Saturday, March 26, 2016

Les Courtes 3856m



Last Tuesday I climbed Les Courtes, 3856m, in Chamonix. Together with Jeroen I climbed the Austrian route on the Northface. The day before we went up to the top of the Montet cable car station. Many thanks to the guys of the station because they let us sleep in the warm women toilet… Officially climbers are not allowed to sleep at the Montet cable car station anymore. But some nice talkings helps a lot. We started at 6 AM next morning, first down skiing to the bottom of the Argentiere glacier and then 1,5 hours to our ski depot. From there we had to climb another 30 minutes to the start of the Austrian route.
The bergschrund was ok, and after that we had perfect neve and a track. After the first 200 metres we got some steeper rock/snow sections, but easy. We simul climbed the whole face. Conditions were really good. Interesting, because this route was the only route in the Argentiere basin that was in really good condition. All the other stuff for example on the Droites was dry…
Normally the Suisse route on Les Courtes is climbed most of the time. The Austrian route is less known and climbed. And indeed, we found no pitons, slings or other stuff in the route. We were alone on the face that day, really nice.
The top ice field was kind of hard ice, but ok. After 5.45h climbing we reached the summit at 2 PM. Sun, nice views to the Mont Blanc and Grand Jorasses. After 25 minutes we started down climbing the ridge to the col and descending into the North East couloir. This was steep in the upper 100m and after that the angle eased… After 2,5 hours with a final abseil over the enormous bergschrund we reached the bottom of the glacier again. After 20 minutes walking we were back at our ski depot and made a save descent down to Chamonix. At 8.30 PM we had a nice pizzza and a glas of red wine in Argentiere.

Currently there is only one more route “in condition”: Petit Viking. Lagarde Direct has also been climbed, but the schrund is kind of tricky. Let’s hope that with the new snow expected next week conditions will improve…

easy travel on skis...

at 6.30h on the Argentier glacier, Les Droites super dry...



 in the lower part...

short mixed gully, but never really steep







traverse to the right, it would be possibel to continue up and then make a traverse to the right as well...



to the tour rouge...


 nice view on the upper part of the face...


 some rock scrambling in between

summit ridge...


 at 2 PM on the summit....


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