I’ve done this once and what an exhilarating week it was. I felt like I was living the dream, following in the foot steps of all those heroic mountaineers, ice axe in hand and crampons on foot, scaling the heights of the ice covered mountains.
In reality we were driving along route N91 to Le Grave, binoculars in hand looking at the mesmerising frozen waterfalls, seeing which ones were prime to climb. There were about 3 in a row, frozen solid and ready to be ascended. We pulled the Land Rover over at the car par between two tunnels, lept out, grabbed the kit and began the arduous 2 minute trek to the bottom of the fall, careful not to slip on the snow and end up in the ice melt river. The climb that had chosen was Les Moulin. 600 meters of adrenalin pumping frozen waterfall, completed through climbing 8 pitches, taking most of the day. Being a beginner, I was only going up the first pitch. That was hard enough.
Luckily the temperature was just below freezing – so not too cold. You could happily kit up with your gloves off, which is important. Have you ever tried putting a climbing harness on with gloved fingers? Not that easy at all, I can ensure you. Harnessed up, kit on belt, ready to climb. I was feeling nervous. A 40m icefall pitch and few pointy things to stop me falling... Of course there is the rope, so in theory I couldn’t fall, however, the body and mind don’t really comprehend that.
Ben was the first one up the ice, a competent climber leading the route, strategically placing the titanium ice screws that will break your fall if there was ever a slip. Ben made it look easy, tool, tool, crampon, crampon, to the belay point, where he was going to belay me up the route. I was given a quick refresher on how to swing the ice axe, how to place the crampons. I was told you know the sound when the axe bites into the ice well. How could I know this, I’ve never climbed before, I asked. You’ll just know came the words from our wise climbing sage. And, remember, always keep three points in contact with the ice. Not too much to think about then.
Gracefully I started up the ice, actually, there was no grace about it at all, I was all axes and crampons, hammering away at the ice trying to get a good bite from the ice, slowly working my way up. The sweat was pumping out my body, the blood pumping around my muscles, aching, straining, as I was trying to flow up the ice. Getting to an ice screw, taking my weight in the axe loops (after hearing that resounding thud as they got a good bite into the ice) I gingerly reached across to take out the screw, slowly, slowly and clipped it onto my belt and continued upwards. Thud, thud, chink, chink, as the axes and crampons went into the ice. I climbed slowly to the top, encouragement being shouted from below, arms and legs on fire, and finally I reached Ben at the belay point, to the words of ‘Well done, what did you think of your first ice climb?”. It was awesome, adrenalin pumping, muscle pumping, and I couldn’t wait to get down to tell everyone how incredible it was. I really was living that dream.
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