Chamonix

Who says there are no good conditions?

Maybe, they are not here or there, but they must be somewhere. With those thoughts me and Tine decided to go climb in Cham. And the same day we finished in bivouac Leschaux above the glacier with the same name. The next day we decided to go climb classic route Omega located near Petites Jorasses.

Tine is here for the first time and he is still breathless because of the beauties of surroundingmountains and their walls. He keeps saying: “This is like heaven”.

The route is combination of ice and snow. The conditions are pretty bad. I have to clean the snow, so my Nomics can hold me during my ascent. My climbing is very slow because of that,and when we arrive to the hardest part of route, Tine recognizes it’s way over his capacity. If me and Tine weren’t such good friends, and Tine would be just one of the climbers I climb with, I would probably do something like this: “After I climb this ˝the hardest˝ part and when I see there are no problems to the top of the route, I will pull my friend over this part” …. But on the other end of the rope, there is twenty years old really good friend. So I drive the piton and descend to my friend and we go back down. What is more important? Can I replace the conquest of the mountain, only for my goal of this cruel grade of route, over my friend eyes with tears inside,because he can’t climb this route today? In the end we are all just humans … We came here for climbing and this is what we did in neighborhood of this laboratory, as many calls this French cradle of Alpine climbing. Next day we took day off and decided to go skiing atGrandsMontets, it was incredible – almost no one on snow and sunny weather.

Gondolas aren’t working in this time of year in Chamonix and as we are a little bit lazy to walk five hours just to arrive beneath the walls we decide to look in guide of mix and ice trails in neighborhood. Also, local people said that it’s not wise to climb on dry walls covered with non-re-formed snow. We also saw how helicopter rescued climbers in Grande Jorasses (Maclntyre and Croz Spur) … I’m not sure there were problems with weather or just not enough prepared climbers. Is this good for Alpine climbing in any way? Has Alpine climbing really became so leisure?

Anyway, our investigations guided us in unique valley Vallon de Sales. F*ck how many times I said to myself I won’t go to same places over and over again. That I will try to find out something new … and again I was right. For two days we were near village Salvagny surrounded by peaceful quietness and ice. Again we were enjoying at ice climbing steep ice, twisting around curtains, mushrooms and all other icy formations that mother nature created … this is it, this is my world. Again my Nomics felt the cold of ice, again icy crystals cooled my front, and again there were moments when I could see between my legs only half screwed ice screws because there were no more free space in thin ice, and I hoped that this tiny icy could resist my weight and I could hit again in ice of solid quality. We have climbed two great and beautiful routes of mix and ice, it was exceptional.

After this experience of me and Tine during this days in France, it’s not weird that we cried all the way home “Why are we leaving, why are we leaving?”.

  • Petites Jorasses, Omega, IV, M7+, 600m (700m), 8h – 12.12.2013
  • Vallon de Sales, Faucilles du Chantet, San Valentino, WI6, M7+, 250m, 5h – 15.12.2013
  • Vallon de Sales, Faucilles du Chantet, Tutti tre, WI5+, 350m, 5h – 16.12.2013

Dejan Koren – DeKo (MONTURA, Singing Rock)