Supercouloir

With a month spent rock climbing in the middle of winter (Thailand/Jordan), I feel like winter has eluded me. So, despite summer like temperatures in Chamonix this past week, I was excited to swing my tools a little more into some sweet alpine ice.

A week earlier, my partner Tania and I had tried to climb the Supercouloir but it had just snowed and huge snow mushrooms were looming high above us, making the route impossible to climb. We resorted to climbing the nearby “Goulotte Lafaille”, a 400m long ice route on the Mont Blanc du Tacul (4248m). We made quick work of it, simul-climbing most of the route. The next day, I left on a Haute Route, guiding 4 amazing British lads from Chamonix to Zermatt. Upon returning, the weather proved to be – yet again – beautiful and we decided to get back on the Supercouloir.

The Supercouloir was first climbed in 1975 (before I was born!). This rock/ice line is the most striking feature on the east face of Mont Blanc du Tacul. It is nestled between two beautiful pillars, one of which is the worldclass Gervasutti pillar. I had climbed this route in 2003, via the direct start, which is no longer in condition at this time of year. It was my partner’s dream to climb this route and I was excited to do it with her. Tania is full time doctor and was on the guide course with me in Switzerland. We have climbed extensively together in the past, but since my departure to the States, we were lucky if got to do one outing a year together. Recently though, we have made up for lost time.

We slept at the Cosmiques Hut – a beautiful refuge only 15minutes away from the top of the Aiguille du Midi cable car. We reached the base of the route by dawn. The sun hadn’t touched the rock yet and it was very cold to touch and was still covered in ice in places. I had to resort to using an ice axe to make it up the iced up slab/super thin crack. I led two pitches in one and reached the now bolted anchor, greeted by the sunshine. We climbed in rock slippers, hauling a pack loaded with our ice climbing gear: crampons, ice axes, boots, ice screws, jackets, gloves, etc.). We made quick work of the remaining 3 pitches taking us to the bottom of a left slanting snow ramp, which took us to the ice. We switched to our ice climbing gear, left the rock gear and climbing slippers at the anchor and made our way to the ice. We climbed the 300m long ice climb in two pitches, simul-climbing 3-4 pitches at a time. By noon, we started rapping down the route, excited to get back to the sun. Although temperatures were nearing 80F in the valley, a cold breeze running down the climb made it feel like we were in an icebox.

We skied down the classic Vallee Blanche in order to catch the Montenvers train. This is the first time that I had to carry my skis to reach the train. Because of the incredible heat in Chamonix right now, we have lost 10cm of snow per day and the mountains look like it’s mid-June! But ice conditions up high are still good and am excited to have a late warm winter season, making ice climbing just a little more pleasant.

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Jordan

Created: April 13, 2011 by Caroline George

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I had been to Jordan when I was a little girl, 11years old to be precise and had always wanted to go back. My parents had taken us there over Christmas. It was my first time in such a remote country, amongst new people, a new culture, and I loved every minute of it. My Dad was written a thesis on the “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by TE Lawrence, and this trip was both a pilgrimage and an excuse to do first ascents on the majestic sandstone big walls that define Wadi Rum – a desert 4 hours south of Amman.

I love doing first ascents. They don’t have to be big or worldclass, I just love the feeling of setting foot where no one else has set foot before. Since I was there in 1987, lots of climbers had visited Wadi Rum and put up new routes. So, I didn’t know if we would find anything new to climb. But thanks to our local contact, Attayak, we found a line. It was far away and hidden in a dark corner but it was unclimbed and that was all that mattered.

Upon returning from Antarctica, I flew to Thailand to meet up with Adam and two friends of ours, Sarah Garlick and Jim Surette. Sarah was my partner for the trip, Jim the cameraman, and Adam the rigger for Jim. We went to Thailand first to train and be in shape for adventure climbing in Jordan. After a week there, we shifted from exotic-palm tree-beaches-thai food and thai massage to a different type of exotism in the middle east. Until the last minute, we weren’t sure we would go to Jordan because of the uprisings going on all over the Middel East. But local contacts swore that nothing was really going on, and indeed, we never witnessed anything.

Upon arriving in Jordan, I reconnected with my childhood memories. It was amazing to experience this feeling of going back in time, thinking that I had been there 24 years prior, yet everything seemed the same. The adults were probably the kids I had played with during my first visit, houses had been built, but overall, nothing seemed to have changed.

We climbed around Wadi Rum, getting our bearings and learning to feel somewhat comfortable on the loose rock – the rock there is sandstone and what makes sandstone solid is its the cement/matrix, but there is non there, so anytime you drop a rock, it instantly turns to sand. With only two weeks in Wadi Rum, we soon decided to check out that potential line Attayak had told us about, since this was the goal of our trip.

Sarah and I checked it out one day, climbing a little ways up it, to make sure it would go. We felt confident and excited about it, so after a rest day, we returned, all geared up to get to the top. The rock was unpredictable and quite loose, which made for real adventure climbing in a remote place. We topped out by sundown and made our way back to our packs by rapping in the dark to the anchors that Adam had bolted on the way up. We named the route “Uprising” in view of the events going on in the Middle East in February 2011.

We enjoyed more climbing and visited Petra for the remainder of our stay.

I loved every moment of this trip, the adventure, the memories of my youth, sharing these times with great friends and with Adam. I am already looking forward to another adventure, rock climbing where no one has been before.

Antarctica

Created: April 13, 2011 by Caroline George

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How do you go to a place you can’t even pronounce, let alone spell right, each time you try and explain where you are going. That extra “c”, right in the middle, always eludes me.

Going to Antar”c”tica is a little like going to the moon. It’s one of those few places on the planet that is really hard – and expensive – to go to and where you would not survive without some support system. The continent is immersed in full darkness 3/4 of the year and the it is bitter cold there without the sun. Very few people live there year round, and only in established bases.

When I first landed there, I thought to myself:” wow, I could just fly home now and be satisfied”, for the scenery was so breathlessly mindblowing, with infinite stretches of ice, only broken by sheer knifeedges ridges and summits.

I had feared the cold I would experience in Antarctica, and because of – or thanks to –
that, I didn’t feel that it was as cold as I expected it to be. Anytime we were in the sun, it was comfortable, it’s only when the sun hid behind the mountains that the air felt bitter cold.

The scale of mountains there were immense. Anywhere you look are unclimbed mountains, pristine glaciers and wilderness. What lacked maybe was the wildlife. Non of that inland there.

We summitted Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, which is what we had come to do. It was a beautiful day with winds strong enough to make it feel like it was -60C. But we had great warm coats that made it feel as though we were in the Bahamas… well, sort of.

We then flew back to Union Glacier, where we got stranded for a little while, while a strike was going on in Punta Arenas. The governement decided to stop subsidising gas in Chile and truckers went on strike, blocking access to Punta Arenas. In the meantime, I did a whole bunch of first ascents around Union Glacier Camp. The camp is a new location this year and so all that is around is unclimbed terrain. It was a blast. I love the feeling of being the first Human to set foot anywhere!