Le pont des soupirs (TD+, 6b+, 250m) Envers des Aiguille, France

10.8.11

Le pont des soupirs (TD+, 6b+, 250m) Envers des Aiguille, France

When my friend Paul suggested a long weekend in the French Alps to climb in the remote Envers des Aiguille high above the Mer de Glace I jumped at the chance.

This turned out to be a big step up for me in terms of commitment. The climbing is as good as it gets and the feeling of isolation, high up on needle like pinnacles towering above glaciated valleys made it quite the experience!
The Refuge that we were staying in is situated high above the northern slopes of the Mer de Glace. With the Mont Envers train taking you to the end of the glacier a collection of ladders and iron steps lead on to the ice, when upon reaching one has a fantastic walk up the glacier until the exit point where further ironmongery leads to the path to the hut....

Hiking up the Glacier

The Envers hut is about idyllic as it gets for a climbing location. Remote, beautiful, high up, and a stones throw away from amazing granite...

Great weather at first

A Beautifully positioned hut

With the stunning approach to our accommodation complete we picked a route to jump straight on. It was already quite late and we were knackered but the forecast was truly awful for the coming days and with this being only a four day trip we wanted to at least try and bag something. We opted for Le Piège (TD+, 6a+, 200m). However in our exhaustion we misread the guidebook and had started up a neighboring route. Fortunately for us the grade was similar. It was clear however that at this late hour we were not going to summit. Still I started up pitch 3 or 4 which was an enormous corner, very steep and by now (about 4.30pm) quite intimidating. I was just starting to question what the hell I was doing halfway up a mountain in France when my foot popped off the slick granite. Before I new what was going on I was falling! But only for a second as the very small micro cam I had placed did its job and held me! Highly shaken and by now with no real desire to carry on with the route, I managed to slowly down-climb to Paul where we both abseiled back to the refuge....

The rout we thought was La Piege

Starting up pitch 1

Golden granite

A back drop to remember

The corner from which I fell

Retreat to the refuge...and dinner

The following day it appeared not to be raining. The forecast had improved somewhat though we were both still a tad on edge. Our first day had exhausted us and we were still a little unsure about the weathers reliability (the hut was very quiet, did the other climbers know something we didn’t). We decided on Le pont des soupirs (TD+, 6b, 250m). A super classic route and one that had numerous minor summits to head for as smaller objectives should the weather look shaky. The route is well known for the jammed block bridge (the “Pont”) that sees one clambering over in wildly exposed positions. Great route.

Huge distant cliffs!

Me on the Pont

Me following

Back down - The weather still nice!

On our final day we thought we’d have a go at The Sandman –Le Marchand de Sable (TD+,6a+,330m). As our last day it was a token effort really, we were both very tired and trying to fit four days of climbing in here was exhausting. We had a go at The Sandman but bailed shortly after as the bad weather had finally arrived. However the experience of crossing a bergshrund in order to access the route was one I still haven’t repeated. It was worth it just for the experience of that. With the routes all fully equipped for abseiling the Envers is a great place to experience massive routes next door to an amazing hut. I vowed to return for a longer trip....