Les Droites North Face - La Ginat Route

Le Droites North Face. The Ginat takes little lines of ice up the right side of the face - right through the gray ice shield sitting midway.

Since first hearing of the famous alpine faces of Chamonix when I was but a wee high school student, I've been fascinated and intimidated by them. The north face of Les Droites is one of those big faces. Fortunately for me, its bark is worse than its bite. I'm still woefully behind the times when it comes to ticking off famous north faces of the alps. I've never done the Eiger, the Matterhorn, or the Piz Bernina. But Les Droites provides an attainable, somewhat moderate north face for people like me to climb when they've mainly been focusing on skiing all season.

Les Droites has a multitude of routes ascending its north face. Some are desperate, none are easy. La Ginat route is the bog-standard north facing route that attracts the most attention, and it can be climbed in less time than the more difficult options - thus reducing the time one might spend away from coffee and other cham-based luxuries. Some locals have managed to solo it in less than two hours - with skis on their back.

In the late afternoon of April 7th, Steve Su and I slogged from the Grands Montets down to the Argentiere hut in preparation for an ascent of La Ginat route which ascends the right side of Les Droites North Face. We foolishly elected not to take skis with us up the route (for use on the long, sloppy descent). I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out where that stupid idea came from.

We were up at 2:00am, and relished our gourmet stale bread breakfast, and washed it down with instant coffee. Yum. 20 minutes out of the hut I tripped over a brand new ice screw sitting in the trail. Booty!

We crossed the Argentiere and simu-climbed most of the route in about four pitches. I found another screw and one broken black diamond crampon stuck in the snow midway up the first pitch. Hmmm...

The climbing is very mellow and moderate for the grade in most springs. Footwork is incredibly easy, and the melt-freeze snice stuck to the surface of old gray ice provides hero-swing potential and perfect sticks - but ice screws generally suck. The route is really just a calf-stamina game. We plodded up the Ginat in a ho-hum time of 5 hours.

Two other parties were on the Ginat that day. They both had skis, and they both made it down to the Montenvers Train station hours before we did. It took us about 9 hours to descend from the summit of les Droites to downtown Chamonix. Hip-deep wallowing in isothermal slop just can't be done much quicker than that. I was motivated to slog and crawl as fast as possible because I was due to work in Arolla the following morning at 4:00am.

All in all a great route - take your skis.

Other gear:

-2 leashless tools with tethers

-2 crampons (that don't break or fall off)

-2 50-60m ropes (can help speed up the 8-rappel descent down from La Breche)

-a fist-full of screws, some stubbies (don't depend on finding too many at the base of the route)

-a handful of cams - BD C3's and C4's from .2 to a #1 ought to do it

-1 small set of nuts.

-2 packs of cigarettes (if you want to blend in with the locals)

Steve at the Breche. We're halfway there in distance, a third of the way there in time.

Steve on the initial slog to the Argentiere hut

The Argentiere Hut is your last opportunity to drink wine, socialize, and look up more route beta. Steve Su following pitch 2.

Steve is smiling because the climbing is mellow, and because he thinks we're going to make the 4:30 Montenvers train.

Another pitch or two higher, and we've managed to pass two alpinists from the Südtirol.

Notice the lack of both fear and belay parka on me. It is very rare to see me without these while in the alpine.

Steve on the last pitch prior to simu-climbing to the Breche.

Classic alpine ice - the stuff dreams are made of. Steve in the Breche - halfway there in distance, a third of the way there in time. Steve hip-deep on the descent. It was all downhill from here - figuratively.

Mixed climbing adventures on Hallet Peak's North Face

The first time I climbed the North Face of Hallet Peak was with a girl. It was mid-summer, and almost t-shirt weather except for when we got stuck in a hail and lightning storm on the summit.

The first time I climbed (... or attempted to climb)  the North Face of Hallet Peak in winter conditions, it was with soft-spoken hard-man Steve Su and the late Jonny Copp. I was "off the couch" like I so frequently am, and Steve and Jonny graciously took the sharp end for all four pitches that we managed to make it up. Despite being top-roped up the snow and lichen-covered gneiss, I was terrified. This was scary, wild, stuff. The protection sucks (when you can get it) and all of the dry-tooling is on is slopey and snow-covered. Our early April adventure ended that day about 500 feet off the ground. We had to rappel off with only one rope (someone forgot the other one) and that was going to take a while. Plus, Jonny had a date planned with his girlfriend. A few weeks later, Jonny took off for China with Micah Dash and Wade Johnson, and he never came back.

Since that day I've always had respect for the scrappy, grovelly terrain on Hallet. I've figured that if you can scratch your way up that stuff in a timely manner, you can make it up just about any piece of alpine terrain anywhere.

Late in February, Steve Su and I got a chance to go back up there for a day of good old fashioned suffering. We climbed a route that Steve had had his eye on for a while. It wandered up the Hallet's second buttress (just right of Hallet Chimney). Steve and Bruce Miller had made it quite a ways up the lower half of the wall, but time or weather had ended their day before the top. 

Because of the murky history of hard-man climbing in RMNP, it seems doubtful to consider a route as a "first" unless you've really done your research. We may have climbed this route "first" as a mixed route, but there were occasional human traces almost the entire way. We started about 200 feet left of the Love Route (5.9) and climbed a difficult, left-leaning crack to a set of easier dihedrals leading to the top of a buttress mid-way up the wall. Here we rejoined the Love Route for another several pitches (and spotted one old pin and one old buttonhead to confirm our location), before shooting left of it for 3 pitches near the summit roofs. We each climbed with Black Diamond Cobras (the more recent generation) and spinner leashes. I don't know how I ever climbed sketchy alpine mixed with leashes. It is terrifying. In total the route was about 7-8 200 foot pitches, with a tension traverse and pendulum thrown in near the top for good measure. Steve took the hardest pitches, like he so often does. I have no idea what the rating would be - M7 +or-? It is really difficult to tell.

If you want to climb hard alpine routes, and you live in Colorado, go to Hallet Peak and get scared.

The North Face of Hallet Peak. Our route up the second buttress is marked in red. Hallet's Chimney is the gully/corner system just left of our line. We rapelled it to descend.

Steve approaches the first pitch

Steve follows pitch 2.

In alpine anchor-building, you do the best you can.

Temperature management on pitch 6.

I was really hoping Steve wouldn't fall here. Steve on top, with an appropriate look of fatigue.

one more one-piece anchor shot. This nut was so bomber...Steve raps into the top of Hallet Chimney at 10:00pm.