"Tom et je ris" (8b+) - The Legendary Tufa

Yesterday morning, Alex and I awoke cursing at the 6:30am alarm. We groaned a bit, made some breakfast (muesli w skimmed milk - cause that's what athletes eat!), brushed our teeth, then drive to the Verdon Gorge (Rivière Gauche - left side). We drove through a huge damp cloud (a typical early morning occurrence in Verdon) before reaching the car park at the start of the walk. 

We packed up all our gear and headed off into the forest, on our way to do battle with the legendary tufa, "Tom et je Ris". An hour and a quarter of walking up hill (worse than Ceuse), a bit of scrambling and lots of moaning about not having had enough cake for breakfast from Alex and we where at the top, looking over the vast Verdon Gorge, a huge dense cloud floating through the valley like from that movie with the Chinese ninjas flying about the place with swords - well cool!!!

We get all our kit out at the tip of the crag, Alex sets up a static line for abseil and I sit an eat rice cakes whilst pretending to look busy. In 15 minutes we are ready to go - Alex heads down first as I will be the first one to climb today. He gets to the bottom of the route, 60m below the top of the crag and sets up a hanging belay. I follow him soon afterwards - as I'm abbing in my fingertips burn just from looking at the spiky, sharp tufa. I lower past the least overhanging section of the wall and into the main overhang... I'm flying out from the wall, super exposed, tufas everywhere and hanging out with the vultures circling us on the wall : P

When I'm finally with Alex, he's set up the belay and 5 minutes later it's all mine. So we'd only had one previous day on the lower section of the wall. We where intending on having this day spent working the lower section since we where still pretty rusty with it (myself more than Alex, he's a beta learning machine). On my first go, I just went bolt to bolt, reminding myself of the moves and trying to do some small links, unfortunately my fingers where so worn through from the day before, I was having a nightmare trying to warm up and it felt as though nothing was going to happen today. I did my best, learned where my feet had to go for every hand movement and where the shakeouts where. The lower section of wall is like a power endurance 8a with quite bad shakeouts (for me). I went to the jug rest, above from where I had linked to the top the previous day. 

I lowered and then it was Alex's go. Alex did the same as me, bolt to bolt, working bits and bobs out, except he looked much better than me on it. He actually made a really good link from around the second clip to the jug rest (the start of the next 40m section - 8a+). Alex was well chuffed with this link, we both knew that if we got through the first 8a section, all we had to do was the endurance 8a+ to get to the top and we were both really confident with that section. 

It was now my go! I felt pretty crap, my fingers hurt and my body ached, but this would be my first proper redpoint attempt on the route and I figured that I might as well give it everything if we're going to have a rest day tomorrow...

I started up the first section, I was quick and decisive with all my moves. I was  surprised at how previously my skin had been really sore, now it actually felt quite good? I sometimes get this if i haven't warmed up properly, my skin will hurt initially, but after a while of climbing it gets better again. I managed to get a good link in from the bottom all the way to the first bad rest before heading into the second half of the 8a section. I shook out, confident and psyched that my skin didn't hurt and I wasn't really pumped or tired anymore. I started off again straight into a long, pumpy single tufa. Hand over hand, feet compressing the tufa and a burning desire to just get to that jug at the 20m mark which would set me up well for the next 8a+ section of wall that I knew really well. 

Before I knew what was happening, i was eyeing the jug, I locked off hard on my left hand and I was on it! I took both my feet of and replaced the left on a higher part of the tufa and slapped up to the better left hand jug! I heard Alex shouting encouragement below, I knew I could do it now, but I still had 40m left of potentially harder climbing... How was I going to pull this off? I shut my eyes and focussed, I need to just fight, never let go, pretend I'm linking sections to relieve some pressure. I headed into the next single tufa - it felt easy, I had never felt so good on this section. I continued into a further double tufa section, cruising for another 15m taking the run outs as they came, I even accidentally missed one of the clips and inadvertently took an even bigger runout, but I was psyched and in the zone, nothing mattered! 

I got to the end of the double tufa section and managed to rest with a bad knee scum. The next section was the first crux of the 8a+ section, I looked up, assessed the sequence and went for it! I climbed quickly yet again, not worrying about the foot smears I was bridging up on and just giving it all I could. I mantled out on top of a bulging tufa successful on the first crux. I rested a bit more here... My feet were really starting to ache now. This route has more to do with your feet than any overhanging route I've ever done. I shook out my feet on the bulge before heading into yet more tufa - this time two bigger tufas that you lay back up. I climbed this section without too much trouble and was into a short traverse out right on some tufa blobs, smears for feet and into yet another layback tufa leading you to the best rest on the whole route since the hanging belay (a good right hand jug, a left hand finger slot above and some small ledge smears for feet). The next section is probably the scariest, although not physically the hardest by a long way, it's incredibly technical and involves too much smearing that no self-confessed jug puller can deal with. 

I de-pumped on the rest and went for it, the last few moves of the sequence where the scariest - right hand pocket, left foot sloppy pocket, left hand pockety crimp, right foot horrible smear, left foot horrible smear and reach for all mighty and hope that neither smear slips! I reached the jug and pulled up into a small cave where you can rest for as long as you need. All that's left now is a small bulge with not really any hard climbing. I went through the bulge, pulled over the lip and was on top of the world!!!

I had climbed the legendary 8b+ of Verdon, "Tom et je Ris"! This is probably my greatest achievement to date. I've definitely climbed physically harder routes, but the whole aspect of this climb with it's limited time to be climbed (between 7am - 2pm), massive walk in, ab in approach to start of route, hanging belay, mega long run-outs, technical nature of the climb and difficulty of working the route on dog made this my greatest accomplishment. It has opened my eyes to a new style of climbing and I'm psyched for more epic adventures like this one!

After completing the route however, the day was not over! Alex still had one go left before we headed back to the van, so I abbed back in and secured my hanging belay. Alex went for it and in similar style (maybe a bit more shabby : P), sent the route!!! TEAM ASCENT!!!! We think our ascents may be the first British Ascents, but we are unsure. It's been a great adventure on this legendary route and our trip is still not over! We are psyched for more epicness, so we are looking towards something hard with more exposure and more pitches. We have eyed up a sick looking 8a multipitch in a huge cave somewhere in the gorge - stay tuned for more of our adventures if we're still alive to write about them : P

PSYCHED

ROBZ OUT


Martina Cufar - Tom et je ris 8b+ 60 meters -... par worklessclimbmore