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Rod's Euro 2009 - Trip Report ~ with updates! 22-Jul-2009 At 9:02:13 PM rod

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monday the 13th, antonin and i hooked up and headed off to prepare a little for Etat de Choc. Spent the afternoon on offwidth sport routes placing friends and other pro as we went, I found a really good one that had us both stumped.

tuesday the 14th Bernard came down and we all headed off in search of Bouddha above PisseVache. 45 minute walk-in amongst granite and pine at about 800 or 900 metres altitude and we found a great setting: old pine forest with lots of different angles to explore nestled beneath a dome of glacier scarred granite. Sport equipped but classic alpine granite routes in style. I spent my time battling my way up crack routes and playing foot friction games on the exit of each, Antonin got on Bouddha Club and tried 6 different ways to glory before finally sending on the 7th run of the day, Bernard mainly slept in the sun. My last run of the day was on a grovelly chimney/offwidth of the like I would encounter later in the week. Beers at the station and goodbye to Bernard...we picked up a copy of Vertical mag which was to become our climbing porn mag for the next couple of days: Yose, Paine, UK sport climbing and...Petit Clocher de Portalet. HUGE electrical storm came in overnight and dropped a lot of water.

Wednesday the 15th and a conflict of guides for our chosen route had us scratching around for info: Roduit's Entrement had it 4c, 6a, 6b+, 5c, 7a, 5c, 7a/b, 6c finishing in either a 4c or 6b+ dependent on choice, doable on a set of rocks and friends 1, 2, 3 and 4; the newly arrived Vertical had 6b+, 6b+, 6b+, 6c, 7a, 6c, 7a or 7b dependent upon what crack you are in, 6c, 6b. Rocks and friends with doubles of number 2, 3, 3.5 (WC?) and 4. I had doubles of 1 and 2 in my rack and a sole set of rocks that we could supplement with smaller sizes of friends. Phoning around we were able to obtain a 3 but remained short on a size 4 cam.

Off to tele La Breya, closed for lunch so we picnic'ed and by chance I decided to call the cabane...sorry mate its full.

Disbelief.

Bivvy gear 30 minutes down in the valley. Antonin tries the cabane, same response. We Fangio it down to get the tent, thermarests and ridgerests, 5 litres of water each, food, sleeping bags, etc, etc. Back at La Breya tele for 16:00 we re-packed the pile and headed on up, a couple of hours later we were scoping out bivvy spots and by 19:00 all was laid out and the sun was setting on the northern face of the Portalet...it looked pretty intimidating now with the added uncertainty of 2 differing route descriptions and approaches. 4 Chamois came up through the col near our bivvy spot and Antonin scared them off with exclamations about the differing route descriptions. Then it started raining so I climbed into the tent and slept fitfully until finally a bear rustled around, ate all the food and chased us out of the tent at 6AM.

Thursday the 16th. Etat de Choc

BRIGHT sunshine, I had the coffee on at 6.30 and 3 expressos later we were off across the moraine...didn't get lost this time around and slid our way across the protecting neve and scree to find to our great surprise a boulder with Etat de Choc painted on it and a bolt signifying the start of the route.

Off went Antonin, 6b+ rather than 4c, so we were straight onto the back foot and the Vertical mag guide was looking like the winner changing the proposition considerably. My next pitch was harder still swallowing 2 small friends and a couple of nuts, again 6b+. Traverse right to another belay and we're under the crocodile's mouth. Antonin's 6b+ has a bolt halfway through and he places a 0.75 then moves up a couple of metres to clip the bolt, exits right and comes back left to the belay.

My lead and finally we'll know, I set off into an overhanging offwidth that's so totally 6c and gear swallowing that I'm nearly overwhelmed, how do you prepare for this when its unique in the Mt Blanc Massif? Suffering a bit, I was thankful for a double of the size 2 before exiting onto a ledge and clipping a rusty bolt from 1983. Some discussion ensued and I decided to beef it up with some gear and turn it into a belay point.

Antonin comes up and launches off into what was to prove my choice was good, 7a pitch and a lot of it was moving around (the blocks of granite), he got up to another bolt 30 metres higher and installed a belay around it then praised my decisiveness...

..."fear does that to me 'Tonin".