So I kind of thought that the north face of the Jorasses would be just as easy as last year’s ascent of the Eiger north face, which Michal and I had completed in a single day. But this year was going to be different.
We had planned to go as a group of three this time, but Michal injured his shoulder playing hockey, so Honza and I ended up going to Chamonix on our own. The forecast looked promising; following a week of heavy snowfall, meteorologists were predicting five days of beautiful weather.
acclimatization on Midi
To acclimatize, we spend one night at the Cosmiques hut. The next day, we take the cable car back to Chamonix, then the train up to Montenvers, and from there the cable car down to the Mer de Glace. It’s getting lower every year. A sad sight. In beautiful weather, we hike across the glacier. We’re the only idiots without skis. But none of us wants to go back down to the base to get our skis. We begin to wonder whether it was the right decision at the confluence of the Mer de Glace and Leschaux glaciers, where we’re sinking deeper and deeper into the snow. In the end, it turns into a classic case of breaking trail.
The plan was to reach the very base of the climb, but it starts to get dark about 300 meters below it. So we set up our first bivouac here. At least the snow will be frozen solid in the morning and we won’t sink in. But we were way off—in the morning we sink in even more, even though the temperature is around minus 15 °C. On top of that, in the early morning darkness, we don’t know which way to go and wander among the crevasses. So we arrive at the base of the climb quite late, and we can only dream of traversing the wall in a single day.
Crossing the crevasse is proving to be a real challenge. We traverse about 100 meters to the right, where it looks more passable. After a few attempts to climb over the crevasse, I take off my backpack—there’s no way I can do this with it on. This is off to a great start. On the overhanging wall of soft snow that follows immediately, my hand with the ice axe sinks up to my shoulder, and I can barely breathe. Another overhang follows, this time made of hard water ice. Fortunately, we can at least drill screws there. Then the terrain levels out for a moment, and we power through one pitch after another. Most of the time, we're climbing on fairly hard ice, which quickly saps our strength.
Darkness falls as we reach about halfway up the wall; our second bivouac awaits us. In the 70-degree snow slope, we manage to dig out a ledge where we both stretch out half-lying down and try to replenish our calories and strength.
In the morning, we continue with the ice pitches to the final ice field. From there, a notch leads to a pillar where the pitches on broken rock begin. We traverse right to an exit via a corner, which, according to the guidebook, is the best way to finish the route. But here, for a change, there’s no ice at all. So we traverse back to the pillar again. After a few pitches on rock, we find ourselves on an overhanging rock face. Bad luck again.
We rappel from the piton into the gully on the left. There’s little ice, the protection is poor, and it’s getting dark again. After two fairly strenuous rock pitches, we’re standing on the summit. It’s dark, the wind is strong, and it’s snowing. Fortunately, there are tracks from some other desperate souls who were here before us. We follow them in the direction of the descent, that is, up to Pointe Whymper. Along the way, we find a ledge for our third bivouac, where we settle in immediately. The wind rages all night.
In the morning, everything is covered in snow and there’s no trace of our tracks. Visibility is no more than twenty meters. We rappel and climb down the first pillar heading south toward Italy. We navigate using Mapy.com. Without it, we probably wouldn’t have made it down. Traversing the glacier in zero visibility is also a blast. The next pillar is mostly climbed waist-deep in snow that keeps sliding away. A few more rappels follow, and once again, in the dark, we’re standing on the glacier—almost half as light as before.
We make it across the glacier without much trouble to the Rifugio Boccalatte hut, where a beautiful winter room welcomes us. We share the last bit of cheese and a slice of bread that we thawed on the stove, and sleep the sleep of the righteous—this time without the cold and wind.
After a prana breakfast, we set off on the final leg. But the descent back to civilization isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Still within sight of the bar, I’m waist-deep in wet snow, cursing under my breath. Finally, a two-meter snowdrift spits us out onto the road, and we’re done.
We’ll probably remember this adventure for a long time. Even though nothing went according to plan and it took a day longer than expected, we successfully climbed the north face of the Grandes Jorasses via the Croz Pillar route with the Slovenian start, rated approximately ED1, M6, WI4. Participants: Pavel Bohuněk and Honza Kreisinger.
What gear did I use?
Temperatures hovered around −12 °C during the day, and it was noticeably cold even while climbing. I usually climb fairly lightly and just throw on a down jacket at the belay station. This time, though, that didn’t work very well— I was cold even during the most demanding pitches.
In the end, the combination that worked best for me was: two warm merino shirts, a Ketil insulated jacket, and an Evolution jacket and pants as the outer layer. Serak fleece pants were enough for me under the outer pants.
A major advantage of the Ketil jacket is its synthetic insulation—even though I broke a sweat while climbing, it didn’t lose its thermal comfort like down does and dried relatively quickly. Combined with the durable Evolution outer layer, it proved to be a functional solution for the cold and changeable conditions of the north face.
