge and prepared our backs to attack the snow arête. We both were wracked and felt like shit sleeping in this awkward ‘body tensioned’ position whole night. I have to say we had a hard time finding motivation to continue on the steep arête. But once started, things were different. The snow was hard and frozen because of the night and hiking up this thing was ten times easier then the night before. Climbing on the 40° snow arête was hard with some parts mixed rock and ice but this time we climbed fast and efficient. Besides suffering we also took our time to enjoy the scenery at this elevation. Climbing a mountain is something strange, so many times you ask yourself the question: ‘Why am I doing this? I’m so tired and exhausted, it hurts and I have no longs or calves anymore!’ But other moments you realise it is the thing you want the most. You go for something you’re not even sure you’re capable of doing it. But still, you do it. Pushing yourself and testing what your possibilities are makes me satisfied, whatever the results are. 

The last 20 meters!

Then, we’re back where I started my blog post: 20 meters before the top of the Mont Blanc de Courmayeur. I found new energy and ran up the last few meters towards Tim! A big high five and some victory shout expressed our proud feeling on climbing the hardest and most complete climbs we both have done! We still had to top out on the Mont Blanc and go down taking the ‘route de Trois Monts’ towards the Aguille du Midi but the relief and satisfaction was huge. 

Tim, excited en reliefed on the top of MB de Courmayeur.

Twenty minutes after topping out on Mont Blanc de Courmayeur we arrived on the summit of the Mont Blanc. We melted some snow, drank and ate our last bar and started the ‘endlessly’ descent of the Mont Blanc. Suffering but proud we moved slow. The cool thing about this kind of goals is that your mind is focussed on one thing: climbing to the top. Besides that the way of doing it counts: climbing it free and clean. During this trip those where the only things in mind. It’s just you, your partner and the climb! 

We got it! Courmayeur! Still 20 minutes to the MB!

The glacier and amazing view underneath G.P.A!

Tim in the pitch after the crux pitch.

One of the breathtaking views from the top of MB de Courmayeur.

On the top of the Mont Blanc homies!!!!

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Gran Capuchi Style!

At six o clock in the morning I woke up in the middle of a glacier with the sun on our tent and I heard a Spanish guy screaming: ‘Capuchio…, Capuchio…, Capuchio!’. I couldn’t sleep anymore because of the thought the Spanish guy was drinking an amazing cappuccino in the sun. Two days later I realised he was just excited to go climbing on one of the best granite peaks in Europe!

And yes indeed… summer is coming! We have to climb! It’s been a long time since my last blog post. I got plenty of good reasons. In June I had like every other student some exams to study. For me the exam period is a period I enjoy because of the daily rhythm and structure. Studying about 8 hours a day followed by some training in gym I try to get good results in school and focus on getting stronger for the summer. I can proudly say I finished my first year studying social work with some good results. I proved now to myself that I can combine my study’s with a lot of climbing and travelling. This is reassuring for the following years. 

Getting in to it…

After my last exam I left towards Chamonix and Switzerland where I climbed a little bit of everything. First of all I had to recover a little from the training and studying. In Chamonix I met up with Sean, Nico and Stéphane. Because of the insecure weather in Chamonix we left towards Petit Clocher du Portalet where we climbed for about three days. We split teams and did some of the classic lines. The first day I climbed together with Stéphane, we did the most famous line in the Petit Clocher du Portalet, état de choc (7b) six pitches. One of the pitches that I led was an easy offwidth with one wider part. In the wide part I made the mistake to crawl completely inside the offwidth. Similar scenario as two years ago in ‘the harding slot’ of the famous route Astroman in Yosemite I got stuck with my head out of the crack. Again I had to take off my helmet to get out of it. Nasty, those small offwidth’s.

A view in the tent of 'Le dent du Géant'

It felt nice to climb on granite again, the jamming technique is still in my body but placing my feed on tiny crystals I had to relearn. The start of the summer made me realise I want to climb a lot of granite and multipitch. It’s time to get more experienced in multipitch climbing in the mountains. The whole game of combining hard crackclimbing in long days with mountain conditions, snow and ice is attracting me. The first time I did this kind of climbing was in the Bugaboos, Canada. I feel it’s time to try it again. Right now I’m in Chamonix together with Tim De Dobbeleer and we are both motivated to climb and crush big and long routes on the Mont Blanc massif. The climbs and atmosphere with Tim were amazing and I have the feeling some cool projects are going down soon! 

Gran Capuchi Crushing…

During one month, Tim and I are going to climb some mountain cracks together! The first days of our trip our eye fell on Chamonix and more specific the ‘Gran Capucin’. This last one is one of the cleanest rock peaks of the Mont Blanc. We got information about the weather at the mountain guide office in Chamonix and bham, like the Frenchies will say: ‘grand beau’ for four days in a row! 

As two luxury dirtbags like we are, we looked for a free (and dry) place to stay in the valley of Chamonix. Good news, we found an empty carport out of wood that we claimed as our little house. In about 5 minutes all the gear that was nice and packed in the car, was hanging and laying all over the carport. Preparing all the food, organising the gear and making plans of which routes we wanted to do we made our heavy bags for the next five days to come.

In the evening we hiked in two hours from Aguille du Midi towards the base of Gran Capucin where we pitched our tent in de middle of the glacier. This was amazing, I love the clean snow that stretches out for about 2 km around us. The snowfields end in some snow couloirs leading towards big granite peaks. A dream campsite I would say. With pots and pans we dug a whole in the snow to put our big 4-person hotel down. Luxury boys. 

The next day the climbing started, but not like we expected. We wanted to climb ‘Elixir D’astaroth’  (in Dutch we had fun saying: ‘Elixir d’a strot!’). I guess we finally climbed Elixir but after some epic search on the wall. From the fourth pitch on we got lost. Gran Capucin has so many lines, so many possible lines and so many ankers and pitons that we missed the right line a couple of times. Doing pendulums, huge traverses and climbing some pitches more then ones (up and down) we reached the top at 10 pm. Pretty late for a 14 pitch climb that should be all right. This was the first day Tim and I climbed together and it was hilarious, we looked like two analphabetic children in their playground! Although we were slow and often confused we had a great first day and the teamwork and spirit reached a high level.

The following day we were up for some short but a little harder route. We climbed ‘Les Intouchables’ (7b+) of six pitches. Like the French film, Les Intouchables as a route on Trident is amazing! The 5^th pitch is a perfect slightly overhanging hand crack of 40 meters! Amazing, just put you on mode train and crack climbing is easy (exaggerated). The rest of the route wasn’t easy either, a start pitch 7b woke us up, leading into an amazing 6c finger crack with perfect locks! Followed by a long thin 7a pitch where a lot of technique is required. When the second day was over Tim couldn’t stop talking about the free can ravioli we got that morning of some German guys who left the glacier. Although we carried up fresh veggie’s Tim fancied the can. I still don’t now if he liked the can more just because it’s ravioli or because he kicks on ‘free’ food.

On top of the airy block of the Trident du Tacul after climbing 'Les Intouchables'!

I’ve always been a morning person. I love mornings. I love food the most in the morning. I like climbing in the morning more. I don’t mind waking up and getting ready for the day. Tim though is more of an active evening guy. When I’m melting the snow at 5:30 in the morning to make porridge he snores slowly a little bit more. But when I’m wracked of jamming whole day long, he melts some snow for the polenta and beans dinner. This made a good team.  Wracked but motivated we started our third day in the classical 14 pitch route in Gran Capucin, ‘Voyage selon Guilliver’ (7a). This time we where informed better and we decided not to get lost, it worked. We didn’t get lost and climbed the route smoothly to the top. That day we were down early and enjoyed the sun next to the tent, joked around, ate and reinforced our hotel. Because of the melting snow every day our tent quickly lost its tension. Like I said earlier, it was ‘grand beau’ time. I new it could be very hot in the mountains but I didn’t expect us melting on the granite and even in the snow. The conditions were great!

Tim dancing up the last pitch of Les Intouchables

Me in Bridwell Crack!

One more day at work we left for a 6 pitch climb called ‘Bridwell Crack’ (7b+) on the petit clocher left of Gran Capucin. The route starts at the top of a snow couloirs. Hiking up the steep couloirs was scary with the melting snow above, snowfall was possible every moment so we had to hike fast. Once started in the route we realised it could be harder as expected. The pitch before the crux pitch was an amazing 7a roof traverse with slopy feet and a tricky move at the end. The crux pitch it self was amazing, again a perfect vertical crack with amazing fingerlocks, ringlocks and handjams. Also on this fourth day we realised to onside and free climb every pitch we tried. 

Ma dalton, We'll be back!

The next morning it felt like the Frenchies took there snowplows up to the mountains and started driving over our tent that night. We were wracked from climbing. That morning we took away our hotel and hiked back with the heavy bags over the glaciers towards Aguille du Midi. Passing the Aguille du Midi our eye fell on this amazing roof crack, Ma Dalton (7c). We paid a lot of money to take the lift from Chamonix to Aguille du Midi up and we wanted to get the money out of it so we still tried Ma Dalton. But on that fifth day we could feel the four long days of climbing in our body’s and brains. Tired I made my way up in the roof needing to figure out some of the methods. Tim did the same thing where after we decided we had our dose climbing and it was time for some almond croissants! 

Those five nights and days up in the mountains were amazing. I’m excited for the next few weeks to climb some harder, longer, scarier and even better lines at an altitude of 3800 meter. We have more objectives! If they are going to be done all at the end of the month I don’t know but we’re f*cking motivated to go for it all!

Check also Tim's blogpost on Mountcoach.

Tired on top of our first day epic search ascent of Elixir.

Ready to crush!!!

Me following Tim on the perfect 7b handcrack of Les Intouchables.

M. Jackson is a life high in the mountains, we've seen him!

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Melloblocco and last edition of 'Into Climbing'

Val di Mello town!

Back home from a long and ‘unexpected journey’ I feel fresh to focus on my studies again. Due to the amount of thoughts about what I want in the future with climbing and studying, I found new energy for to following exam period.

The last 6 days I’ve spent some time in Val di Mello with bad weather but did didn’t take away the fun of my journey. Without a tent or nothing else to sleep in I arrived in Val di Masino, where the Melloblocco event is centred. In dashing rain I searched the valley roads for a big white van of a British friend, Josh. The van is recognizable thanks to the flashy red-yellow lines on the back with a writing that says ‘Highway maintenance’. 

Frustrated, such big walls and not able to climb them! 

Not completely sure if he would be in the valley I was relieved to see his van on a parking lot. I found him and some other people bouldering underneath a tarp in the rain. I quickly joined them and we bouldered the whole afternoon on a little piece of rock inventing some moves and eliminating holds to make the climbing more interesting. I found myself being mentally a little lost on boulders. It’s been so long ago that I had bouldered and I had to come back into the mindset of trying one or two moves over and over again and cranking on hard to do a move. This made me realise I should boulder a little more because it’s a lot of fun to be out with a group of people braking our head (and skin) on single hard moves on a piece of granite.

Basically I climbed only a couple of boulders on those six days due to the bad weather. I have to say that even me, as a Belgian, was really impressed about the amount of water the sky pored down on the heads of many climbers during this Melloblocco festival. Because of all this wetness outside we climbed a lot indoor on a 30-degree training bord, crucial to keep in good shape! I also used the rainy weather to study everyday, trying to keep track of the classes I missed last weeks. 

I'm so excited! 

My study room during those six days! 

I walked around in this big valley and the granite walls look so amazing! It’s like they say the little Yosemite in Europe, I’m excited to return and try some of the big faces in Val di Masino and Val di Mello! Basically I came here to do some traditional climbing but with the big amount of rain it will take a while to dry out. Tradclimbing in this valley will remain a dream! And yes, I will come back!!! 

100sations Blocs and Into Climbing

Right now I’m back home for a little bit and tomorrow (4^th of May) is the last time I will give the lecture ‘Into Climbing’! This time it will be in the climbing gym ‘Entre Ciel et Terre’ in Louvain La Neuve. The lecture will be following the boulder competition ‘100sations Blocs’. This will be a friendly competition where 120 climbers get the chance to climb 100 boulders in three and a half hours! The coolest thing about this is that you get to try a lot of boulders who are spread out over the whole (big) climbing gym, the gym offers a lot of space! 

So I would like to invite you all to come climbing tomorrow, boulder as hard as you can, have a lot of fun in so many boulders, and afterwards enjoy this last edition of Into Climbing where I will share experiences of my trips with the highlight of the Venezuela expedition. For more information take a look at the blogpost ‘Into Climbing’.

The lecture will be in my best French ever! For people who don’t speak French and wanted to see this last edition, I can secure you it’s still worth to come and look! The images are amazing and my French is a basic French, you will understand! 

Trailer - Big Ass Jungle Climbing from Siebe Vanhee on Vimeo.

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