Back on Rock

The last thing Pascal said to us was “see you tomorrow at 09:30, for climbing zi rock”. And he turned into the wind and was carried off over the mountains. Well maybe not, he had to run for the train.

At that moment it was actually the last thing I wanted to hear. But I got up anyway and went down for breakfast. Last night Chris was having serious sausage withdrawl, he couldn’t stop talking about his plans for breakfast the following day. I think he feared that he may turn into a rodent or something if he ate any more muesili. So he made plans for a sausage and baguette feast. He was still in sausage land when we left for breakfast.

I explained to Kingsley that Chris was upstairs in his pants, fag hanging out the side of his mouth, cooking sausages and wouldn’t be joining us. The mental image was not condusive to a happy breakfast, but it planted a seed in Kingsleys mind that he would find difficult to ignore.

We had the guides for one more day so we went down to a local rock face after hiring rock shoes. Pascal and Jacques were there, along with the three of us and Patrick. Matt and Andy had done what they set out to do this week and didn’t have much interest in climbing any more rock, so they went shopping or something.

Chris emerged after his sausage binge with a glazed euphoric expression and a bigger than usual grin.

Steve and Chris were eager to learn more about equalizing belays and how to set them up ok multi pitches. I just wanted to learn the basics as I had never lead a pitch before. So I teamed up with Patrick. Steve and Chris paired up to work on more advanced stuff.

The site (Les Gaillands) was fantastic and the weather was great. Jacques and Pascal were particularly chilled and the day bumbled along nicely. And there was no walking involved as it was right in Chamonix. A series of natural pitches, most of them prebolted, awaited us. The entire site must have been over 100m in length and at the highest point, 50+m.

The most startling aspect was the amount of children climbing, they were everywhere. Some of them were no older than 4years old, some were lead climbing up to 30m. It was a very busy looking Summer School. These French kids had absolutely no fear of height whatsoever. It was a joy to watch.

Jacques and Pascal flew up the first pitch to attach top ropes for us. They both had different styles of moving up the face, but it was the elegance that impressed me the most. Pascal moved gracefully from hold to hold, grouping them in fluid sets of movement. Jacques seemed to contemplate his ’sets’ more, moving slower and precisely. Both were completely natural on rock.

Steve and Chris looked shocked that they weren’t roped or wearing helmets.

Once the top ropes had been fixed and Patrick had been reminded what a figure 8 was, I quickly climbed up without any real problem. The route was incredibly easy. Patrick then had a go. We then tried a few more pitches that were slightly more difficult. Pascal then took us through a series of belay building solutions. Most of these were beyond my comprehension. I did get the basic theory though. Steve was getting off on this the most. I struggled through some of the easier anchors.

We had lunch in a wee cafe hut, right next to the pitches. There was even a BBQ area for climbers, everything was there for you. It was excellent.

After lunch, Patrick left us and we went to an area of cliff just around the corner where we could practise our belays in earnest. Chris, Steve and Pascal climbed together, which left me with Jacques and some 1 to 1 tuition.

He is a brilliant teacher and didn’t skimp on the details. He also put things into context for me, transferring what we were doing on that practise rock to a high mountain setting. I lead my first ever multi-pitch climb and it was in the Alps! We climbed as high as we could go and when Jacques was up beside me he insisted that he was the beginner and I would tell him what to do. We must have been at least 50ft up tied to the rock by a very thin sling. I set up an abseill using a prussick after making both myself and Jacque safe. Whenever I got stuck and asked Jacques for help, he simply grinned and said, “you try”. It forced me to check and double check the logic behind what I had done.

A small orange lizard scuttled upside down along an overhang.

I then abseilled down to the first belay point, recoilled the rope and continued to the bottom. Jacques soon joined me.

It had been another excellent day. We had all learned more today than probably all of our climbing time in Scotland put together. And it was from two real mountain men with more than 50 years experience between them.

We left Pascal for the final time, checking that his Renault didn’t need a push first. I was sad to see the big chap go. Jacques gave us a lift back to our apartment and we then bade him farewell also. And that was that, we were once again left guideless. The Icicle adventure was officially over. We only had a night out with Matt, Andy, Patrick, Kingsley & Sarah to look forward to now. Oh… and the ubiquitos Kingsley talk at 17:30. This one was on Alpine weather.

My legs were still on fire from the summit day, though climbing had loosened them up somewhat. Pain still choked just about every muscle I owned.

At the talk, we covered most of the basics on Alpine weather. I am really interested in this particular topic, slowly though I was loosing the will to live. It had nothing to do with Kingsleys style of delivery or content, I began to feel a wave of exhaustion hit me. The area around my kidneys began to ache and my skin crawled with goosebumps. My head felt twice as heavy as it should have been and swallowing became almost impossible.

I went back upstairs and lay down. The last thing I remember was Steve saying something as I slipped into oblivion. I awoke at about 2am, starving. All I could find to eat was a chocolate bar, orange juice, 3 sad looking uncooked sausages and a cupboard full of Dextrose and various other energy suppliments that Steve had brought along. But I felt much better.

At 3ish Steve and Chris stumbled in and collapsed on the couch, babbling drunkenly about this and that. They appeared to have had a very good night. We hung about chatting for a bit and listening to music before heading for bed. Unbelievably, I fell asleep straight away.