Icefalls climbing in Southern France,  La Grave '95 (winter)

BY B.C. TOK

My first encounter with European Alps was through the University Mountaineering Society. As usual, just like in all other sport or societies, the membership is amongst the lowest if not the least. The mountaineering society was set-up by a handful of core members. Although over the years membership have increased, but the amount of trips and activities doesn’t seemed to expand proportionally. Rock climbing is the most popular activity amongst freshmens and existing members.

  (Left: La Grave is located in this beautiful mountain valley)

(Right: A typical black & white landscape)

It was out of an incidental occasion that I bummed into a friend’s I met at Doug Scott lecture tour in Birmingham, whom I came to know about the trip to southern France. I later found out that it was a private trip organised by the vice-president of the society's. They planned to do icefalls climbing in the coming December winter holiday. To further reduce cost, they were actually looking for one more climber to squeezed into Terry’s Toyota station-wagon. I wasn’t sure that I would be accepted, but I gave it a try. Surprisingly, I was called up by Terry's, one of our most experience ice-climbing mentor on the trip's. Being invited into a team of 4 climbers without the sort of usual chatting and questioning session. I too was rather surprised, wondering what's wrong with these guys? They don't even know me at all? Maybe I looks too innocent to be a liar. Maybe they needed somebody for a belaying job!!  Anyway, we had a couple of discussion over guide books, maps, photographs and of course, beers...at the university old joe pub's. Most guide books are in french language, which added to the beauty of the icefalls and the landscape in this part of southern France. Terry(driver), Fran and myself hopped into a car and headed for Portland. We arrived at the Portland crossing just after mid-night. The ferry ride across the English channel cost us about £90 for a car and 3 passenger. Within an hour we were at the coast of France. It's another 7 hours drive to Paris and there on another 5 hours to La Grave. La Grave is a very small mountain village about 1500m above sea level. It is situated between the big city of Grenoble and the ski-resort of Briancon. We took the motorway N91 from Grenoble which is 75km to La Grave. In France major motorways, you could speed up to something like 110 mile per hours. And that was their maximum speed limit. Once in mountainous terrain you wouldn't dare to exceed 50 miles per hour. There are many small hotel in the village of La Grave, most of them are running family business. One would expect plenty of local french cuisine and warm hospitality when visiting La Grave. We stayed in a little hotel of EDELWEISS, which is recommended by most visiting British climbers. Anyway, it takes a lot of courage and determination to camp out in the winter. So we didn't bother to bring our tent.

          (Above: we practise on easy ice beside the road)                               (above: Fran enjoying himself on scottish grade 3.)

Facing La Grave is the north side of the famous mountain, La Meije (3982m). Once climbed by Gary Hemming, Don Whillans and many others great names. Like many other mountain villages in France or Switzerland, it is a paradise not only for ice-climbers or skiers, but to any traveller that would like to witness and experience this unparallel beauty of landscapes.

(A fine day for our final grade 4+ attempt.)                                  (above: My first scottish 4+ was freezing and covered with snow.)

With Nigel, Vaughan, Fran and Terry, we spent about 5 days wandering up and down the valley and climbed some of the most beautiful grade 2 and 3 icefalls. The day was new year eve when Terry finally drew a surge of courage to lead up a 150m scottish 4+ icefall. It was certainly a great pleasure to experience my first grade 4+ climb on a new year eve. The icefall was tremendously steep and the climb was indeed memorable. Apart from the technical difficulty we also encountered problems of snowing condition, harden rope, jammed karabiner gates, and others. We put into practice all kind of ice anchors that we had read from books and learned the technique of putting in protection on ice. Most of the routes have fixed bolts and pitons for abseiling back down. But despite all these in situ gear available, we took quite a while to get down safely as the rope’s had turned into a piece of steel cable by the extreme coldness. I guessed it was about -15 degree or lower, as the last time Nigel checked at bottom of the icefall was -12 degree. The snowing condition was freezing but still acceptable without the "Killer", wind. It was already late in the evening when we got back to the hotel. We were in time for a hot shower, but too late for the dinner. Fortunately, the hotel staff managed to arrange something for us to fill-up our flatten stomach and warm-up our cooling body. We were caught by surprised that New Year eve was an occasion that the hotel celebrates and offer free flow of beers and wines to all guests. Well, after a brilliant day of good climbing, what more can we asked for...? Perhaps, a good excuse for not climbing tomorrow!!

The trip’s ended with invaluable experiences of winter climbing and a new circle of friendship was born. Friendship has been an important aspects in my life since my discovery of climbing. 2 weeks of climbing together have given me a simple kind of trust and respect for all member of the team. I could now introduce them with some affection. Nigel once worked in the Hong Kong Outwards Bound school for a period of about 3 years. He pay great attention on details before and during climbing and  was also a very competent ice-climber.  A family man now living in Norwich, England. His wife Amanda, a student at his school, where they first met and later on got married in Hong Kong. Working in Hong Kong has forced him to learn a bit of local dialect, cantonese. Nigel love for the mountain has brought him back time and again every winter, sometime alone, sometime with Amanda. Fran is a technical representative for a climbing shop in Sheffield England. He has gone through many jobs from a waiter to saleman for the past 5 years. Now that he has found the right job, he is coming back to climb again. He was rather new to ice climbing like me, but his rock climbing background has enable him to pick-up ice climbing techniques rapidly. Within our team he is the best story teller and a great joker. He always kept the team spirit high with his endless jokes. Vaughan work as a electrical engineer and also a climbing gear enthusiast. Apart from having shining gears hanging all over, he had done many winter climbing on Ben Navis and the Alps. Icefall climbing was a rather new venture for him. He is also the "snowwhite" of the team dued to his extremely fair complexion. Terry was a student at Birmingham University. He is the expert and the most experience ice climber among the team. As a vice-president of the mountaineering society, he was the  organiser for this trip. Terry was very keen in all forms of climbing. He work very hard in his study and also in climbing so as to obtain a climbing instructorship at a local gym and eventually becoming a mountain guide one day. He was also the best drinker among all of us. He said that if he couldn't get certification to be a mountain guide, he would open a pub instead.

These are the great aspects that attract me to climbing, the excitement is not about climbing alone, but who you climb with. Well, 2 weeks of climbing is definitely too short. With just 6 ice routes done, I’m always dying for more and to return... I guess, this is what life is all about? To be able to enjoy what you love to do.

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