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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 8, 2019 - 02:12pm PT
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JOSEPH RAVANEL (1869- 1931)
In Memoriam Joseph Ravanel by E.L.S. in The Alpine Journal 1932:
A NATIVE of Argentiere, Joseph Ravanel, 'le Rouge,' will be remembered as one of the best of French guides. The natural successor of Alfred Simond, he became, in the middle 'nineties, the conqueror of all the smaller Aiguilles left untouched by Mummery and Burgener, and their predecessors. With these final exploits, his name and that of his companion and friend, M. Emile Fontaine, the foremost authority on the massif, will be associated in Alpine history. For nearly forty years Ravanel was the leading guide at Chamonix. He rendered many services to his valley : like the Payots and Alfred Simond at Chamonix, or Schocher at Pontresina, he welcomed the presence of foreign guides; he did his best and, to a large extent, succeeded in breaking the unpleasant tradition of boorishness, jealousy, and general obstruction displayed by so many of his confreres.
As a mountaineer Ravanel was first-rate. He was a tremendously strong if somewhat rough cragsman, possessed of all the Frenchman's elan ; as a step-cutter and on ice he was equally competent. He resembled in many ways the late Martin Schocher. Both these professionals, owing to local conditions, found it remunerative to stay in their own districts. At their zenith they could there earn all they required, since for few serious expeditions was it possible at that time to find competent native guides. No great climb was undertaken at Pontresina or Chamonix in the absence of foreign guides save under Schocher's or Ravanel's lead.
Ravanel met with many vicissitudes in the course of his career. He was seriously injured by a falling stone on the Petit Dru in 1899. He met with a very grave accident while descending to his chalet in the dark; he narrowly avoided death during some blasting operations in which he and his wife were injured. On July 27, 1900, having accomplished the second ascent of the Aiguille du Geant by the N. face, Ravanel saw his second guide, Joseph Simond, killed instantaneously by lightning during the descent, the rope between the latter and M. Fontaine being severed and set on fire. In 1904 during a descent of the S. face of the Aiguille sans Nom, Ravanel was terribly injured by the collapse of a great boulder to which he was clinging. Lastly he was handicapped, or should have been, by a phlebitic leg, the result of typhoid fever, which caused him to be rejected for military service when a young porter. Ravanel triumphed over all these misfortunes and to the day of his retirement was one of the fastest of movers. As an example of his speed, starting from the Couvercle alone with a Swiss amateur, Ravanel ascended the Aiguille Verte and was back at Montenvers by 8.30 A.M. on the same morning! The writer was at Montenvers at the time (July 1904).
Among his famous first ascents and new routes figure : Aiguille Carree; Aiguille de Blaitiere by N.W. arete; Aiguille du Fou; Petit-Grand Dru, traverse by N. face; Aiguille de l'Amone; Grands Charmoz, traverse from the Nantillons Glacier to the Mer de Glace; Moine by N. ridge ; Aiguille sans Nom, traverse to Aiguille Verte ; Grand Gendarme and Aiguilles Rouges du Dolent ; Aiguilles Mummery and Ravanel ; L'Index; 'Z' traverse, Petit to Grand Dru; Aiguille Croulante; Tour des Courtes; Le Crocodile; pinnacle E. of Col du Mont Dolent; Pointe de Pre de Bar; Mont Dolent by S.W. arete; Pointe du Domino; Doigt de Trelaporte; Aiguille des Pelerins; Aiguille des Ciseaux, S. peak ; Grosse Zinne by a new route ; Aiguille du Peigne ; Col du Fou, W. slope ; Aiguille du Tour by W. arete, etc., etc. He had made no fewer than fifty-seven ascents of the Aiguille de Grepon and had christened his house after that matchless peak. It proved a good milch-cow to him!
The vast majority of these first ascents or new routes were accomplished with M. Fontaine. Ravanel had also led H.M. the King of the Belgians during several long and difficult climbs. Among our countrymen, he was guide to Messrs. 0. G. Jones, W. M. Baker, A. E. Field/ C. F. Meade, and others. Ravanel was one of the first guides to employ ski. He had, on retirement from active guiding, taken over the management of the Couvercle Club hut, where it is said that his tact and strong character had on numerous occasions saved the inmates from death by asphyxiation. Ravanel died after a very short illness on November 27, 1931. His funeral was very largely attended. His son, Arthur, it is pleasant to relate, is now one of the leading young guides of Chamonix. He has, I understand, succeeded his father at the Couvercle.
Although the writer had never actually climbed with Ravanel, he knew him well and had seen him at work with other parties on numerous occasions. In this slight tribute I am indebted to the Revue Alpine for much of the information.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dang, that's a lotta climbing! And don't you hate it when lightning sets
your rope on fire? Course these days it would just melt. He looks like
he'd be really fun to have une verre with, n'est ce pas?
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 8, 2019 - 03:43pm PT
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Yes, I'd say so...
... and more on the quality of equipment below...
1887 - 1903 ---------- or how to link the Petit and the Grand Dru
A passage was found leading to the Grand Dru and another leading to the Petite Dru. Why not traverse from one to the other? A black, vertical and particularly forbidding wall separates them: 60 meters of rock constantly frozen by the current of air that escapes from the northern corridor.
However, on August 31, 1887, François Simond, Emile Rey and H. Dunod manage to cross from the Grand to the Petite Dru with the help of long ropes fixed from the top. "... We had 80 meters of ropes, eight loop points and we knew where we wanted to go down.. Our team included two guides, François Simond of Chamonix and Emile Rey of Courmayeur, two guides who were to accompany us to the top of the Grand Dru and help us to make our descent... " François Simond was attached to the rope held up from above by his companions. It took more than two hours to search, on the right, then on the left, to find the best route "on the difficult rock wall, icy, interspersed with plates of hard ice and of an implausible inclination”.
On August 19, 1893, Joseph Ravanel, accompanied by his client, O.G. Jones, opens a new descent route along the southwestern wall: it uses only 30 meters of rope.
Finally, on August 23, 1901, Emile Fontaine with Joseph and Jean Ravanel managed the first crossing from the Grand to the Petite Dru. They reached the goal with great difficulty, using the north wall of the Grand Dru. An extraordinary adventure ...
"At the start of the gap between the two summits, we had to go down a bit on the ice-filled corridor of the north side of the Aiguille, and then, to make our way along the wall. By the steepness of the slope we were forced to stick as much as possible to the rock. Our perspective showed us the glacier of the Nant-Blanc below, but we were not able to see the base of the Dru, because the visual line was at about the tangent to the slightly curved profile of the mountain at this point where the mountain is almost like an immense sugar loaf. The three climbers were spread horizontally at a great distance from each other along the icy wall. The first two of them had already crossed a hard place – but because of the bag he was carrying the last climber was not able to cross the passage and was struggling. "(...)
Also two other passages caused us embarrassment. The first of them necessitated the use of the short ladder. At the same time, the feet of the two leading mountaineers were already causing problems. (...) The last barricade only yielded thanks to the great skill of the leader, Joseph Ravanel. A vertical wall appeared, from six to seven meters in elevation. By raising our heads we could see the ice slope leading upwards.
The wall which had to be climbed was an icy wall without apparent holds, and as Ravanel highly committed battled his way up a chimney, we were waiting for fate to decide. Our leader was in a position on the wall from which he could not return in any other way than coming tumbling down. The ten or fifteen minutes that he probably needed to finish his battle seemed to me to be a century ... "
It will take two more years, August 7, 1903, before Jean Ravanel, A. Comte and F. Giraud find the famous passage of the Z. As the name suggests, this route zigzags through the north wall, following cracks and horizontal crossings.
At the time, there was still little specialized equipment for the mountains. Jean Charlet-Straton started using large carpenter's pitons and the hemp ropes looked just like those used for farm work. Yet, climb after climb mountaineers were learning from their experiences.
"The needle of the Dru, is composed almost entirely of good granite, and has a roughness that gives the shoe a firm grip. Rather than having the metal bite hard into the granite and risk breaking shoes nails and edges, extra-soft iron is used in the nails. Steel nails slip on the granite and are suitable only for ice. Aluminum nails have the advantage of being soft and light, but these nails are too soft and one have to replace them almost continuously. "
alpinisme.com
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Le Marlow is up late ce soir!
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Fun history yet again. Thank you!
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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The Aiguille Ravanel is on the left, and the top of the Aiguille Mummery on the right. FA of both by J.Ravanel.
My friend Chris W and I did the SW face of the Mummery, shown below. He was 18, and I was 19. It tested us!! There had been an accident in the approach couloir a couple of days earlier, so we scored some gear. This topo was one of the first to appear in any guide book.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2019 - 12:39am PT
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That's a great addition, Hamie. TFPU!
And then a video: Traversée des Drus
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 9, 2019 - 01:53am PT
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Hamie: Here's a couple of old postcards in addition to your pictures.
Refuge Couvercle in the foreground with aiguilles Ravanel and Mummery in the background
On his retirement from active guiding, Joseph Ravanel took over the management of the Couvercle Club hut, where it is said that his tact and strong character had on numerous occasions saved the inmates from death by asphyxiation. Ravanel died after a very short illness on November 27, 1931. His funeral was very largely attended. His son, Arthur, became one of the leading young guides of Chamonix. He succeeded his father at the Couvercle.
On their way to aiguille Ravanel
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Marlow. "My photo" is also a postcard. It's great how you can buy high quality photos/postcards of all the local peaks in Chamonix.
To descend, we traversed the Ravanel. Our rope jammed while pulling the last rap. It was getting late, so we cut it. :( Less than 2 months old!
On one of the ledges we found some very nice purple quartz crystals. There is a feature there called the Col de Cristaux.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 10, 2019 - 12:09am PT
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Skiing from Col des Cristaux. Aiguilles Ravanel and Mummery are seen a couple of times from 3:30 to 3:45.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 26, 2019 - 10:19am PT
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A painting on a wall in Rue du Docteur Paccard, Chamonix. Mountain guides as seen from left to right: Edouard Cupelin, Francois Devouassoud, Joseph Ravanel, Michel Payot and Michel Croz.
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