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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Feb 14, 2009 - 02:25pm PT
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Luca Signorelli;
Thanks for your comments. I know you are an avid historian of alpine climbing and I respect your views. I have seen references that 300 pitons were used by Desmaison and company on the first ascent of the Gousseault. I assume that these pins were fixed in place as was the custom in Europe then, but even if they were not fixed, the French had to have carried a huge big-wall rack of pitons on that climb. Gordon will confirm that he found on his first attempt, and on the successful attempt, a lot of equipment remaining on the route, including ropes, cached packs full of gas canisters and other detritus.
With respect to the Harlin route on the Eiger, it is well documented that fixed ropes were strung almost from top to bottom on the first ascent. I think that we can agree at least that this route was “sieged” on its first ascent.
Jack,
Thanks for the story of your climb up the Dru Couloir with Steve Shea, Randy Trover and Mugs Stumpf. But I have to disagree with your statement that Shea reached the easier angled ice of the original Dru Couloir (Couloir Nordest des Drus) route before retreating. From what Tobin and I observed a couple of days after your climb, Steve stopped well before reaching the main couloir and just below what turned out to be the crux of the Direct route. The evidence for this is mentioned in my article that I wrote right after our climb, which is up thread. The last piece of equipment we saw was a tied off ice screw, placed in a narrow strip of shallow ice in the vertical upper dihedral of the Direct. It was a six-inch screw and was placed about halfway in, tied off using a green piece of webbing. That screw and that green sling are etched indelibly in my mind—sheer terror seems to enhance the ability to recall events.
There was no carabiner attached to it and it certainly looked to me like a piece from which the leader lowered off. If Steve really reached the 70 degree upper couloir, why did he not clean that screw and sling when rappelling down? We were all impecunious back then and none of us left pricey screws without reason. Why would he leave just this one piece and clean everything else? Also, as I mentioned in the article, Tobin finished this pitch and it was miraculous that he was able to find a belay anchor by chipping out ice to discover a tiny rock spike. Ice screws were useless up there because the ice was thin. If there were a rappel anchor higher up placed by Steve, believe me, Tobin and I would have found it; we were closely studying every inch of that couloir, as if our lives depended on it, in fact. My article gives credit to your team for discovering the Direct and climbing most of it, but I believe that Steve stopped below the crux of the Direct. Steve, if you’re out there, I would love to hear your view on this.
Jeff,
As Lucas and Gordon’s comments underscore, Tobin should be recognized as one of the top alpinists of our generation, right up there in your lofty company, when the history of 1970’s ice and mixed climbing is considered. I have always thought that Tobin has not gotten enough credit for his great 1977 season in the Alps. That is what my article seeks to remedy and this thread helps as well.
Another shot from the top of the original Dru Couloir route:
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 14, 2009 - 03:35pm PT
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> I have seen references that 300 pitons were used by Desmaison > and company on the first ascent of the Gousseault. I assume
> that these pins were fixed in place as was the custom in
> Europe then, but even if they were not fixed, the French had
> to have carried a huge big-wall rack of pitons on that climb.
> Gordon will confirm that he found on his first attempt, and on > the successful attempt, a lot of equipment remaining on the
> route, including ropes, cached packs full of gas canisters and > other detritus.
Hi Rick,
believe me, the quantity of pitons used an all Desmaisons attempts to the route (including 1971 "near climb" and 1973 success) were far less than 300.
On 1971 (the attempt that ended 80 meters below the summit where Gousseault died), Desmaison took
 2 ropes 50m x 9mm
1 rope 50m x 7mm.
nylon tape 15m x 5 mm (for abseil loops)
4 etriers
40 pitons
25 krabs
6 ice pitons (the old, flat type, not ice screws)
2 hammers
1 ice axe (the classic, long shafted type), plus one "ice hammer"
(plus of course clothes, gaiters, rucksacks, plenty of food etc).
In 1971 he fixed only the first two pitches of the route, then the rest was climbed in normal fashion.
The issue of the gear in 1971 is far from academical, as it was one of the main point of contentions in the huge controversy that followed (that's why I've the full list - it comes from Desmaison). Out of the blue, Renè was accused to have "underestimated" the mountain, and to have provoked Gousseault death trying to climb the mountain in "light" style (I know that 40 pitons aren't exactly light, but that was 1971!)
When Gousseault's conditions began to dwindle (on February 18), his ability to remove piton decreased dramatically, with the result that Desmaison had to fix almost the pitches above the 25th, then abseil down, remove the pitons, then prusik the rope up again recovering the ailing Gousseault in the process. This slowed down their progress to three pitches per day, with made Gousseault's chances to survive even slimmer.
In 1973 Desmaison, Claret and Giorgio (Bertone) took a similar quantity of material (the pitons were again 50), but the quality was more "modern" (they had few ice screws, hammoks etc), and had more rope (as another crucial factor of the 1971 disaster was that the climber got the reatreat cut when one of their ropes was trashed by stonefall.
The first stash of material found by Gordon (and that disintegrated when Gordon tried to recover it) was abandoned in 1973, when the climbers decided that they had too much gas/food. The fixed ropes on the lower pitches where the results of few years of attempts. The single fixed rope below the junction of the "first ramp" with the direct start taken by Gordon was abandoned in winter 1972 by Desmaison and Bertone during an aborted attempt to complete the climb.
The famous Millet sack at the end of the "rateu des chevres" (below the start of the final ramp) was empty, and I believe it was left there on purpose by Desmaison
>With respect to the Harlin route on the Eiger, it is well documented that fixed ropes were strung almost from top to bottom on the first ascent. I think that we can agree at least that this route was “sieged” on its first ascent.
Absolutely no arguing here: the Harlin route was climbed as a full siege style, kitchen sink included - actually, was the epythome of that trend. The same applies to the Directe de L'Amitiè. So, their eventual repeat in alpine, single push style by MacIntyre/Sorenson (the former) and Baxter-Jones/Colton (the latter) where really, at least from the psycological point of view, the sign time had changed.
But the Gousseault does NOT belong to that type of climb.
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 14, 2009 - 03:49pm PT
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Gordon:
not at all - I really believe that it was one of the biggest exploits on the Alps for that time (and there were plenty of exploits back then).
Even just considering "Scala di Seta" a wee less harder than the Gousseault (after all is rather shorter), it must share the same level of sustained-ness as any other route of that area of the Jorasses. And believe me Gordon, despite the hype, there arent' that many other walls in the Alps that allows you for 1200+ of mixed climbing that's so sustained from start to finish (no initial boring snow slope there, no 800+meters of broken rubble). Maybe the single pitches aren't as hard as many modern technical routes, but the overall level required is just there...
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Feb 14, 2009 - 06:23pm PT
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This thread is really good!
Jack, your story on Huntington reminds me just how far out there you and Simon had gone! Amazing climb. Rick, no doubt about it, Tobin was one of our best. And teamed with Wee Jock, just exactly what couldn't those two climb? Luca, I don't think we've met, have we? At any rate, it's good to have your knowledge and input on Supertopo.
-Jello (Jeff Lowe, for Luca)
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 14, 2009 - 09:13pm PT
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Hi Luca
Actually, I reckon that the pitch that Tobin led on the red tower WAS probably as hard as anything mixed done free in crampons in the alps up to the present. It was a very bold bit of climbing (scared the crap out of me - especially as I couldn't see anything - just hear the jangling of the gear, the scratching of his crampons, the bleating for skyhooks, and then he came flying down out of the storm clouds way over to my right (or left as I believe I was facing outwards as the time)and stopped with a bang!! Twice!!). I was very happy having a top-rope on that pitch, let me tell you!!
Desmaison certainly left a lot of gear (and Gaz) in those sacks just below the junction ... and having rapped down that start it looked like it was pretty well fixed - not the ropes, but the pitons were all in place...Black Nick and I used just one jammed knot to rapp off (at an easier part) - the rest was off fixed pegs. I suspect that at least the first quarter of the climb was fixed - up to and including , even, the 'A1' pitch, perhaps, again not so much with ropes but the pegs were 'prepared' - Tobin and I saw a fair amount of tatty old stuff - bits of rope, rusty pegs etc - for a couple of pitches past the junction...which we ignored ... and then Wrygob mentioned that they saw a lot of fixed stuff including rope higher up. Kingy, Dirty Alex and I found a lot of gear, including bits of old rope, in place on all the hard sections when we climbed most of Desmaison's start in 1975 ... it was hard work avoiding it!! We traversed into the Shroud from about 50 meters below the sacks. (BTW, did Desmaison in 1968 not do pretty much what we did in 1975 for the Shroud - avoid the bottom ice-goulottes (there was all sorts of stuff coming down them) by climbing up those rocks on the right??)
Certainly Desmaison did not 'siege' the entire Goussault in the sense that Seigneur and Harlin did for their climbs, but they did 'work' the route - more in the modern sense, perhaps??!
I'm sure that I read - perhaps it was in the Vallot guide that I got a few years later (dunno where that book's got to, now) - that they used 340 pegs ... I assume that they made 340 piton placements rather than 'equipping' the route with 340 pegs, also for belays and runners, not necessarily just for aid. That would be just an average of 9 placements per pitch, including belays, runners and aid! There were some chrome-molly and hard steel pegs in the sacks Black Nick and I found that would be 'reusable' (I, ahem, found a leeper, a silvery Stubai channel peg and a kingpin that were spared by the crevasses at the bottom which I, ahem, appropriated and used on our ascent, or at least the leeper was used) in addition to strings of soft steel pegs most of which disappeared into the crevasses. I suspect that they were left on the route 'a priori' to fix more of the route for the 1973 ascent, but the team decided not to bother, in the event, preparing any more and left them behind. Decided just to go for the top.
Bit of a 'sentimental' moment, finding the empty sack on the Rateau de Chevre...I assume Desmaison just jammed all the gear into his own sack and left Goussault's behind??
Interesting route, historically!!
Question for you, Luca - I get the impression that Demaison actually fixed most of the original start to the Goussault when he did the Shroud - I have the idea in my head that he fixed the bottom section on the Shroud climb, avoiding the goulottes, and that the original Shroud and the Goussault shared the same start. Do you think, did Desmaison fix the start of the Shroud - and then just check out the first couple of pitches with Goussault before making their assault, or was the Goussault entirely new??
For Rick A - I think that Luca entirely agrees that the Harlin and the Seigneur were entirely sieged - and that the ascents by Tobin, Dirty Alex, Black Nick and RBJ signalled the arrival of a new approach to 'super-route' climbing in the alps. I think Luca is pointing out that the Desmaison was not a seiged climb in the same sense ... that it prefigured the change over, being more of an in-between climb. My own opinion is that the Desmaison was a 'worked' rather than seiged ascent, and that Desmaison et al, followed by Tobin and me were the 'missing link' so to speak between old and modern alpinism...Desmaison (and Bertone) were half way there ... Tobin and I finished the job off (even it it was on a more direct line than the Goussault itself). Of course I had better say PDQ that Gabarrou and Boivin were pretty quick on the uptake!! And Cecchinel and Nomine had the right idea, of course!! The Dru Couloir Direct, by the by, was more in line with the technically hard new 'couloir ascents' that Cecchinel and Nomine, and Boivin and Gabarrou were into...which prefigure modern ice climbing.
Luca - did Grassi come into his stride a wee bit later? in the 80's?
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Feb 14, 2009 - 11:48pm PT
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Gordon, you should make a list of the gear you and Tobin took on the Gousseault to highlight the differences between the first and the second ascent!
I will concede that the Gousseault wasn’t technically seiged, but the difference in style between the first and second ascent is stark. Black Nick and the Brits succeeded in their goal of climbing three of the hardest alpine routes — the Harlin on the Eiger , and the Gousseault and the Directe de L’amitie on the Jorasses —in better style than the first ascents, albeit with some help from that cheeky yank, Tobin; on two out of the three!
Join me tonight in raising a glass to Tobin; how I wish he were here.
Tobin descending from the Dru.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2009 - 12:30am PT
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My glass of Jolly Roger is raised for Tobin and his mates. Praise to partners and the persistence of memory.
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 15, 2009 - 12:39am PT
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Rick A: I would, I would!! (Only it would be apple-juice ... Tobin having been a tee-totaller and I only drink very sparingly (the wife insisted that I drink wine last night - Feb 14!!) - it's also just after lunch here...it's tomorrow as well!!) I feel that it was one of those 'dammit!!' things ... getting frostbitten - Tobin and I were planning the Harlin as #3, then the Matterhorn as #4. At least he got them, I suppose - he did phone me at my mum's house in Scotland to ask if I was coming back, but I was a little bit worried about the skin-grafts on my frostbitten feet and anyway I was totally broke and had to work. I just wish that I hadn't led us up the garden path after our first bivouac as we then would have finished the route without the second bivi and without the storm. Oh well, c'est la vie!! As Jack said, he WAS a loveable guy and very easy to get along with indeed. But bold!! I don't know if I could have gone back up after those two long falls he took! Pity he never knew that he probably has his own route on the Walker Spur!!
Luca ... I've been rereading Benoist's topo of the route ... seems to me that he didn't do the complete original start but traversed in from the Shroud's goulottes, at least he didn't go the way Kingy, Dirty Alex and I did. It also strikes me that if his grades are accurate then the actual climbing that Tobin and I did in the upper section was much harder and more sustained, though maybe 3 pitches shorter - we did lots of hard mixed climbing in crampons on steep rock - slabs, walls, overhangs - plastered in very thin ice and verglass - that was at least as hard as the hardest stuff I climbed in Scotland ... Very sustained climbing with mostly hanging/semi hanging belays from the point that we split off up right. I remember vaguely that Tobin wrote a spiel for Mountain Mag about it - does anyone have it?? He remarked in that how exhausting the climbing was, and that we were in pretty poor condition when we got to the top( I didn't realise about the frostbite, however, until we got down to the hut ... just knew that my feet were very cold)!! And boy, were we hungry!!
Just a tit-bit to pull Ricky's chain a little (Rick, how I love to pull your chain, you attorney, you!!) It seems that some French don't even seem willing to recognise that we ever did the route ... Benoist, in relating the history of the climb before talking of his ascent, only recognises the second WINTER ascent (ie French in 2000), and doesn't mention ours - autumn doesn't count?? Doesn't that get you going!! Well I suppose, now, that maybe he was right!
For Steve - great article by Rob Collister! Looks like he was using Chouinard gear. I remember reading that article and being really inspired to go out and climb Point Five the next year (with my Chouinard axe and dinky little Salewa hammer). The other thing that inspired me was Big Ian Nicholson's solo ascent of Point Five the year or so before Collister's ascent with Cohen. Very inspiring indeed!!
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Feb 15, 2009 - 01:43am PT
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Wee Jock - as I remember, the French were a bit at a loss when the English speakers got up their hallowed routes. I think that they couldn't grasp that climbers that honed their skills on small crags or outside of the Chamonix area could have the skills to play in their mountains. Of course if any of the Peter Minks stories are even half true, I can see why anyone speaking English or some American or Scottish variant of it might be regarded with a high degree of suspicion. You and your bunch of pranksters seemed to be having lots of fun and climbing hard stuff so we tried to follow your example.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2009 - 01:52am PT
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You wouldn't care to elaborate on the aforementioned Minks mischief, would you, Todd?!?
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 15, 2009 - 02:28am PT
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Rick:
>Gordon, you should make a list of the gear you and Tobin took on the Gousseault to highlight the differences between the first and the second ascent!
Gordon and Tobin did NOT make the second ascent (actually, it would have been the third, however) of the Gousseault - they climbed a completely new route (Gordon has proposed a name - "Scala di Seta" - in Italian), with only three or four pitches in common with the Gousseault! This make their feat MUCH bigger (in my opinion) that a mere repeat would have been, and elevates as one of the most relevant climbs ever done on the GJ and the entire Alps
>I will concede that the Gousseault wasn’t technically sieged, but the difference in style between the first and second ascent is stark.
I think I can't make myself explained on this. The style of 1971 (and 1973) climbs of the Gousseault was - how we can say - "classic": the same style used by Bonatti in his great climbs. No front ponting tecniques (or piolet traction), and thus the climbers had to maximize rock climbing vs ice climbing, that was necessarily cumbersome and slow. In many ways, Desmaison (and Bonatti!) were at big disadvantage than their younger counterparts after 1973, as the use of two ice tools allowed for faster, more efficient ice climbing on much steeper ice. It's basically step cutting vs. front pointing - step cutting is not "worse" style at all, just more cumbersome!
Two months ago a friend of mine interviewed Bonatti on this, and the old man was quite blunt (as usual!) on this: he considers all the repeats of his north face of Grand Pilier D'Angle route done in the 70's as cheating - he and Zappelli did step cutting all the way up!
What said above was NOT the case for the Harlin Direct on Eiger or the Directe de L'Amitiè, who were genuinely besieged in mammoth and very unethical fashion (particularly the Amitiè, considering the first climb was done in 1974), so their first alpine style/single push ascents were actual improvements (and, btw, were treated as such even back then!)
However, let me repeat it here: Gordon and Tobin did NOT make a repeat, they climbed a new route! In case nobody now, it's the only route on the Jorasses opened by an American!
>Join me tonight in raising a glass to Tobin; how I wish he were here.
Absolutely, he was one of the greats, and I've always believed his achievements in the Alps were terribly underrated.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Feb 15, 2009 - 03:03am PT
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I must comment on the fact that Wee Jock and his friends were not part of the Minks episodes but were probably where I heard them from. These accounts had reached legendary proportions when I had first heard them in 76. Evidently in the early 70s the British Pound was running rather weak to the French Franc and the exchange rate was most unfavorable to visiting Brits. Typical Alpine weather demanded long stays in the Chamonix Valley in order to capitalize on the few windows of good weather. With funds running short extreme measures were occasionally taken to secure food stocks. In one purported incident, Mr. Minks had gone grocery shopping wearing his down jacket and when settling up for a Mars Bar at the counter, a greasy roto chicken from the revolving roaster fell out of the jacket. In a state of confusion, it was rumored that M. Minks picked up said roto chicken and beaned the checkout girl as he made his hasty exit. Of course this was as I heard the story in 76. Now the other story might have not involved Mr. Minks but did involve the disappearance of many kilos of desiccated sausage that hung from hooks above the bar at a local drinking hole. The heist was allegedly accomplished by stuffing a Franc coin into a light socket that caused the lights throughout the bar to go off. When the lights came back on the sausages were gone. Snell's Field (camping) was searched but the no suspects or meat were found. The locals took a rather dim view of these events but to me they seemed to fit in with "hard" image I had come to expect from the Brits. Wee Jock and his friends, unlike the legendary Brits of these stories, were not crazed but rather super competent and fairly normal.
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 15, 2009 - 03:32am PT
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Gordon:
>Desmaison certainly left a lot of gear (and Gaz) in those sacks just below the junction ... and having rapped down that start it looked like it was pretty well fixed - not the ropes, but the pitons were all in place...
A lot of pitons (not the ropes or the gaz) that you did find on the starting pitches - I meanwhen you did the attempt with Nick were not just left by Desmaison. Those pitches had been climbed for years, as early as 1962, I believe that Berardini and Paragot were the first to get there. The reasons it's of course that they were the most convenient way to access the Linceuil without climbing those ice pitches of the R start (the start more often used now). In fact, I believe you saw there a lot of stuff left by Desmaison in 1968 (you mention this in your post, few lines later)
> Certainly Desmaison did not 'siege' the entire Goussault in the sense that Seigneur and Harlin did for their climbs, but they did 'work' the route - more in the modern sense, perhaps?
Well, yes, the start was certainly worked out. But anything above the wall leading to the first ramp (where you find an old rope), was "terra incognita" when Desmaison climbed it with Gousseault. And, as you experienced on your own, it's a place where it's easy to get lost!
>I'm sure that I read - perhaps it was in the Vallot guide that I got a few years later (dunno where that book's got to, now) - that they used 340 pegs ... I assume that they made 340 piton placements rather than 'equipping'
No, the Vallot 1979 (Volume IV) doesn't mention the number of pitons. Gino Buscaini knew Giorgio Bertone and Desmaison well, he got the route topo directly from them. The "330 pitons" is just a number that popped out here and there, has no basis on reality.
> Bit of a 'sentimental' moment, finding the empty sack on the Rateau de Chevre...I assume Desmaison just jammed all the gear into his own sack and left Goussault's behind??
I've a theory on this, but I'll left it for my book... ;).
>Of course I had better say PDQ that Gabarrou and Boivin were pretty quick on the uptake!! And Cecchinel and Nomine had the right idea, of course!! The Dru Couloir Direct, by the by, was more in line with the technically hard new 'couloir ascents' that Cecchinel and Nomine, and Boivin and Gabarrou were into...which prefigure modern ice climbing.
True: It should be noted however that all those routes where climbed quite early in the developement of "piolet tractions" - the Dru Couloir was first climbed in December 1973, the Supercouloir of Tacul was climbed in 1975. But I've my opinions on this - I hope Gabarrou will not get offended if he'll ever read this, but those early climbs where basically nothing truly new, as I believe that you Brits/Scots did much of the same thing back home in the same years - and earlier.
In my humble opinion (I take complete blame for this!) the real revolution in the Alps began in 1977, when Giancarlo Grassi and Gianni Comino came into the steep ice arena. Because they saw that those new tools could be used for: not just long difficult alpine lines (often on par with earlier stuff - I'm being told that the Lesueur '58 route on the NF of the Drus is much more difficult that the NE couloir of the same mountain), but real NEW and outrageous stuff - south facing couloirs of rotten ice, phantom/ephemeral lines, climbing seracs, and of course technical water icefall in winter.
> Luca - did Grassi come into his stride a wee bit later? in the 80's?
Giancarlo began climbing in the 60's, in his teens. He climbed the Walker spur on the Jorasses in 1968, just 19 years old. In the early 70's he did a lot of hard rock climbing, in 1973 he climbed "Sole Nascente" on the Orco Valley together with Giampiero Motti and your very own Mike Kosterlitz - first truly modern (i.e. Yosemite style) climb done in continental Europe. He began to take interest on steep ice climbing when he met Gianni Comino (who was much younger than him), and in the three years that they climbed together they literally changed the face of the sport. Then Gianni died in 1980 on the Brenva face of Mt. Blanc in an attempt to solo the big seracs on the R of the Poire (which he did almost complete - he was killed by an avalanche shortly below the summit ridge), and Giancarlo continued with different partners all through the 80's, climbing thousands of new lines (insane stuff, tracking his whole activity would be impossible even for me!). I think is masterpiece remains the Phantom Direct on the South Face of the Jorasses, still unrepeated today. He died in 1992 at 48, in a banal climbing accident he would have survived if rescue had not been botched.
>I've been rereading Benoist's topo of the route ... seems to me that he didn't do the complete original start but traversed in from the Shroud's goulottes, at least he didn't go the way Kingy, Dirty Alex and I did
There are FOUR different start for the Gousseault
1) The 1971 start - it's the one used by Benoist and Glairon-Rappatz (the one of the topo)
2) the 1973 start - the one you used in the first attempt
3) the "scottish/american" start :-) (the one you used with Tobin, and later - probably - used by the Chechs in 1979 when they opened "Rolling Stone"
4) The Berhault "shortcut" - in 2001 he first climbed the R hand start of the Linceuil, then traversed on the Gousseault just below the start of the second ramp. Saved one if not two days of climbing with that, but it's more or less a cheat....
>It seems that some French don't even seem willing to recognise that we ever did the route ... Benoist, in relating the history of the climb before talking of his ascent, only recognises the second WINTER ascent (ie French in 2000),
No, he knew about your ascent, I'm being told he's a climbing history aficionado like I am (the difference being that he climb all these big routes after reading about them, while I'm here discussing with you on Internet!). He meant "second winter ascent" really just as the second winter ascent, that's all.
Gordon, you're a terrible influence in my climbing life, I was supposed to be ice climbing today, and I'm still here boring everyone to tears with the history of the GJ!
;)
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 15, 2009 - 03:34am PT
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> Luca, I don't think we've met, have we? At any rate, it's good to have your knowledge and input on Supertopo.
Hi Jeff,
thanks, my pleasure to be here. I don't think we've met, but we may have few common acquaintances.
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 15, 2009 - 05:30am PT
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Hi Luca
You should not be reading this until tomorrow - so don't answer till then at the earliest as I'll be pissed off at you for screwing up an ice climbing day ... sometimes, except for when my wife is being very nice to me, I yearn for snow and ice and big North Walls!!
I understand completely about the 'attempts for years' in approaching the Shroud - that first bit of the Goussault was well enough known. Our 1975 approach to the Shroud was via the 1973 opening of the Goussault, I'm sure', and my RETREAT with Black Nick was down that same line. My first attempt on the Desmaison with Black Nick was the same line that Tobin and I later followed.
I'm pretty sure that on multiple attempts at the Desmaison before the 1973 ascent a lot of preparation of the route was done up the 1st ramp to the A1 pitch and perhaps beyond, with a lot of pegs 'preplaced' - we saw scraps of fixed rope on harder spots up the 1st ramp. I suspect that the attempt with Goussault may have been much 'purer', in that respect?? There seems to have been a lot of gear in place - much more than 40-50 pitons would suggest!
According to Lindsay Griffin there seems to be some doubt as to where Rolling Stone actually started .... Lindsay commented to me that there is a lot of confusion as where those 'mythical' routes on the Walker go!!
>>Well, yes, the start was certainly worked out. But anything above the wall leading to the first ramp (where you find an old rope), was "terra incognita" when Desmaison climbed it with Gousseault. And, as you experienced on your own, it's a place where it's easy to get lost
Actually, I don't think that the Desmaison route is hard to find at all, at least up to the headwall,(except perhaps around the 'A1' pitch at the end of the 1st ramp, according to Benoist) if you go out to climb the ramps ... ask Wrygob - he commented to me 'how the bloody hell could you miss the route??' - only we weren't out to climb the ramps, we were out to climb the direct - we just didn't know that we SHOULD have been looking to climb the ramps!! What confuses me is that Desmaison definitely talked of his route being the 'direct' of the face ... if he wanted to do the direct, how come he didn't climb the route we did? Also, why did the route he did not end on the Hirondelles? It seems to be a route that naturally parallels the Shroud. Why did he dog leg in the way that he did? If you ask me the route that Tobin and I did SHOULD have taken the 1973 start, right across the ramps, and the route that Desmaison did SHOULD have taken the 1977 start - straight up the ramps... (The only place where we got 'lost' was when we tried to avoid coming back down from our 1st bivi and facing the horrible 'slot' ... eventually we realised that what we were doing was totally illogical (cheating) so we went back down and did things properly - up the slot.) We essentially followed our noses and the line we followed across all those parallel ramps was, perhaps by magic, all there .... a 'silken ladder'!!
>>True: It should be noted however that all those routes where climbed quite early in the developement of "piolet tractions" - the Dru Couloir was first climbed in December 1973, the Supercouloir of Tacul was climbed in 1975. But I've my opinions on this - I hope Gabarrou will not get offended if he'll ever read this, but those early climbs where basically nothing truly new, as I believe that you Brits/Scots did much of the same thing back home in the same years - and earlier.
What I meant here was that Cecchinel, Gabarrou et al were correct in seeing that the FUTURE was in high standard front pointing (thanks to Chouinard and Cunningham ... ie relate this note to the OP) and not in the 'old' French and German techniques - not so much in the difficulty of those routes.
There were 2 revolutions in Alpinism, IMHO - the second somewhat dependent on the first ... first the destruction of the old 'hallowed' ways - at the peak of which was Seigneur on the Whymper, Harlin and the Germans (particularly the Germans) on the Eiger and Haston/Bonnington on the right flank of the Walker. The attitude that climbs like the Walker and the Eiger and the Matterhorn were climbs only for supermen and that any 'bigger' climbs required Himalayan techniques - thrown to the winds (but note for example Bonatti and Vaucher's accomplishment on the Whymper (but they WERE supermen)!!). The second was your ice climbing revolution - originated by the dru and supercouloirs and then refined by Grassi and Gabarrou and the hordes that have come after. Hey, I think my 'Baumont-Smith' came in there somewhere ... the first alpine route done with a reverse banana pick (that became a commercial product).... To keep this note in line with the OP it was the second revolution that derived from Chouinard and Cunningham. The first derived a great deal from the powder snow bloody mindedness of Patey and the Aberdonians in Scotland in the 50's and the 'great unwashed tide of Brits' in the 70s. Cecchinel and Gabarrou cottoned on PDQ in the early 70's, to start your ice revolution.
'nuff babble. Sorry about hijacking your thread Steve, but we should all be grateful for Luca's input in spite of his self effacement!! And Chouinard was somewhere at the start of all this revolting!!
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Bldrjac
Ice climber
Boulder
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Feb 15, 2009 - 06:13am PT
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My how this post has grown!! You could be right Rick but I hope I haven't been thinking all these many years that we almost had it in the bag.......
What I most remember from belaying Steve at that point was him yelling,
"I've reached the main coulouir. Come on up"! And I definately remember the reason we came down as what I mentioned. Of course you are right about none of us willing to leave a single piece of gear behind during a retreat. Especially if it wasn't needed.
You probably ARE right. My memory is most likely befuddled. I never got to the belay and I don't remember any conversation following or during our retreat. You and Tobin never got the credit you deserved for that climb. My memory IS clear on how hard it was up there...
There were some great climbs and climbers doing amazing routes in the Alps back then. I think Tobin's ascent with Alex of the Harlin route impressed me the most.
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 15, 2009 - 06:14am PT
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Luca - one last point ... why do you imply that Goussault and Desmaison did the first ascent ... They didn't quite make it to the top ... almost but not quite - Desmaison hauled up on a wire the last 300 feet ... Desmaison, Bertone, Claret did the first ascent, surely - unless you are being a bit 'romantic' (in the correct sense of the word!) about the original epic.
Also - you ARE still working on your book???? I sincerely hope so!!!
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Feb 15, 2009 - 08:08am PT
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Gordon,
Not drinking much? Based on my past acquaintance with Scottish climbers, that does not seem to be in keeping with the finest traditions of Scottish Mountaineering! And this reminds me of a quote from Winston Churchill, something about the finest traditions of the British Navy…
Like Luca, I’m delaying going off to play in the mountains while I write this, but I’ll be riding downhill on fresh powder snow, not ice climbing. Ice climbing is “too much like hard work,” in the immortal words of Tom Patey.
Rick
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 15, 2009 - 08:58am PT
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Rick: I was always really good at making a half pint last the whole evening. Never been much of a drinker. Meanwhile I am eating my heart out at the thought of you weasels going out into the powder snow!! Today I walked the dog through the jungle which was still steaming after days of tropical downpour! I keep going and looking up at the cliffs above the beach ... the jungle approach has been too much so far to keep me from them! Plus sheer, unadulterated indolence! Couple of interesting birds around today - fluorescent yellow plumage. Don't know bugger all about anything wild out here - I rely on my wife who seems to know everything, except she never knows the English names for things!
Dammit, that kitten's back - feral kitten hanging around outside yowling. Tiny but FIERCE. I brought it in to feed it and it ripped me apart, then the dog got jealous and chased it away. But its back!
Have you tried ice-climbing with these modern leashless axes with the bent handles? And mono-points? Weird!! Anyone asked YC what he thinks of them ... or is YC just into the clothes business these days?
Happy skiing (and climbing for Luca), you beasts!
Gordon
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2009 - 11:45am PT
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Man is the quotable Churchill entertaining!!! As regards thirst.....
"I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
And the aftermath....
"I like a man who grins when he fights."
"I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I'll be sober and you will still be ugly."
Outstanding material!
Wee Jock- There's always another cat to replace the one that wanders or vanishes. The greater continuity of cats---- we have five in upper management here at the house. LOL
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