The Gervasutti Pillar - Mont Blanc du Tacul '96 (summer)   by Wilfred Tok B.C.

The year was in the summer of 1996. I had done more than 2 dozen routes with David Lavallee, a young british climber from Littlelampton, West Sussex, England. Somehow, Dave's turned out to be the only climber I had pre-arranged to meet up in Chamonix through the internet climbing newsgroups. It seemed rather strange or crazy to climb with someone whom you never knew or seen before, but only communicated briefly through the cyberspace. I have to admit that in this aspect, the internet has really done a great job. A least, I have managed to find Dave's, who is indeed the best partner during my 3rd season in the European Alps. We really had a hell of a good time climbing together and achieving almost 85% of our planned routes. For nearly 4 weeks of continuous fine weather upon reaching Chamonix valley, what possibly else could I ask for?? Many climbers in the campsite had patiently played the waiting game for more than a continuous stretch of 7 days before my arrival. Some of them like Huge's, was at his limit of giving up, and Cliff Phillip's, a veteran climber who did some of the first British rock ascent, look very miserable, restless and hopelessly waiting for a weather window. For Cliff's, it has been a tough time, as the weather affect his guiding business. Somehow or rather, my arrival had definitely brought some good luck in changing the weather. I later knew that Dave too was at his point of packing-up and going home. Luckily,.. he didn't !

(Above: The 1600m gervasutti pillar start from the lower left hand corner of the photo)

The first time I ever saw those pillars of Mont Blanc du Tacul was through a photograph published on a British magazine "Climber". The pillar's is named under an Italian climber, Giusto Gervasutti. Shortly before his untimely death in 1946 on the north-east face of Mont Blanc du Tacul, Giusto Gervasutti wrote, "I have often wandered, how my passion for mountains came into being, but it is rather like trying to remember when one first learnt to swim - somehow one always seems to have known."

The impressive pillars of the central facet of Mont Blanc du Tacul gives one of the finest rock climbs in the Alps. The Gervasutti Pillar being harder certainly draw more attention than the Boccalathe Pillar on its right. It was eventually climbed on 29 - 30 July 1951 by Fornelli and Mauro.

Wednesday, 21st August 1996, Dave was with me climbing very hard in the Mt Blanc massif Envers region. We had 4 great days before the weather crapped up. We bivouacked near the Envers hut when the storm hit us hard. This storm not only stopped all climbing activities but also signified the end of climbing season for Dave. He has to be back to England by next week. When we got back to the valley campsite, the weather was still bad but improving. I was already looking around for another possible partner. I wanted to waste no time so as to be ready with a partner when the anticyclones of high pressure system set in. A part from all climbing difficulties, finding the right partner is what I considered the most important. There was a new tent pitched on the higher slope overlooking my and the entire campground. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't there before my trip's to the Envers hut. Most casual traveller wouldn't take the trouble of pitching their tent so high up and far away from the shower and toilet. The tent's belonged to Phil Lee, my next climbing partner. I have approached Phil several times to talk about climbing, trekking, expeditions and many other topics, but never have I drew the courage to suggest a climbing partnership with Phil's. To me, he seemed so experienced, mature and tough. That feeling was really terrible, as if I needed another 10 years of apprenticeship before he would ever consider me!

On Thursday morning 22nd August, Phil came over to my tent while I was busy making a brew and having my breakfast. He told me that his mate's is going home today and he still had about a week to spare. He went on to talk about his plans and the many routes that he had done over the passed seasons. He also mentioned about a guy whom he was supposed to climb with, but now has gone climbing with someone else. Then there was a moment of silence. While anxiously waiting for some kind of invitational replied from Phil, I broke the still silence by asking, "Would you like a cup of tea?". "Oh yes, please!" he responded. Much to my surprise, he finally prompted, "Do you have any plans or routes in mind?" I thought for a moment and replied, "Not at all, I'm actually looking for a partner first". Phil immediately jumped into his point, "Would you fancy doing the Gervasutti Pillar?". Without  any hesitation, I desperately replied, "Yes, it's a beautiful route's,... great !" I proceed with further discussion by suggesting, "Well, we're lucky, the forecast looks good in the weekend." So, finally I was invited for a partnership and the route's suggested is the "Gervasutti Pillar". I'm not sure why he believed that I'm competent enough for this rather big venture? Perhaps he did some surveyed about me from other climbers in the campsite, or was he desperate to do something before his vacation end? I don't really know? Anyway, I was shocked but managed to keep calm after hearing his suggestion. We then started a series of long talk about the route's seriousness, difficulties, our background and the usual "What if?" questions.

Phil gave me an impression of a strong, experienced, committing and excellent all-rounder. He did countless ice and mixed routes in Scotland and here in Chamonix in winter. This must have been his tenth or eleventh seasons in the Alps. Both of us has never done any routes on the North-east face of Tacul, thus finding where the first pitch begins might be quite tricky. Considering the enormity of the climb, a good head start is quite vital for our speed and success.

I'm not quite sure how good of a partner will Phil reveal himself? Some initial encounter really made it frightening! On one occasion, we actually decided to meet up at the supermarket to get food for the climb's. Phil was late and I waited for him at the supermarket for nearly a hour. He arrived without a word and simply went on to purchase his own food stuff. For a moment I kept wondering? Did we discussed and decided on what to buy and what to share? I managed to keep calm and carried on with my shopping. After paying the bill, I looked around for Phil, but he was no where to be found. That night I was really thinking hard about whether this partnership will really work out. Frightening thought kept running through my mind for hours, until eventually through tiredness I felt asleep. The kind of fear doesn't seem to diminish, I needed a constant consoling of myself that I'm going to be fine, that I have to be very careful, don't make stupid mistakes, don't be too dependent on Phil, the list goes on! Somehow, I was going through a period of self-doubt and started to question the motives for becoming involved in a situation which could put my life in jeopardy. I talked to Phil about my concerns and tried to understand why he had reacted that way? It was only after listening to his explanation that I begins to feel that I was in fact over sensitive and being too cautious. What a relief ! The wave of fear finally subsided. Despite the fact that Phil was 15 years older than me, with no sense of humour, but a strong feeling for honesty, it is his tremendous enthusiasm and his drive for life, especially where climbing and adventure are concerned, that is so contagious and inspiring.

August 25th, 1996, about 4 o'clock in the evening. We took the last telepherique up to the summit of Aiguille du Midi. It was supposed to be the start of the fine weather days. We wanted to see and to be sure of where would be our 1st pitch and how to negotiate those crevasses at the foot of the pillar. It took us a good two and a half hours to reach the snow slope at the base of the pillar. At a distance of about a kilometres away from the pillar's, we scanned through the lower half of the pillar with a pair of binocular. I could see details of the lower section of our climb. It was certainly an impressive and awesome piece of tremendously huge structure. Then, I thought I heard some voices coming from Phil, so I shouted, "What's up?". Phil was still picking up details of the pillar and can't help removing his eyes from the binocular eyes piece. "Do we know what we are doing?", he replied with a kind of fear in his facial expression. We remained silent and kept staring at our objective until a strong gust of wind hit us. Only then we decided to return to the snow cave at the Midi station to have a good rest for tomorrow assault on the pillar.

I have not done anything significantly big since my arrival to the alps. The Gervasutti Pillar has naturally captured my wildest imagination. From the guide book's, there is a total of 26 pitches to the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul. It sounds as wild as it looks! For one moment I was very anxious to get started and the next disrupting it for something I was not totally sure I could handle. I guessed climbing has always involved the ingredient of risk and the unknown, and somehow in our genetic make-up, we have this desire to achieve, to adventure. For me, that feeling alone justified the risks. Apart from our usual rack of gear weighing nearly 6 kg. To add onto the difficulty, we have to shoulder a pack each weighing 15 kg, of which contained food, water, bivy bag, down sleeping bag & mat, stove & fuel, pots, double boots, 2 axes, crampons, 3 ice screws, warm and protective clothing.

At about 2 am in the morning, Phil was awake. He came over to wake me up. We had a brew with some breads and chocolates before heading off down the snow ridge of Aiguille du Midi. We took our time to negotiate the hard and narrow snow ridge, then made good progress soon after hitting the glacier. As we got closer to the pillar, we were able to see a party already near the top of the 2nd pitch. They must have started at least 3 hours earlier then us. Upon reaching the base of the rock pillar, we switched to our rock boots and Phil lead off with the 1st pitch of french 4+ cracks. Seconding up Phil was a good warm-up for my 2nd pitch lead of 5- cracks. The entire lower half of the pillar is really good quality climbing that we enjoyed ourselves pitch after pitch. I was leading a pitch which is so long that there is insufficient rope length for me to reach a proper belay stance. I have to make do with temporary belay as the rope was used up. I shouted down at Phil who was about 50m below, "More rope!", "Slack". Although Phil couldn't see me at all, somehow he seemed to know my situation and what was going on? Moment later, I got the slack rope that I wanted and carried on climbing for another 5m to reach a better belay stance. It was when Phil joined me at the belay stance that I realised he had released his belay anchors and climbed up a few metres to give me that slack I wanted. At pitch 10 onwards, we discovered more and more snow in cracks which made the climbing even harder. Despite the fact that we were really getting tired, the crux section on pitches 11 to 14 of french 5+/6a was really sustained and desperately hard.  With the heavy weight of our pack on our shoulder, we had to perform aid climbing on some of the 6a/6a+ moves. At this point, we regretted not having sufficient finger tape as our hands were badly cut dued to continuous jamming in rough cracks. On climb like this, Phil and I hardly talked to each other. It's as if we were complete stranger, as yet still understand each other clearly. Perhaps, or somehow, these understanding comes from that piece of rope that linked us together.

At pitch 15 onwards, there are a series of pinnacles that we needed to negotiate by abseiling down and climbed back up again to the next pinnacle. A very time consuming process with minimum height gained and distance covered. At pitch 18, i did a very expose, delicate and desperate traverse after abseiling down from the last pinnacle. I had been very careful on this pitch's. I knew what I was about to do is dangerous and required concentration with no allowance for mistake. I thought through the consequences and made my moves. It seemed that all the rock that I touched fell off the pillar. Foot holds seemed to be moving and sliding off. I was desperate searching for protection at all cost. But couldn't find any? I shouted at Phil to watch me all the time! He was very focused on belaying me. He knew just how fast he had to take-in as much as he could on my long run-out, if I had to fall. It was indeed a traverse of my life, about 10m without protection. Phil was glad that he didn't have to lead that traverse's. He asked if I was prepare to do it again? I gave him a pale look and then,took a deep breath, but didn't answer his question. The climbing just goes on and on. I had no idea of when it's going to end, but fortunately the climbing is a bit easier now. We were actually climbing and moving together from pitch 22 onwards. There were frozen ice inside those cracks of pitch 23 and 24. We had no choice but to jam our completely numb fingers into those freezing cracks as we couldn't jam our hands with thick gore-tex gloves and all other gloves were wet. We finished the final rock pitch at the last ray of light. Again we switched back to our double boots, took up coil and finished off the last 2 snow pitches to the summit of Mont Blanc du Tacul. After reaching the summit, it was strange that Phil seemed to have gained a sudden zest of energy from somewhere, that I just couldn't keep up with him. He seemed to have lost his patient and anxiously wanted to put a stop to this venture. He suggested to me, "Why don't we unrope now, since the way down is easy and relatively safe?" I knew that I'm holding him up and that I've gone down this slope before on my previous ascent of Mont Blanc. For a moment, I was a bit blank after hearing his suggestion, but then, my replied was, "Okay". I thought since he is so impatient now, that he might created unnecessary risk for me as we are roped up together. The next safest option was naturally to agree with his suggestion.

Soon after we unroped, Phil was fast heading down the slope towards Aiguille du Midi. The weather was exceptionally fine. With the stars light available, I could see the surrounding clearly and thus, there was no hurry in getting down. I took my time and watched my steps. To face the prospect of soloing up that narrow snow ridge of Aiguille du Midi was rather scary and dangerous. Fortunately, I managed to escape unhurt. Once I reached the snow cave, I realised that Phil was waiting at the entrance for me. I was confused. I don't know whether there was any purposes of what he was doing. Perhaps, he realised his mistakes and was just showing his concerned for me not returning back. Upon reaching the cave's, I was completely "dead" exhausted. I dropped all the gears around and started to make myself comfortable, with my sleeping mat, bag and bivy sack. I got into my sleeping bag and dosed off without realising that I've not been eating for the past 23 hours.

Anyway, I rested at the campsite for the next 4 days dued to the pain from the strained and tired muscles in the neck, arms and legs. As for Phil, he had only 2 days to rest, before his long journey back to Blackpool, England. Was wondering how he could have overcome the steering and foot petals of driving with numerous cuts and strained on his hands and legs?? The day before he left Argentiere at the campground, he approached me to gave a strong hand shake and said, "We did it".

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