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Rod's Euro 2009 - Trip Report ~ with updates! 22-Jul-2009 At 9:04:12 PM rod

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I made my way up and we had another discussion, he wanted to assume the lead thereafter so that I was rested mentally in case anything happened, the car sized blocks that were moving around were unnerving him. I'm happy with that proposition, he's got 3 weeks experience in Yosemite to call on in dealing with offwidths and chimneys whereas I'm picking it up as I go.

Off he goes into a monster body eating crack, wrestles and wrestles before popping out onto the right side of it into the light of day (relatively, we're on the north face afterall) before, after an interminable slow ascent of about 15 metres, he finally makes his way up to an unseen belay. I'm sure he's off route. I set off into the dark depths of the face and surprise, surprise the crocodile decides to eat me: my helmet is stuck. I wrestle it off and clip it to my harness, progress another 30cm and my camelback gets stuck. I wrestle it off and clip it to my harness, progress another 30cm and my torso is stuck...can't clip that to my harness so I have to think a way back to daylight. Right is a crimp, shuffle right and latch it with the right hand, shuffle down and transfer my weight further right, change hands on the hold, nearly fall out of the crack into space and in the swing finally spot THE thank god hold, shuffle further right and jam all I can before sliding my right foot out and standing on THE hold...out I pop onto the face at the edge of the crack and I'm through the first crux of the pitch. Traverse right on small holds with a nice pendulum risk onto the overhanging face and then up a hand crack to the belay point...again a minor jump makes it all move, gently does it.

Next pitch is a monster with a 7b or 7a finish according to the Vertical guide. Antonin heads off placing the number 4 then splays himself like Jesus on the cross before getting in two 3s then down climbing 15m to pick up the number 4. That goes in and he's then out right and into a mix of face and chimney climbing, clips a bolt, face climbs, clips a piton, crack climbs, clips a nice, new bolt (thanks Yves and Claude) then does the Remy move: huge bridge, left hand to crimper and woohoo we're out on the ledge past the 7a/7b pitch (turns out we were off route and had turned a 6c pitch into a 7a just prior to the start of this one). I followed that one in style, avoiding his Jesus moves with some simple chimney tactics and it easily went free. Funny but both of us are finding the 6c's nails hard and the 7a's relatively much easier. I took some photo's from a ledge before the crux.

Get to the belay which was nice and solid, we're a bit lost by now as to what we've done but it seems like there's just 2 pitches to go another 6c off width to kick off with. Antonin is struggling under the pressure, Elvis has started to force his way into his legs and he battles his way up another one, this time contending with some lichen for feet placements and this time the offwidth is a a real gear eater, he exits left onto the 6b/6b+ exit pitch, sees bolts and goes that way. Following, I'm shocked at the speed of my progression until I got to just where the number 4 was placed, WAY back into the crack and I'm forced to take a rope break to tilt myself sideways and recover it and a wandering 3. Pull back on and enter the 6b section...so straightforward and welcome!