This was my first visit to the fabled Calanques of Marseilles. The Calanques are the fiord region next to Marseille and host to a plethora of marvelous rockclimbs on walls of impeccable white limestone up to 300 m high. On this trip we had the luxury of a boat and could sail round and chose what took our fancy! I will definitely be back.
Indurain for me is the best of the Trident route with varied climbing on splitter, flakes, laybacks and grooves. So good!
The Trident
Me on the initial warm up 6b pitch with required a forceful approach with a toasted body from a hard days cragging the previous day.
Gareth on the diagonal crack
Grovelling around in the offwidth
Spanning out to the layback flake
Burly moves onto the belay ledge
Gareth departing on what I though was one of the finest crack pitches in the massif. A fine 6C hand crack heading up right.
Gareth fully engaged in the hand crack
Nearly there, on the steeper bulge at the top
Me on the groove 3rd pitch
Me on the crux 4th layback pitch
Looking down the layback pitch, Gareth’s white helmet just visible
The top 5+ pitch, a bit gravelly but the final 6th pitch is worth doing and takes you above Bonne Ethique’s ab line.
A fine trip to the Red Pillar of the Blaitiere with the every psyched Andy Perkins to climb Charles Eternue. This route was named after the French Foreign Minister (Charles Hernu) who ordered the sinking of Greenpeace’s flagship vessel ‘Rainbow Warrior’ in 1985 while she was in port in Aukland New Zealand en route to demonstrate against the French nuclear tests in the Atol. One person was killed in the sinking and two French agents were arrested and found guilty of manslaughter in what the New Zealand authorities referred to as state sponsored terrorism. Interestingly my father used to work on this vessel when she conducted research. The climbing is varied with cracks, offwidths, corners, slabs, laybacks and a steep finale. Quality
As the first snows of autumn start to coat our mountains in a scant white negligee causing us to fantasise about winter adventures, I finally have some time to write about some of the things that kept me busy this summer. Working as an aspirant mountain guide has kept me busy and taken me to many new areas of the Alps as well as revisiting some that I haven’t been to for 20 years. This didn’t leave me any time to train for rock and I often wanted to be free of ropes on my day off and ride my bike but I did make a conscious effort to do at least one quality rock route every 2 weeks to keep a base level of fitness.
The Grand Perron offers swathes of impeccable Gietroz quality gneiss with unparalled views over the Mont Blanc Range. With a breeze blowing onto the sunkissed crag taking the edge off the sun, we were set for primo friction conditions. My partner in crime for the day was Andy Perkins who never fails to impress me with his no nonsense, positive and forceful approach. Mix in some brilliant banter and it ranks as one of the most memorable days of the summer.
Me eyeing up the moves on the first hard pitch.
Pretty pumpy start fresh off the deck.
Andy making dynamic moves on another 6C pitch.
Andy arriving at the belay.
The pitch. Andy makes the hard start on the 7a+ crack. Felt like E6 6b to me seconding. We took a spectra line for the raps and hauling our sac reckoning that was the most efficient system.
Andy mid pitch. Stunning
On and on like a lot of the Perrons pitches – full value.
The crux 7b pitch. I found this hard to read and technically hard on feet. When you havent been climbing a lot it was tough sequencing the moves. Andy took one flier and I hung out twice after reading the rock wrong.
Balancy technical climbing on the 7b pitch. Me figuring out the last few moves. After that all that remained was a few ‘easy’ pitches to the summit ridge.
The line of Sale Athee on the Charpoura side of the Aiguille du Moine
If you are looking for the lightest airmat for bivis and the fast and light approach, read on as this will be of interest to you.
Time for a mountaineers snack of cheese and sausage at the bivi
Will soaking up the rays at our bivi spot in the Charpoura
Bouldering in the evening light
When I received the Exped Airmat HL M through the post I was impressed by the small pack size which similar to the size of Thermorest’s popular NeoAir. However when I opened the stuff sac I realised about 1/3 of the volume was due to the ingenious pump that is supplied to keep moisture out of the mat, although Exped claim the mat is impervious to hydrolysis. Leaving the pump at home will save a few precious grams and more importantly reduce your pack size.
Small pack length of around 7 inches
The inflation pump that fits into the stuff sac with the mat
This is a very comfortable mat with a shoulder width of 52 cm, length of 183 cm and thickness of 7 cm. The mat boasts next-to-skin comfort and anti-slip GripSkin honeycomb-pattern coating. I put the mat to the test in the Charpoura basin for an open bivi this summer on route to climb the mega Sale Athee 7a+ on the Aiguille du Moine – a contender for the best rock routes I have done in the Alps. Despite our bivi location being on rock I had a great nights sleep with no cold spots from the ground or dead arms from pressure points when lying on my side. The mats is full length so you avoid cold feet problems with ¾ length mats.
The low packsize to comfort ration means I’ve also taken to chucking the mat in overnight bags when I am away guiding in other places of the Alps and if I get the chance to ride the mountain bike tour of Mt Blanc this autumn it will be coming with me for a remote bivi.
Full metric specification can be found below along with a short video from Exped taking you through all the design features.
Will putting into Yosemite style back foot/knee cams on the pod section
Will heading off on a gorgeous 6C pitch
Will further up the pitch with stunning views to the Dru and Sans Nom
The crux 7A+ fist sized crack
Will coming up another amazing 6C+ pitch
Will nearly the belay
Myself and Will on the summit
SPECIFICATION
Temperature:
4 °C
R-Value:
1.90
Thickness:
7 cm
Length:
183 cm
Shoulder Width:
52 cm
Foot Width:
35 cm
Weight Mat:
310 g
Weight Pump:
45 g
Weight Packsack:
10 g
Packed height:
18 cm
Packed diameter:
7 cm
Pack volume:
0.8 l
Product contents:
Mat
Mini Pump
Packsack
Repair kit
instruction sheet
Repair manual
Warranty:
2 years
VIDEO
Ross Hewitt Guiding 