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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 15, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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Gordon:
>You should not be reading this until tomorrow - so don't answer till then at the earliest as I'll be pissed off at you for screwing up an ice climbing day ... sometimes, except for when my wife is being very nice to me, I yearn for snow and ice and big North Walls!!
As it turned out it was too late for any decent ice climbing, but I still spent three hours happily snowshoeing in a remote valley - a place you would definitely like to see!
Try to find the time to come here Gordon, I will show you places you wouldn't believe still exists in the Alps!!
> I'm pretty sure that on multiple attempts at the Desmaison before the 1973 ascent a lot of preparation of the route was done up the 1st ramp to the A1 pitch and perhaps beyond, with a lot of pegs 'preplaced' - we saw scraps of fixed rope on harder spots up the 1st ramp. I suspect that the attempt with Goussault may have been much 'purer', in that respect?? There seems to have been a lot of gear in place - much more than 40-50 pitons would suggest!
Definitely no for the 1971 climb , as (as I've explained) Desmaison was much more interested in demonstrating that he and Gousseault had attempted the route with enough material to be sure to get on the top, rather than make an ethical point that in France 1971 no one was interested in hearing.
It must be explained here that the main point made against Desmaison after the 1971 disaster was that the whole climb had been just a gross publicity stunt gone wrong. More precisely, he got accused to have DELIBERATELY waited for days on the small terrace 80 meters below the summit, in order to maximize the media attention on the climb. In all honesty, they had a point here - Desmaison had a deal with L'Equipe that was paid in "days of climb" - the more the ascent lasted, the more money you got. That was standard practice in those days - have you ever wondered WHY all these climbs seemed to last forever? In parte the slow pace was due to the tecniques available back then, but in part that was deliberate.
The big point of contention was that on Saturday 20th February, after Desmaison and Gousseault had been stopped on that ledge for two days, a reconaissance heli of the PGHM came to see what was going on, and the pilot radioed back to the base that the two looked fine, and Desmaison had made a "thumb up" sign. Coupled with the fact that Desmaison's wife (Simone) insisted for reconaissance flight but was NOT formally asking for rescue, this provoked a ugly reaction from the Gendarmerie, who point blank accused Mrs. Desmaison to "have been pulling their legs".
Desmaison version was that he made a gesture with is hands meaning "keep us up - i.e. rescue us". This mess had anyway the effect to create the standard "asking for rescue" gestures you're familiar with (two hands up means "calling rescue / yes", one hand up one down means "don't need rescue / no")
In any case, a lot of people got convinced that Desmaison had lied - they even did make a TV movie in 1975, called "Mort D'Une Guide", loosely based on this version of the story (the movie threw Gaston Rebuffat in an uncharacteristic fit of rage)
In 1973 Desmaison just wanted to climb the bloody route and get finished with it, so he really took a bit more material (ropes, mainly), taking also advantage that he had Claret and Giorgio with him. All the material you have seen above the first ramp where 1973 relics - there's very little left from 1971, excluding the sad and empty Millet sac on the "rateau des chevres"
>According to Lindsay Griffin there seems to be some doubt as to >where Rolling Stone actually started .... Lindsay commented to >me that there is a lot of confusion as where those 'mythical' >routes on the Walker go!!
The doubt is mainly mine, I've been talking a lot with Lindsay on that in the last few weeks. I've NEVER been happy with the "regular" description that's always been given on the original "Rolling Stone" in 1979, chiefly because it doesn't make much sense. I believe they started there (your starting variant, I mean), but they soon moved well into the R, towards the centre of the spur. Do you remember you fist bivy place on "Scala di Seta"? You may remember also that straight above your head there was a huge monolith/tower that seen from the Leschaux hut looks like a giant open hand. Your route touches it below and slightly on the L, while I'm convinced that the Czechs 1979 passed above and on the R (as Gabarrou 1986 direttissima). The "regular" Rolling Stone as it's been always shown was in fact a mixture of your line and the line followed in 1985 by Eric Gramond and C. I should really get in touch with Gramond and ask him which gear he saw, and why he did not follow your line to the top. Too many thing to do and not enough time!
> What confuses me is that Desmaison definitely talked of his route being the 'direct' of the face ... if he wanted to do the direct, how come he didn't climb the route we did? Also, why did the route he did not end on the Hirondelles? It seems to be a route that naturally parallels the Shroud. Why did he dog leg in the way that he did? If you ask me the route that Tobin and I did SHOULD have taken the 1973 start, right across the ramps, and the route that Desmaison did SHOULD have taken the 1977 start - straight up the ramps...
Waiwaitwait - the line on the ramps was the one Desmaison wanted to follow, period. He wasn't interested on leaving the ramps until these ended. Problems began at the "Arrow", the small snow ridge where Gousseault first showed signs of exaustion. Desmaison original plan for the exit isn't totally clear, but I strongly believe he wanted to link the third ramp with the immense corner/depression made between the Hirondelles and the NE face of the spur (it's the line followed by Sachetat and Seguier in 1983 as "direct" exit from the Linceuil - it goes straight to the summit of Pt. Walker). Very elegant - problem is that when Desmaison got there 1) Gousseault was starting to be ill and 2) ice conditions were atrocious. Add to this that the rock in this "corner" is absolute crap, you had a taste of its quality on the "prow" of your route. It's even worse than the Tour Rousse on the original Cassin line. So he made a R turn towards the crest of the spur, along the line of minimum resistance. When he got to the "rateau des chevres", a traverse to the Tour Rousse (or on your "prow") was out of question with the ailing Gousseault.
Your line if very elegant, but I believe Desmaison's line as a life of his own.
What I meant here was that Cecchinel, Gabarrou et al were correct in seeing that the FUTURE was in high standard front pointing (thanks to Chouinard and Cunningham ... ie relate this note to the OP) and not in the 'old' French and German techniques - not so much in the difficulty of those routes.
> (but note for example Bonatti and Vaucher's accomplishment on the Whymper (but they WERE supermen)!!).
BTW, Bonatti has repeated recently to my friend that he really disliked that route, at least as he climbed it in 1964
> Luca - one last point ... why do you imply that Goussault and Desmaison did the first ascent ... They didn't quite make it to the top ... almost but not quite - Desmaison hauled up on a wire the last 300 feet ... Desmaison, Bertone, Claret did the first ascent, surely - unless you are being a bit 'romantic' (in the correct sense of the word!) about the original epic.
Until not long ago, I used to think as you do - the last 80m had to be climbed for the route to be really opened. And I grew up worshipping Giorgio Bertone (the guy was charismatic beyond belief), so the 1973 climb WAS the first climb for me.
But now I wonder. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I've been reading "342 heures dans les Grandes Jorasses" a bit too much recently (it's a wonderful book, a crime it was never translated in English - I believe - as it makes "Touching the Void" look like "Winnie The Pooh"). In any case, Gousseault suffered soo much to try to get out alive, and Desmaison fought sooo hard to help him out. And what was done on them was sooo ugly and injust, it really rates for me as the second greatest ugliest mess of the history of alpine climbing (after - guess what? - the Corti affair on Eiger in 1958). So, now I think that out of mere respect, the 1971 should be considered the first climb. Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe you're right, and I'm getting romantic!
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 15, 2009 - 04:59pm PT
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Rick A:
just a little clarification on what I wrote few messages ago on the NE couloir of the Drus was related to the original 1973 line, NOT your direct variant, which is definitely much, much harder.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Feb 15, 2009 - 05:20pm PT
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I looked up that quote I referred to above and it was not Churchill, but his assistant, Anthony Montague-Brown who said it. Someone mentioned the great traditions of the Royal Navy. Montague replied,
“The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.”
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 15, 2009 - 05:21pm PT
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Not sure this does the trick but defintely timely! From Mountain 50 July-August 76 more of the exploits of Wee Jock, who hasn't hijacked anything except my imagination! This will make your inner kitty claw up the sofa!
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Jello
Social climber
No Ut
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Feb 16, 2009 - 01:36am PT
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Continuing good stuff, here. But to include the Desmaison on the Grandes Jorasses in a thread about ice climbing is a little like featuring a steak on the menu at a vegetarian restaurant. If we're talking the evolution of ice climbing, in the Alps it would be something like the Triolet-Les Droite-Dru Couloir-Super Couloir-MacKintyre Colton-then off to the greater ranges with a return home in the early nineties to further take advantage of improved gear, fitness and attitude on the big cascades like La Massue; the huge tapestries on the Tete du Gramusat, etc.
A similar path could be traced in North America. But, in the end, all roads lead to the Himalaya.
-Jello
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Feb 16, 2009 - 02:07am PT
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Ice from the weekend. With Chouinard represented on this one by BD.
Wee Jock asks, "Have you tried ice-climbing with these modern leashless axes with the bent handles? And mono-points? Weird!!"
Weird? No question. But you would never believe just how much easier ice is these days with the newest gear.
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 06:43am PT
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Ah, Jello ... ice climbing is for the meatheads, mixed climbing in the OLD style is for the ballet dancers among us!! Don't you think that ice climbing is relentlessly boring, if a little strenuous - until the ice all falls down leaving Mons. l'Alpiniste with wet and nasty pantaloons!! The craft and cunning that is required to get up a sugary Cairngorm winter ridge or buttress, sniffing out the frozen vegetation, licking the ice with the tongue to check the consistency, testing the snow with a primed digit, tenderly feeling out the rock holds underneath. Ah yes! There's the game for you, my lad. You were pretty good at it too, as I recall!! Ice climbing only gets interesting when the ice disappears to less than an inch thick!! I seem to remember a thread on here somewhere about climbing thin ice ... like slab climbing, wasn't it?
Your old pal Goggs
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 06:48am PT
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Ah, Steve. Much easier is it? Like climbing on the Etive Slabs with ultra sticky-soled rock slippers instead of good old EB's, I suppose. I have to admit that I regret that I never tried out the old, manly step hacking style of Marshall and Smith ... That would have put hairs on my chest, no doubt about it!!
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 06:59am PT
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Jello, old bean, the Colton-MacIntyre is a mixed route like the Desmaison ... only not quite as hard. The Desmaison, from doing bits and looking at the rest close up, at any rate, seems to include lots of runnels, goulottes, bulges of grey and brittle nastiness with a bunch of mixed ground intermixed too. As I recall the Supercouloir original start (and crux)is mixed ground, the dru couloir has mixed climbing including an A1 crack. On the SuperCouloir the interesting part IS the first part. The rest is plodding up ice with moderately steep bulges in it to stop you going to sleep! The ice in the Dru Couloir is incredibly boring! Where do you draw the line? No wonder you have to go off to the Himalaya to find ice climbing worth your metal ... It's more fun surely, though, being able to breathe while you climb your route!!
Your old pal Goggs
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 07:06am PT
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Hi Luca
What did Bonatti say about the B/V? Why did he dislike it?
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 07:18am PT
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Todd, Kingy is a prude and therefore so long as he was around we never got up to naughtiness ... with the exception of, of course, the great Polythene Roll Expedition of 1975. When Kingy wasn't around ... hmm, trips to the 'Piscine, inside pool' with empty backpacks at night, the Empty Bottle Caper, the Wine Kiosk Kaper.... I hang my head in shame!!! There are a couple of skeletons in everyone's closet - except Kingy, he only had the one (polythene) skeleton in his closet! But boy, was it fun, especially with the Burgess Twins around!!
I missed the famous Alpenstock brawl ... I think that was the year before Kingy and I went Alpineering, or we were up on the hill or something (Kingy would have had nothing to do with it anyway .... we were a right pair of cowards, Kingy and I!!) - sounded like it was fit for a raunchy western movie, that one!!
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Feb 16, 2009 - 10:25am PT
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You Brits were mere amateurs when it came to capers in Chamonix. Roast chickens concealed in duvets are small time. One Yank who was there in 1977 "nicked" an entire, three-foot in diameter, wheel of Gruyere cheese, which he shared with everyone at Snell Field for weeks afterwards.
David Bowie’s “Spiders from Mars” album was on the jukebox at the Bar Nationale and one song had the line, “the bitter comes out better on a stolen guitar”. This yank could be heard singing as he made breakfast, “the omelet comes out better with a stolen Gruyere...”
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 10:37am PT
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Too damn funny! It would be hilarious to talk to the Chamonix gendarmes and find out their greatest hits. Some of the best SAR stories that I have heard are around still because of the incident reports.
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lucasignorelli
climber
Torino, Italy
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Feb 16, 2009 - 03:32pm PT
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Gordon:
> What did Bonatti say about the B/V? Why did he dislike it?
He's not really eager to talk about it. Apparently, the danger (because of rockfall) was not acceptable even for his standard. And I understand he had some sort of fall off with Vaucher afterwards, because of something Vaucher told to the press. In any case, he's not considering it a route he would suggest for a repeat.
The rumour in Courmayeur back in the 70's (when he was living there - as a kid I used to meet him quite often) was that the Whymper "rib" was one of the reason why he had decided to quite jet set alpinism, but I don't really know if this is the case.
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Wee Jock
climber
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Feb 16, 2009 - 07:39pm PT
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I don't know about that, Rick ... we used to collect empty wine bottles to take back to the stores for the refund, until we found out where Payot Pertin stored the empties in a skip behind the store. Lived off steak, frites, salad for several weeks on that until a wee wifey came out of a house in the cul de sac and spotted us and started to yell - 'Au secours, au secours!! Les voleurs sont la!' (or something to that effect). We ran, dozens of empty wine bottles flying out of our sacks and smashing everywhere. I had to go apple-picking in Switzerland for a couple of weeks a a result (so that I could eat = that was another story!!).
I'd better watch out with these tales of naughtiness lest Attorney Accommazo stirs himself from his quips and quiddities and comes running at me waving his briefs (horrible sight, a lawyer coming for you, waving his briefs! Terribly indecent!).
In a more serious vein I noticed a couple of photos in UKC in which the 1960's climbers were sporting 'North Wall Hammers' - old fashioned ice axes with a hammer head instead of an aze. Very craftsmanlike looking bits of kit (used for the 'German' technique for ascending fifty degree slopes of ice, no doubt, instead of daggers) Did YC ever make straight picked axes, or did he only get into the business of making ice gear once he'd worked out the advantages of a curved pick? In addition, I seem to remember that YC was very much an afficinado of the French style of climbing ice, and very good at it. Ironic that the technique he was in part responsible for developing should pretty much wipe out climbers' 'interest' in climbing ice in that way.
Luca - interesting stuff about Signor Bonatti - really makes me want to know more!! I guess I'll have to read your book - WHEN YOU GET IT WRITTEN!! Was Vaucher a bit of a 'prima donna' type? The stories from the Dyrenfurth Everest exped were not too complementary about him and his wife. BTW have you ever tried to get Black Nick's story about his ascent of the Amitie with RBJ? I'd really like to hear that one!! I bet they had an absolute epic, nutting their way up steep, crappy rock for 5 days (though of course they would be stiff upper lipped about it)!!
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 17, 2009 - 11:23am PT
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Lucas- Having looked closely at the careers of many alpinists, do you consider Bonatti to be the greatest of his generation?
What would your short list look like?
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east side underground
Trad climber
Hilton crk,ca
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Feb 17, 2009 - 11:36am PT
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great thread- keep it going boys- grandes charmuz north face gets skied by the bad boys these days what do you think of that?
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Brian in SLC
Social climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Feb 17, 2009 - 01:45pm PT
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But now I wonder. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I've been reading "342 heures dans les Grandes Jorasses" a bit too much recently (it's a wonderful book, a crime it was never translated in English - I believe - as it makes "Touching the Void" look like "Winnie The Pooh").
Great stuff, guys, keep it coming!
-Brian in SLC
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Feb 17, 2009 - 03:31pm PT
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Wee Jock, it's a pleasure to get to know you a bit here. Like your sensibility and humor. As a sort-of disciple of the Chouinard ice style, and after some years of helping him write Climbing Ice I'll try your questions.
Did YC ever make straight picked axes, or did he only get into the business of making ice gear once he'd worked out the advantages of a curved pick? In addition, I seem to remember that YC was very much an afficinado of the French style of climbing ice, and very good at it. Ironic that the technique he was in part responsible for developing should pretty much wipe out climbers' 'interest' in climbing ice in that way.
Never a straight pick axe. Not his style of repeat. Consider the Lost Arrow, his first product. Was it soft iron? No. John Salathe had pioneered hard steel pins for the Valley. An older wiser blacksmith, and an older, wizened climber. They were simply revolutionary, tough enough to hammer back out and take higher with you, which was the "clean" climbing of its day, leave no trace. (Except of course there was a stain, a tiny chip, and that became crucial later.) Salathe had gone off the deep end and was out in the Mojave eating grass and communing with his angels, so YC did us all a favor by forging his version of the LA and the big walls opened up. So his business got launched by a very esthetic and very functional commercializing of someone else's innovation.
A dozen years later Yvon came out with the first commercially available curved pick axe. Sorry, Piolet. The question of where that curve came from has only deepened on this thread. Won't revisit that. No question, though, that as a Tool Man he helped us onto the ice as handily as he had helped us get up Big Granite.
But he was not satisfied with facilitating the leap to piolet traction with his tools and his example. And this gets to the second part of your question.
For Chouinard it was all about the esthetics. The elegant way to approach a climbing problem. Finesse not force.
Sure, he commercialized the droop of the pick that made piolet traction hideously effective. But he could see that it would become brutally efficient as a way to attack the steepest ice, and he could probably even anticipate what you implied upthread, that it would come to the point where "Ice climbing only gets interesting when the ice disappears to less than an inch thick!!" That it makes all thick ice ultimately kind of trivial. Piolet traction was too good, in a way, at what it did.
You Scots lot and Jello carried the game off in the direction of the thin smear and the mixed beyond. What a ride!
Yvon looked to a more minimalist way to keep it sporty, to keep the spice in it. To keep the fun alive. And French Technique was exactly that. Of course there were excuses -- good ones -- like saving energy on thousand-meter walls of crunchy neve. But the fun of doing something hard and beautiful was peeking through right from the start.
Take this photo from Climbing Ice (Frost, of course -- talk about esthetics!) on the 'schrund wall of the V-Notch deep in October cold:
Anybody could piolet trax that, waltz right up and get on with it. But sheath your hammer there, boys, and follow me. Can I do this half-French stepping in pied toisieme? He seems to have coined the term, and maybe invented the technique itself. I don't know. Having viewed the rest of the history, it's an open question. But pushing it like that on such water ice (I was there, tasting it), downshifting his grip to piolet ancre and balancing on those points while he rocked it out of the ice, all the while without pro above a very nasty drop into the bergschrund...that is applied esthetics.
It gets worse. This is essentially the same ice, same venue, Frost shooting again:
But here Yvon is pushing it further, downshifting the footwork again to pied assis, the ultimate footfall of pure French Technique. Why? It's the game, pure esthetics. Can I push this elegant style of the old Alpine masters from the frozen snow where it was born onto frozen water where it's a stranger?
Pretty cool! About the height of his art. Doing the most climbing supported by the least tools. I mean, he could be on Eckenstein's crampons right there.
And after that public display, any climber's loss of interest in French Technique is pretty much just laziness and lack of vision.
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RDB
Trad climber
Iss WA
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Feb 17, 2009 - 04:50pm PT
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Great comments Doug. Couple of things came to mind when Gordon posed his questions.
Having recently returned to ice climbing, the newest gear has really brought Chouinard's ideas on ice full circle I think.
Here are a few reasons why. The modern ice/mixed boots are extremely soft in the ankle with a dead rigid sole. French technique is a given using these boots. Take a look at some of the video posted on the hard Cham ice routes and you see exactly what Chouinard, Frost and you were telling us would work 40 years ago. Some of them more akin to a Robbins boot than a good leather Haderer.
The newest hand tools allow you to run your hand up and down the shaft, matching or over lapping with complete security while the pick is buried or even easier just hooked. Even vertical and over hanging water ice these days can be "rock" solid and safe with good tools and the modern screws. Hard to find anything that is pure water ice that feels harder than a 5.10 hand crack these days. In fact from what I had done so far (in my second climbing life) the harder it gets the more like rock climbing it really is.
I haven't experienced this kind of freedom in the mountains since we all went out with just a good pair of boots and a piolet.
Even with what Ueli Steck is doing if you look close there are more things happening than first appear, all built on a foundation Chouinard, crew and the Scotts laid.
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