"How about this one? ED sup. and only twenty minutes walk from the 'frique." Pete was flicking through a folder of topo’s at the Bureau des Guides in Chamonix. I agreed readily to do such an attractive sounding route.
Any self-respecting modern Alpinist will by now know that the best routes were put up not by big-booted misled ancients such as Bonatti and Buhl, but by that true hero, Michel Piola, clad in sticky boots and, no doubt, baggy pink trousers. Forget about 2 a.m. starts, the Eckpfeiler and the Jorasses; the real routes lie an easy walk from a civilized mid-morning telepherique to the Plan Des Aiguilles. Forget also about boring out-dated names like ’North Face Direct of the Droites’ or ’East Flank of the Walker Spur’; the climb in question was graced with the intriguing title: ’Le Ticket, Le Carré, Le Rond et La Lune’. I did not know what it meant then and now I do not care.
Next morning found us lacing up our E.B.’s at the foot of the West Face of the Peigne, contemplating the glorious sweep of slabs above and the queue for the telepherique just a few hundred feet below. "Only put up two months ago," said Pete. "Can’t have had many ascents." Clutching the crisp, newly- photocopied topo, I climbed the first pitch. "Good climbing this," I enthused, laybacking elegantly up a flake to the first bolt belay. "Looks harder above though." The second pitch was pronounced VIc on the topo and was indeed tricky. Protected by a convenient bolt above my head, I made a desperate sequence of moves leftwards to a foothold from which a further ten feet of unduly bold climbing led to .html bolt. This was followed by a few more hard moves and then easier climbing up to the stance.
"Tough 6a that," Pete gasped through a thick cloud of chalk. "This will give us something to tell those cocky bastards in Snell’s Field about. Imagine failing on a mere TD like the Nant Blanc Pace of the Vette."
"Clearly grossly incompetent," I agreed, scampering on up the next pitch of 5b slabs past numerous pegs and bolts. Suddenly a startled cry reached me.
"Jesus Christ! Look at that bird!" I looked round, expecting to see an eagle soaring majestically against a backdrop of snowcapped peaks. But no. I stared in astonishment and bewilderment. Pete had been refering to the scantily-clad female who was cruising smoothly up the VIc pitch below, accompanied by a muscle-bound blond German youth.
"Damned Kraut!" exclaimed Pete when he joined me at the next bolt-adorned belay. "The fool complained he couldn’t see the holds for chalk."
The topo proclaimed the next pitch VIc and it clearly constituted the crux. A blank slab perhaps fifteen feet high sporting a solitary bolt led to an easier groove. Pete took over the lead, but after several tentative efforts announced that a ’Dyno’ would be necessary to reach good holds at the top of the slab. Three times he lunged and three times he slithered back down until held by the bolt before he diagnosed the problem: it was no fault of his own – I was simply not giving him enough slack to make the lunge. This was in fact untrue and a brief argument followed. Another attempt with more slack simply increased the length of the fall, but a fifth attempt was more sucessful and the rope began to run out quickly. By now the Germans had caught up.
"This is hard," I said, "ED sup."
"I think perhaps it is not so hard," replied the statuesque blond. "Yesterday I make film on Croz Spur. Today I take woman far easy climb. Tomorrow- I return to Croz Spur to make more film."
"The Croz Spur is only TD?" I countered.
"This is only a little rock climb," replied the misguided youth and then, apparently unconcerned about the mist which had enveloped us to increase still further the seriousness of the route, the couple passionately embraced and left me to second the difficult slab. After several attempts, the Germans below, whose writhing bodies were putting a worrying strain on the bolts, were well-coated in settling chalk dust. They suggested unhelpfully that I spare them from suffocation by making do with less of the white stuff.
"F... you," I thought appropriately, contemplating the thrashing tangle of limbs, and stood on the bolt, reducing the grade to about 4c.
Several mote nondescript pitches followed up the obvious line of shiny pegs and bolts. Leading through, I reached, to my great consternation, a vast area of broken, easy ground. There was even the odd patch of snow. The line of bolts ended. To continue upwards in such dire circumstances was quite unthinkable. I began to search for a suitable abseil point and to my great relief soon located a large boulder festooned with numerous multi-coloured slings, as sold by Monsieur Snell in Chamonlx, and thankfully clipped in. The seriousness of retreat from major Alpine routes should never be underestimated (c.f. Bonatti and party on the Central Pillar of Freney etc.), but on this occasion we fortunately found two solid bolts with in-situ sling at the end of each abseil and about twenty minutes later were changing back into training shoes at the foot of the face. A quick trot down the hill and we were queueing for the ’frique.
The afore-mentioned inhabitants of Snell’s Field were not unduly impressed by our achievements. Indeed they had filled in an odd afternoon on the route themselves, but had considered it unworthy of their own bullshitting! It soon transpired that almost every frog and his granny (or bird) had done ’Le Ticket’, so that in order to maintain our credibility, we had to reduce our opinion of it to ’une piece de piss’, and even suffered the indignity of having to retreat back up the hill to do a lonely, obscure and old-fashioned route on the Brenva Face....
....Unlike ’Le Ticket,Le Carré, Le Rond et La Lune’, Route Major, for some reason I fail to understand, has not yet acquired the reputation of providing an easy short day for dubious conditions, despite its lowly grade of D+ and the fifty-seven years which have elapsed since its first ascent.