Chamonix - Grindelwald

A Break from Mountains

The last week and a half has been a bit different to the rest of this Summer’s activities of big wall multipitches and mountains.

Willis and I drove to Grindelwald from the Dolomites after our ascent of “Phantom der Zinne” on the Cima Grande.

We were meeting up with good friend and professional filmmaker, Euan Ryan (Finalcrux Films). Willis and Euan had a previous engagement to film the “Eiger Paraclimb”, a project lead by Scottish climber Mark McGowan in which he was helping lead three disabled climbers up the west flank of the Eiger - I left the lads in Grindelwald and escaped to sunnier climates in Chamonix (France).

Moving to Chamonix

I love Facebook! I had no climbing partner… one status later and I had three!!! I met up with my new friend Vaidotas (Mr V), a 24 year old Lithuanian climber currently based in London. He was climbing with Duncan Botrill, a strong ex-London based climber and now working for EpicTV in Chamonix! And last in the team was the Belgian, Miss Therese-Marie Becker (TB) who is the bubbliest girl I have ever met! She is currently working as a Social-Media strategist for EpicTV (cool job!).

Digital Crack

First on the list was to go up the Aguillde du Midi on the Mont Blanc massif and attempt the famous 8a, “Digital Crack”. This is an absolutely incredible granite spire jutting out the line of the Cosmic Arete. The wall is almost completely blank with the exception of the occasional tiny blade-like edge. These are accompanied by a lot of flat smooth granite for smearing your feet on. Luckily the wall isn’t entirely flat; it turns into a groove that you can bridge up making the climbing “not impossible”!

8a isn’t that hard in the great scheme of things, but what isn’t shown by the grade is the pure technicality of granite not to mention the fact that you are 3840m high. Although it’s not “that” high, it should be enough to start feeling some of the effects of altitude.

I managed to climb the route on my 2^nd try with V-man on second – Really happy with this as one of my first pure granite climbs in the mountains!

Sport Climbing in the Valley

Unfortunately “Digital Crack” was my last mountain adventure during my time in Chamonix. I couldn’t find anyone keen during my stay for mountains, so I was “forced” to go Sport climbing… Woe is me! Hahaha

The climbing in the valley was actually really good, much better than I had expected. In the week I was there I mamaged to onsight some routes in the 7c-8a range and made several 8b’s on my 2^nd try amongst a few 8a+’s as well.

The best part of my time in the valley though was hanging out with the crew. We had so much fun chilling out in the evenings, having sushi nights, eating out, and swimming in the lake; it was far removed from the idea of a dirtbag climbing bum! Maybe I am getting old, but living rough just doesn’t appeal… I’ve gone soft!

Back to Grindelwald

I travelled back to Grindelwald to pick Euan and Willis up for the main goal of this trip, “Paciencia” on the Eiger.

We have just spent a couple of days together, chilling out in the van, having a days climbing and now we are in the final preparations of getting gear sorted for an attempt when the weather clears. It also turned out that Sasha Digulian arrived on the same day as me with the same goal in mind… this was unexpected and has forced us all to consider more logistics than we expected. However I am sure it will all work out in the end… “Paciencia” might be the hardest rock climb on the Eiger right now, but it’s going to be the most popular over the coming weeks with both of us trying it.

There is only one thing to do now and that is to climb….

Wish us luck everyone!

 http://www.epictv.com/media/podcast/a-climbing-life-on-the-road---inside-the-pro-climbers-camper-van-%7C-epictv-climbing-daily-ep-549/603118