Alpine Meet: Val Ferret – August 2012, Pete Lancaster
It was twelve years since the club last visited Val Ferret for its summer alpine meet so a return trip to this beautiful valley was due. I was determined not to hassle Sally about booking and might have succeeded had the online booking form performed…however, after only a little pleading, Sally came to the rescue and ended up speaking to the campsite manager to do the deed. Many thanks Sally!
Nigel and Peter Briggs arrived a week before the rest of us, the weather was hot and sunny and they had already checked out some good climbing on the valley crags; these crags are all excellent with lots of shiny new bolts, placed to give encouragement like all sport crags should. Having settled in and limbered up they went up to the Dalmazzi Hut, perched on the edge of a cliff where one can climb straight up from the back door, which they did, followed the next day by an ascent of ‘Kermesse Folk’, a classic 750m route up immaculate granite on Monts Rouge du Triolet, they were well pleased and the omens were good.
The remainder of the team arrived, Mike and Alison getting there with perfect synchronisation just minutes before Sue and I, Tony and Mike Jones following shortly after, Chris and Jan arriving the next day after wandering down through France doing some cragging and the exciting Via Ferrata du Roc du Vent above Lac de Roseland, on the way.
After some enjoyable cragging down the valley, Mr. Motivator and myself, with the ‘Walker’ in mind, decided that some acclimatisation was necessary, so a night at the Torino hut with the Swiss Direct on the Grand Capucin the following day seemed a good sports plan. Nigel and Peter joined us with their eyes on the Pyramid du Tacul. The hut walk to the Torino has to be the best in the business; it must be all of 100m from car park to telepherique, at the top of which you are there! This being so, we were well able to carry extras, like a bottle of excellent red wine from Mike’s wine cellar and some bottles of beer – it all helps… The next morning was all too familiar, up at some unearthly hour, traipsing over a glacier trying to digest a breakfast that was eaten because one had to but was far too early to want or enjoy, trying to wake up but wanting to be asleep: you know the thing, I always ask myself, ‘why?’. It’s strange how it was all such good fun while drinking cold beer afterwards? Our proposed route on the ‘Cap’ takes you up a couloir on the left as we approached it; what should be a simple plod up the snow on to the route didn’t appear like that to us as we watched two parties in front. Pitching slowly up rotten crud, with much evidence of loose rocks, many from above, followed by an extra rope-length of climbing up unpleasant slabs with tottering rubble everywhere, thanks to the massive glacial retreat of the past few decades, did not look like my kind of fun.
Imagine my surprise and glee when Mr Motivator voiced the same thoughts! A change of plan directed us towards Pic Adolph Rey. We intended to do the ‘Battembourg’ route but with the glacier now fifty metres below where it was when the guide book was written (20yrs!), finding the route was difficult and access to where we thought it went was not pretty. While searching for the start we wandered around the base of the buttress and saw Nigel and Peter looking for the way onto their route so carried on across the intervening couloir so that Mike, who had done their route before, could offer advice, duly done, we returned and decided to do the classic ‘Voie Salluard’ instead.
Gearing up, having been joined by two French lads who had just traversed the same slope, we heard an ominous crashing and rumbling and watched an avalanche of ice blocks flow down over the path where we and the two French guys had been minutes earlier! How lucky were we? Peter and Nigel, on the other hand, got splattered with ice fragments from the falling seracs and Peter took a direct hit on the head which knocked him off his feet. His helmet saved him and he was not seriously injured fortunately but they lost their appetite for climbing that day and set off back badly shaken. We did our route which was what the books say, steep and strenuous but great climbing, a high-light was the exemplary, altruistic behaviour of Mr Motivator who donated several of his own slings and krabs to secure a fridge-sized rock that was precariously balanced at a notch in the route that would have wiped out anyone below had a butterfly landed on it, let alone a passing climber.
Meanwhile, Chris and Jan were steadily clocking up a tally of excellent routes, especially on the magnificent slabs at the end of the valley, notably: Sensa Nome, La Pina, Spitnik and Ryoby at 205m (later climbed by Tony and Mike Jones), Chris rated it ‘the best route on the slabs’ and Ligne Blanche with me. These crags are of lovely rough solid granite and perhaps the most satisfying of them was Placche Pre-de-Bard, mostly easy-angled slabs with routes of several pitches and multi-abseil descents.
The other crags were steeper but mostly single pitch routes with some fairly stern stuff to be had but all the routes that we did were good sport. Some of the many other crags down the Aosta valley were sampled too to provide variety and everyone managed some really good walks, getting high with fabulous views.
Mike and Alison timed their weekend trip to watch Murray gain his place in the Olympics final at Wimbledon because we had the only two days of rain then which dumped a lot of fresh snow – not good news for the ‘Walker’. Undeterred, on his return, Mr Motivator and I went round to Chamonix, got the train to Montenvers and had a wonderful view of a white Grandes Jorasses; change of plan saw us at the ‘Envers des Aiguilles’ hut from where we climbed ‘Guy-Anne l’Insomite’ up the Premier Point de Nantillons, 400m of some of the best granite anywhere. The highlight pitch reminded us both of the ‘Strand’ at Gogarth in both style and grade – it doesn’t get much better.
This is an extremely beautiful valley, the campsite at Tronchey is directly under the south face of the Grandes Jorasses but does not feel hemmed in. The company was excellent and everyone enjoyed themselves and did things including the consumption of large quantities of fine wine, an educational experience, with Mike ‘Mr Motivator’ Mowbray sharing the contents of his ‘cellar’. The bus service was very handy for getting up the valley or down to the fleshpots of Courmayeur and very cheap, although Chris and Jan did use their bikes on several occasions. Happy days!
