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August 11 to 12, 2009
Yours Truly and Juraj
La Meije !!!
Yeeehaw !!!
Route: Grand Pic - Arete W
Descent: Traversee des Aretes
Grade: 4c
Climbing length: 900m
Total elevation gain: 2500m
Number of people crossed: ZERO !!!
Parc National des Ecrins, FRANCE
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Grand Pic de la Meije (3982m) seen from La Grave. |
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The route! The climbing begins at the col. You warm up with about 1000m of scrambling and glacier travel! We bivouacked on the ridge, right where the red line first disappears behind it. |
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On the scramble up. The Golean in the background. |
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The glacier section before the Breche de la Meije. |
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Looking south deep into the Ecrins. |
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The route from the col. Intimidating, to say the least!!! |
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Beautiful climbing, mixed with chossy climbing. |
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La Barre des Ecrins behind Juraj. |
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Finally on the bivy, later than planned and nicely stressed out by the exposure!! We had come up and over the finger behind Juraj... Expoooosed!!! |
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Rapping back down to the bivy after climbing packless up to the hanging Glacier Carre one pitch above us, to stock up on water. Boy were we stressed!!! |
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View from the hotel window. |
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Beautiful bivy. |
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Drawing the curtains. |
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Mmmm fooood. Brrrr coooold. |
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6am next morning, on the Glacier Carre. |
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Heading up back up to the ridge line. The rest of the climb was much more straight forward than we had predicted. We were at the summit an hour and a half later. |
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Final airy move out over the huge north face (called le Cheval Rouge because you straddle a red saddle with one leg hanging over 1000m of air!). La Grave in the background. |
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The summit!!! Yeehaw. 3982m. |
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Our descent route: more of a traverse along this exposed ridge, with rock, mixed and ice sections. Wild! |
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Juraj after leading the ice couloir on the traverse. |
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Final rappel off the ridge. This bergshrund was huuuge. You had to fling yourself over it to clear the gap. |
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Looking back at the Grand Pic (on right) and the traverse. |
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10x zoom of La Grave. |
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The route. |
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1500m descent to cap the day off. I can assure you I was bushed!!! What a fabulous trip. Merci Juraj. |
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