Spigolo, Petit Aiguille d'Ansabère

The extreme warm weather of May and June has been relentless, and for Friday, forty degrees was forecasted for Toulouse with even warmer temperatures further west. Thus me and Alex went to the High Pyrenees for some colder temps, even though the meteorologists talked about temperatures of above 30 even above the tree line. 

Approaching in early morning. Already well above 20 degrees at 1800 masl!

Petit Aiguille d'Ansabère. Spigolo is the obvious spur on the left

One of the classics in the Pyrenees that J. has done before we met is Spigolo on the impressive pillar Petit Aiguille d'Ansabère, as such I was happy to find someone else to climb it with.

L2 5c R. Not perfect rock, some funky gear

Spigolo is Italian for ‘spur’, and I guess that the first ascensionist, Raymond Despiau, was inspired by the similarities in look to the spurs of the Dolomites. Something else that he was clearly inspired by was the alpine methods to murder the impossible by bolting aid-ladders whenever the rock got too blank for their free-climbing abilities. Amazingly enough lots of the rivets put in place in 1967 are still there and are still used for direct aid by most parties on the route. Some of the pitons used for protection also likely dates from the late 60s, by the look of them.

L3 6c. Three pitons according to the topo. One of them is still there.

The route was freed by Serge Casteran in 1984, at 7a and 7b for the two hardest pitches. Mr. Casteran was— and still is to this day—a complete master of free climbing, but I strongly suspect that there are more than one hold missing from that ascent thirty years ago. To be fair, it was warm on the wall, with temperatures well above 25 degrees, but neither me nor Alex freed L5 or L6 — neither on lead nor following. I also got really tired from trying to link L6 were I had a hang on the rope somewhere in the middle. Normally, both of us should be OK on vertical 7bs... 

L5, 7a+. Or so. Bolts everywhere for the convenience of the A0 climber

Nowadays there are all type of fixed equipment on the route. Some old rivets from the 60s, 8 mm expansion bolts which look like they are from the early 80s, 10 mm and even 12 mm bolts from more recent times, and lots of pitons of various type and age — there is even an old wooden piton threaded with a fairly new sling!

L9 6a+. The rock starts to be good!

L10 6c. "Wendenstöcke-like quality rock"

Gear: a set of wires from small to medium and a set of cams from micro to camalot #1 (red). The smallest we placed was a black totem (#0.5 11.7 mm at its minimum range). The red camalot was likely superfluous. Twelve draws including five 60 cm draws (perhaps more if you want to link pitches) and a double shoulder length sling, plus something for the belays. We climbed on a single 60m rope and had a haul-rope/zip line.

Hauling is fine. We climbed L1, L2 and L10 with a bag which we hauled on all other pitches; this worked well.  Due to the extremely high temperatures we hauled 7 litres of water!

Approach: Walk in to the cabins of Ansabère from the parking at Pont Lamary(1 hour), then take the path leading up to the Col de Pétragème and scramble up to the base of the spur (about 1 hour more). There is drinking water at the cabins.

L0 2a 10m. Scramble up and right some 10-15m to the top of a small detached pillar and rope up and belay from a single bolt. 

L1 4c 35m. Easy climbing, but pay attention to finding the most solid rock. The first bolt after some 10 m. Do not stop at the first belay (3 old bolts) but keep going another 5 m to a second belay with some slightly newer bolts. Two bolts and a few pieces of gear.

L2 5b R 55m. Hike up ledges up to a steeper pillar and find the first bolt some 5m to the right of the left edge of the pillar. Then some pitons and some questionable gear on decidedly average rock leads to a good belay on new bolts on a comfortable ledge below a short steep dihedral on the left side of the arete.

L3 6c 20m. A steep dihedral. One bolt at the start, then some micro friends and an old piton to easier climbing. Only two pieces on fixed protection on this pitch. Good semi-hanging belay on bolts.

L4 6b 25m. Some fixed protection, but mostly on gear. Belay on bolts.

L5 7a+ 18m. Well hard and bolted as an A0 ladder for aid-climbers so there are bolts everywhere but not always in the best place for a free ascent. No gear needed.

L6 7b? 20m. Very hard, see above for the bolting. Bolts a little bit further apart and there are some obligatory 6c moves if free climbing, so climbers who are in well above their head should probably bring hooks. This is might actually be the reason why this pitch felt so hard, as I can imagine that it is pretty easy to break holds with hooks as the rock is pretty friable. No gear needed.

L7 6a+ 15m. A short traverse leftwards. Three bolts. No need for any gear. Excellent rock.

L8 6b+? 35m. Runout on questionable fixed gear with very few opportunities to supplement with friends/wires. The hardest parts are well protected by brand new bolts, but I doubt the mandatory grade is below 6b+ unless you bring hooks. Excellent rock. We found this very hard for the grade.

L9 6c 30m. The original route goes out left (at 6b), the direct version goes right on really good rock. Brilliant climbing past many bolts to a finish on a traverse out right on pitons. No friends/wires.

L10 5c R 30m. Two bolts and no gear. The first bolt is some 10 m up and slightly to the right of the belay (above the bulge and well above the difficulties of the pitch). Go left around the small corner then back up right to very easy climbing on solid rock. (Note: The route Borrokan Aske comes up from the right, and it is possible to traverse into this (7a+) after the first bolt).

Descent: Rap from the top down  the other side. First rap is 29m, second rap 28m. Then go a few meter straight out from the wall before starting to scramble down and skiers left to the saddle (very airy). Keep traversing past some cairns until you reach a red couloir with loose rock. This is where we went wrong, apparently ‘you arrive at the base of an easy couloir that allows you to return to the plateau behind the Petit Pic d'Ansabère, then descend the grassy slopes of the Petit Pic d'Ansabère towards the south to reach the Col de Pétragème before walking back to the Cabane d'Ansabère’. (Description within quotation marks is translated from here.)

Across the brèche/saddle. So far so good....

Instead of scramble up the couloir for 30 m we scrambled down this for about 250 m with some difficulties using a less than stellar improvised anchor to rappel past a snow field until it was possible to reach the scree-field below the pillar via a traverse diagonally down left on steep and loose terrain.

We walked down the scree forever until it is possible to traverse skiers right back towards the pillar. This took us around 4 hours and felt pretty serious at times.

Sheep herding at altitude with Petit Aiguille d'Ansabère in the background

RACS, Ordesa

As it has been quite warm the last week I wanted to escape the heat and head up to the mountains. I already had a date for about doing RACS in the Ordesa valley in late May, but my prospective partner had to bow out because of a family visit and  I was left without a partner. Luckily I randomly ran into a German climber who lives in Norway at the crag who was also keen on doing a longer route. By pooling gear we managed to get a full rack of sorts together and promptly set off for Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park.

RACS starts some 60m to the left of the waterfall

We slept in the car just outside the park and arrived fairly early in the morning. As I have no guidebook for the area we followed the somewhat substandard written approach description on camp-to-camp, and after 2.5 hours of hiking and searching we managed to identify the start of the route with the help of a picture I found online. Our original plan was to start around 8 am, but in the end we did not start until 10 am. Luckily the days are long in mid May and the route is fairly short for being in Ordessa, some 250 m or so.

This must be it!

The fine mist from the waterfall soaked the first few metres of scrambling and left a little bit of moisture in the cracks on the first two pitches. 

Here is my pic of the first pitch, in hope that it will help someone to identify the start

RACS was first ascended over three days in July 1984 by the legendary team of Jesús Gálvez and Miquel Angel Casals. The wall sports only intermittent lines, and most of the pitches are somewhat overhanging (something that is abundantly clear if hauling a pack). Despite the somewhat blocky and scary appearance of the wall, most of the climbing is on solid rock with good gear. There are however quite a few places where you have to do some athletic climbing between pieces of gear, so I am in full awe of the first ascensionist.

Me starting up pitch one.

The valley of Ordesa is littered with steep crags formed from a peculiar sandy limestone that forms steep walls, often overhanging, of blocks pilled on each other. Thus there are few routes below 5+ or so, and as fixed gear is mostly notable by its absence and there are few obvious lines, the area has somewhat of a reputation for serious trad. 

David follows the first pitch, overprotected by a stressed out leader.

I basically never climb trad any more. The last time I put in some gear was on La Demande in Verdon last year, and I doubt I have lead more than a handful of pitches requiring natural gear in the last decade. The last ten metres of the first pitch required some gear trickery mixed with some to me non-obvious moves through the roofs, and I fear that I overprotected the climbing by quite a bit. 

David sets off for the second pitch. Note the tangled haul-line, not great.

David followed easily and cruised the second pitch, barely placing more than a handful of pieces on the entire pitch. The first pitch was fun but the second pitch was amazing, with a bit of everything: straight in jamming, laybacking and face climbing in a constantly overhanging groove. 

After having lost about half an hour on untangling the haul-line it was my turn again. I placed almost the entire rack on the third pitch  — another fun pitch. I even found the time to fiddle in the offset wires David had insisted we should use in lieu of normal wires. I never did use offsets much before I became a sport climber, but they were absolute bomber in the cracks of RACS. Much recommended. (I am sure that this is not news to anyone.)

David stripping the last wire of pitch 3

The fourth pitch is the money-pitch. After stepping around the corner from the third belay the pitch goes through a steep dihedral and some pretty impressive roofs followed by steep but fairly easy climbing up to a crux on a slightly overhanging finger crack near the next belay. Again, David made short work of the pitch and placed no more gear than absolutely needed. It would have sucked to fall while seconding as the pitch is steep enough that it would have required some rope-ascending shenanigans to get back.

In various topos I found online it is implied that the fourth pitch is quite hard (7a+++ and “para los buenos”). To be honest, we did not find it that bad. The first bit through the impressive roofs has some mandatory 6c moves, I suspect, but the crux should be possible to frig if necessary?

Me seconding the crux pitch

The fifth pitch is supposed to be 6c according to most topos, but I did not find it harder than 6a+. On the other hand, I did not find much gear either; I placed a cam about half a metre above the belay and nothing else before the crux which is a few metres above and to the right, so really rather obligatory (there is a chopped bolt just next to the crux). There is not much gear to be had after the crux either. The rock was fairly solid on the hard bit but the rock quality, which so far on the route had been mostly great, started to deteriorate toward the belay.

The fifth pitch ended on a huge ledge with a belay in three “burils” with no possibility of a back up that I could see. A buril is a type of rivet that can withstand up to about 4 kN of force. Up to this point we had always been able to back up the belays, which consist of pitons or burils, with at least one piece of gear.

Happy customers at the ledge after pitch 5

The following two pitches both consists of huge dihedrals. The first starts with some rather loose and quite adventurous climbing to reach the dihedral proper which had solid rock, good holds and is surely the steepest terrain I have done on trad at the grade (6b). The second dihedral was quite technical and had also fairly solid rock I thought.

After a last pitch of easy ledge shuffling, grass and tree climbing, we reached the plateau above the crag at half past four. A very pleasant hike down along the Cotatuero river with a via ferrata along a waterfall lead down to the forrest path down to the parking. 

The Cotatuero river

Overall, a great route with interesting and physical climbing on high-friction sandy limestone. I have not done any other route in the valley but I would still highly recommend this one to anyone who can. As it is found in Parois de légende (€130 second hand in good nick last I checked!), it is no great surprise that it is a super classic.

Advice for future ascensionist: We hauled a bag, this is fairly painless but it is not at all necessary if you have the chance of climbing this route on a day when it is not too hot: just clip shoes and a bottle to the harness. We had a serious cluster-f*ck with the haul-line and lost about half-an-hour fixing this, and it took us just under 6.5 hours to climb the route without ever rushing. The route would take 5h to climb for a seilschaft of two Davids and at least 7h for two Jonases, so the 5-7 h given in PdL seems fair. 

We had an eclectic collection of obsolete small cams found in the boots of respective car; green alien (or similar size) seems very useful as we placed at least one on every pitch and the blue alien came in well handy to protect a hard move a few times. The offset wires fit well in most cracks. All descriptions I found said to bring micro-wires but for what it is worth we did not place a single brass nut on the route, and nothing smaller than a #2 wallnut, ymmv. See the topo below for detailed gear advice.

Double ropes and plenty of long extenders are absolutely necessary, never hesitate to put a shoulder-length sling or longer on a piece. 

Teams who wants to do this in under 7 hours should probably consist of two climbers who are able to cruise 6c cracks and 7a on jugs. While the first four pitches are the hardest, on the top four pitches it is probably useful to be able to climb somewhat loose 6b-terrain without much gear.

My topo of RACS.  PDF version here

Pitch-by-pitch description

Pitch 1, 7a, 45 m. Climb a grassy ledgy choss up towards the roofs. Gear appear by the time the climbing gets interesting. Climb the roofs and traverse left to a belay in 2 burils (+ small wire in the diagonal crack above).

Pitch 2, 7a, 30 m. Step out right to the steep dihedral with a hand/fist crack in the bottom. Belay in 2 burils (+ one medium friend) a bit after the crack runs out. 

Pitch 3, 6c+ 40 m. A nice steep hand crack to a fixed piton. Pass a big ledge and some loose rock to a thinner crack leading to a belay in a niche (2 pitons + medium/small friend in a roof above).

Pitch 4, 7a+ 35 m. Step out right and climb a series of impressive roofs via a crack. Easier climbing leads past two fixed pitons up to a finger-crack in a small dihedral. Belay in two pitons + some gear.

Pitch 5. 6a+ R/X 30 m. Climb up to and traverse right under a small roof until you gain the two jugs. Pull an unprotected crux (6a+) up to easy terrain, traverse diagonally left above the roof until a series of ledges leads to a big ledge and a belay on 3 burils. (The pitch is given 6c in most other topos)

Pitch 6. 6b+ (6b R) 40 m. Traverse some seven metre left before attacking some loose rock up and pass to two pitons (one stainless and good, one rusty and suspicious looking) then more left up to good rock in the huge overhanging dihedral. Make a belay on the ledge above the dihedral.

Pitch 7, 6c, 40 m. Transfer the belay to the left end of the ledge to two new bolts (new route?) below another big steep dihedral. Climb the  dihedral and then continue up to obvious ledge at the end of the main difficulties.

Pitch 8, 4, 50 m. Climb diagonally up left on grassy ledges. A belay can be arranged on the plateau by slinging some boulders.

PDF topo here

Here is a picture of the wall, reprinted without permission from os2o