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

Three more recommended routes in the Verdon

As a companion piece to N routes worth doing in the Verdon Gorge here are three more routes worth doing in Verdon, selected from among those I have done/tried over two short trips this autumn. This text has been added to the original article, in order to make it as complete as possible, but for those who just want to read the new recommendations, here is the update:

Sector ULA

Au-delà du délire 7a/A0 (6c mandatory) 120-200 m Amazing climbing on good pockets. Fairly generously bolted. This ultra-classic route is not done often despite being featured in Parois de Légende. And as it protected by an awkward access it will likely stay free of polish for many years to come. 

Either access via the route ULA which requires a full rack with a double set of cams or by rapping down Tranxène 5. The rap of Tranxène 5 is found about 50 m downstream from Les Marches du Temp on a small ledge one metre below the rim (Tranxène written on the rock at the rim). The rap of Tranxène is very airy.

The third pitch of Au-delà, counting from the traverse

Au-delà du delire was first ascended ground up and follows an impeccably natural line up a very impressive wall, where you would be hard pressed to guess that there was room for a route of such amiable grade. The price for this is a short section of A0 on bolts (no aid-gear needed) through seven metres of friable rock. On the last pitch there used to be an arrow pointing to the right at the second bolt, now the arrow is gone and you have to figure this out by yourself. (Hint: the grade of the last pitch is likely not correct). 

Au-delà du délire is an album by the progressive rock band Ange (1974)

La demande 6a (6a mandatory) 350 m The first route on L'Escàles is still very much worth climbing. The route requires a small rack (cam 0.4 to 2, a set of medium-large wires and some slings – possible but not at all necessary doubling of the 0.4 and 0.5 cam). Every pitch has a few bolts, usually protecting the hard bits. (As such, they are sometimes placed in “illogical” places. Both me and Johan missed bolts while leading.) The route offers a veritable smorgasbord of cracks from fingers via hands to back-foot chimneys, interspersed with normal face climbing. Do not get discouraged by the enormous amount of polish on the first pitch (with its slightly disgusting layback moves on soapy holds) as seemingly a lot of people have been discouraged enough to rap off after that pitch. The rest is quite polished but never to the extend of the first pitch. In fact, due to the polish the jams are very comfortable, and despite not having climbed a route with sustained sections of jams for six years prior to this route I did not get any abrasions on the back of my hands.

Me exiting the chimneys and nearing the top

The line is impeccable and follows an ever widening crack in the middle of the highest wall. The last two pitches offer full-on chimney climbing for 80 m or so without much respite, so climbers who are not quick up 5.9+ chimneys (if you are not sure you are quick, you aint) should count on 8 hours, or even more if they are not confident putting in gear or at climbing easy but run-out terrain.

As we were stuck behind a cosmically slow team from the dolomites and finally had the chance to pass them at the sixth belay I went off route at pitch seven, despite having read the very same morning the explicit warning on camp to camp to

Ne pas suivre la fissure au-dessus de relais (coin + sangles et piton avec maillon rapide), au contraire traverser à droite (flèche gravée dans le rocher), remonter un dièdre, franchir un surplomb par la gauche et traverser immédiatement à gauche dans la dalle pour arriver au relais

guess who followed the crack above the belay... and did not see the arrow carved into the rock? In this way we got to do a nice bit of off-width followed by 30 m of very-hard-to-protect chimney climbing, completely free of polish! Including this little episode of deviation, and the finger crack version Johan did on the previous pitch to by-pass the second of the team ahead of us, we did the route in about five hours, having a lot of grade in hand on all styles the route has to offer.

Johan Hasslow leading the second to last pitch, stemming above the void

After having returned to Marseille, having done the first ascent of the wall of L'Escàles, one of the members of the team proposed to his beloved, hence La Demande

Baume aux Pigeons

A very impressive wall with some aid routes and lots of free climbing potential. Not futuristic, because the future is now. 

Dame Cookie 8a+ (6c mandatory) 120 m + 60 m scrambling  Very modern route up the middle of the imposing Baume aux Pigeons. Makes up in the quality of climbing for what it perhaps lacks in line.

Neither I nor my climbing partner were in sufficiently good shape to have a chance to redpoint in a week-end trip from Toulouse, so we hung like dogs whenever we felt a bit tired. In this style, it is definitely a less challenging proposal than one might think even if it is quite difficult to link the pitches.

The first pitch is OK, and the long easy dihedral that follows is sub-par for the area, but what follows is truly great modern climbing on positive holds. Especially the third pitch (8a) and the fifth pitch (8a+) has some really high quality climbing on it. For teams punching above their weight class, I think that it would be a good idea to break the fifth pitch in two as the leader is out-of-sight and out-of-hearing on the crux bulge. At leat that is what I plan to do if I am going up this with plans of working it with for a future  complete red-point ascent.

Alex follows the third pitch of Dame Cookie

The last pitch has one move (protected by a bolt) just above the belay followed by 55 m of steep bush-whacking through a near vertical forest making it complicated to access the route from above. As the route has a gazzilion bolts it is very easy to work for someone who finds a motivated belayer. But I do think that the route should be possible to onsight or do very quickly from the ground for anyone capable of onsighting 8a on the single pitch crags, as this route was put up with a very modern sensibility towards grades. In fact, I would be more impressed by teams onsighting the neighbouring Les Naufragés (a route with a hard to read crux with less modern style of climbing and way less modern application of free climbing grades).

Czech sandstone meet 2012. Adrspach and Teplice. Various routes

Me about to switch from off-width to chimney on Original Route on Mayor's Wife. Photo: Radek Linerth

“Only a fool can fall out of a chimney.” True. But then, what do you call someone who gets lost in one? 

Of all the chimneys we climbed during the international Czech sandstone meeting in 2012 the one that stands out most in my memory is the Original route (Stará cesta) to the top of the Mayor's wife (Starostová) in Adršpach. 

The first pitch started with a hand-crack somewhere deep inside a rock labyrinth, followed by a bit of sideways chuffing in one chimney which lead to a three-way junction when it met another major chimney. After some confused back-and-forth shouting with local chimney-aficionado Tomáš Vidlák, I got the impression that I was supposed to take the left junction, and continue across a smaller side-chimney up and diagonally across the wide chimney to the tower on the left. Since I judged the rope-drag to be “impossible” (for some reason I often find the drag bad just before climbing starts to be scary…) I instead turned in to the side-chimney and made a body belay to bring up Tomáš and Stefan.

Stefan is leading us out of the darkness into the ... light?

It turned out that I was supposed to just go diagonally up in the left arm for ten meters or so until a hidden bolt in the chimney could be reached. The chimney was extraordinarily green and wide enough not to feel super safe anymore, so I was very thankful that Stefan led that part. 

Stefan was perhaps not quite as thankful to take the lead, especially after he failed applying one of the fine tricks our host had shown us: when approaching a ring bolt that you really want to clip as soon as possible, take a double shoulder-length spectra sling and lasso it to the pin (only works for the old style square pins on ancient routes). If the bolt is drilled in vertically or in slight downward direction, as is often the case with old bolts, the sling should give you a body-weight top-rope anchor.

The bolt that Stefan failed to lasso was old and almost rusted through. (Note: In four days of climbing it was the only bad bolt we saw.) The next pitch was an easy off-width to more wide chimneying, followed by a last pitch with an easy hand crack which led to the top. But that feeling of getting lost in a maze of dark green chimneys will stay with me for some time. Weird and exhilarating.

Heikki Karla on the last pitch of the Original route of Mayor's wife, Adrspach. Finally some gear!

Sandstone subculture

The towers overlooking Elbe valley in Saxony, Germany, form the cradle of modern free climbing. That is quite natural. There is something very satisfying and primal in climbing a freestanding tower, especially by its natural route, and even more satisfying when the easiest route is challenging.

Towers in the Elbe Sandsteingebrige in Germany, close to the border of the Czech republic

In a chimney the leader’s body in itself is a form of protection, and so many of the Alte Weg (literarily the “Old way” or Original route) follow chimneys.

As the ability rose among the tower-aficionados in Saxony the cracks they ascended got narrower, or wider, and faces they climbed steeper, or less featured. They developed two kinds of protection: rudimentary wedges in the form of knotted slings and absolutely bomber ring bolts drilled deep into the sandstone.

In the beginning of the last century Saxon climbers took their craft across the border to Bohemia; first, further down the Elbe river valley, then all the way to the Bohemian highland, to the magnificent towers around the villages of Adršpach and Teplice.

View of Adr rock city from the top of the Major (Starosta)

For better and for worse Saxony and Bohemia are deeply conservative regions.. Many of the taboos and rules of their first climbers still hold. Among these rules are: no metal protection in the cracks—only threads and slings, no chalk, minimum amount of bolts, and new routes must be put up ground-up.

Last year, when climbing in Elbsandstein on the German side, my friend Erik Massih remarked that it was like climbing in a museum. A fitting description, I think.

The strict rules of Bohemian and Saxon sandstone climbing have kept the towers removed from the mainstream, and made climbing on them a subculture, even in Germany and in the Czech Republic. This situation is not helped by the wide-eyed depiction of climbing there in foreign climbing media.

The Czech climbing federation is rightly worried about how the sandstone climbing is described as something deadly serious and only for people with a deep-rooted death wish. Inspired by the yearly BMC meeting, the federation decided to create a climbing meet to show the possibilities of their beloved sandstone areas.

Adršpach was thus chosen as the destination for the first Czech international trad- climbing meet, and climbers from Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Romania, Poland, and the Netherlands came to climb with Czech and Slovak hosts.

http://www.adr-rock.cz

The first night of the meet we were given some useful accessory cord to tie into knots from Rock Empire, a company that partly sponsored the meet, and were treated to a few nice old movies showing some brave souls doing first ascents in the 60s. In my mind a factor-2 fall is never to be contemplated by the safe leader, so it was interesting to see the Czech old-timers thinking nothing of taking repeated long falls directly onto the anchor when failing to find a way up.

The first morning was a bit wet and we went up to Křížový vrch (“Cross hill”) for some shorter routes, well -protected with knots. The Czech chimney-fanatic Tomáš Vidlák was hosting the Nordic contingent, formed by Stefan Lindström and myself from Sweden, and Perttu Ollila and Heikki Karla from Finland. After a few minutes of instruction in the art of placing knots we were ready to go.

Tomáš Vidlák, Perttu Ollila and Heikki Karla on a small tower on Cross Hill

Quite soon Tomáš discovered that we did not mind groveling up hard but ridiculously low-graded green wet chimneys and a tour of some very “classic” chimneys up the taller spires in Adr followed.

Perttu Ollila on the exciting full body stem between the towers on the way to the top of the Mayor, Adrspach

Adršpach rock makes for a very special style of climbing. The climbing is not like anything else, really. The sandstone is quite soft and feels very sandy and in places slippery too. The cracks are often featureless, flaring, and generally unforgiving, and smearing on the slabs takes some time getting used to. Maybe imagining a Fontainebleau with 100 m tall boulders could approximate it.

After a rainy rest day midweek we moved a few kilometreskilometers up the road to Teplice to climb with another of our hosts, the eternally cheerful Oťas Srovnal. Teplice has more solid sandstone and the climbing is more similar in style to other sandstone areas I've been to.

Teplice is also more of a “sport climbing” destination. There are plenty of face routes only protected by bolts and threads. Note that the threads are rarely fixed, so bring a couple of slings on all routes, even if you judge the route to be fully equipped.

Gotická mlíko IXc, Martinské Steny. (Gothic milk IXc, Martin Walls)

Even if Teplice involves predominantly face climbing, there are some excellent cracks there too. Among them we did the aptly named roof crack Prásknutí bičem (“Whiplash crack”), probably the best hand crack I climbed in 2012. There is a bomber thread just before the roof and then nothing until a ring well above the overhang, so the name alludes to what would be the consequences of a fall. I flashed it with Heikki's encouraging beta ringing in my ears: “it is a hand crack, tight yellow camalot, there is no way you can fall off.”

Me on Prásknutí bičem

Prásknutí bičem, photo: Ota

Ota topping out Prásknutí bičem, Teplice

For climbers like me who have used camming devices since starting climbing, cracks are the safest routes possible. Having to use knots for protection changes the game completely, however, and make repeating cracks more mentally exhausting than repeating face climbs, at least for those of us not totally confident in our ability to properly place and judge knots.

Stefan Lindström warming up on Otas’s route Endoskop on Church wall

Among the face routes we did in Teplice I particularly enjoyed a quite new one on Martinské stěny called Stroboskop. Well-protected fun face climbing for almost 50 meters. It was also very popular, the only route we had to wait in line to get on.

During evenings we where treated with slide shows by Czech climbers active in putting up new routes all over the world, and also a slide show by Slovak legend Igor Koller (first-ascensionist of The fish on, Marmolada among other things).

Igor Koller repeats his classic route Kalamárky in Teplice. The second ring was put in after the first ascent.

Tomáš Sobotka, a very experienced climber with some impressive big wall free routes to his name also gave a slide show. Among other things, he talked enthusiastically about the possibilities for really hard face climbs on Czech sandstone, and his belief that there are many hard routes with Fountainebleau-style slapping on bad slopers waiting to be put up by a new generation, and indeed, Adam Ondra has already put up a route in the French 9a grade.

From what I’ve seen I am sure that Sobotka is right. However, to push hard on sandstone towers in Saxony or Bohemia seems to be a local privilege, and not even exceptionally good visiting climbers have made much of a mark.

Stefan Lindström cruising Převislá on Věž přátelství, Teplice

I have climbed on sandstone in Utah, Kentucky, Nevada, France and Germany, but I must say that Teplice is still probably my favourite sandstone area since it has a little of everything: pockets, edges, slopers, and cracks of all sizes.

Tentatively the Czech federation is planning a similar meeting for 2014, and if so, and were you to have a chance to go, – my only advice is: take it and enjoy the ride!

One of the excellent event organisers, the Czech climbing guide Radek Lienerth has a write up (in Czech) on http://www.lezec.cz/clanky.php?key=10553 

Gear

Bring the following

• 1 wooden or plastic stick on a leach to help pushing in knots into slots, and to use as a knot extractor. This is the most important piece of equipment. Without it the knotted slings are rendered useless.
• 1 sling from 5 mm accessory cord, 175 cm long
• 1 sling from 6 mm accessory cord, 175 cm long
• 1-2 slings from 7 mm accessory cord, 175 cm long each
• 1-2 slings from 8 mm accessory cord, 175 cm long each
• 3-4 slings from old 9 mm climbing rope, 180 cm long each
• 3-4 slings from old 10-11 mm climbing rope, 180 cm long each
• 1-2 Monkey's fists from old climbing rope. They take quite a while to tie.
• Maybe a few lengths of tape as well.
• 10 quickdraws.
• 2-3 triple runners/alpine draws
• 60 m rope
• Free biners for the knotted slings
• 2-3 double shoulder length slings for chockstones etc.
• Tape for jam gloves, or ready-made rubber jammies. All three manufacturers I know for rubber hand-jammies are based in the Czech republic. This is not a coincidence.

Notes: When tying the knots leave a good 20 cm tail. The easiest way to take out the knots when following is to grab the tail and pull upwards.

On the old style rings there is plenty of room for two quickdraws. It is normal to clip two draws in opposition on every ring. The rings seem to be very solid. 

Long factor two falls onto single rings was de rigueur for would-be first ascensionists in the 60s. 

Tomas and Sefan sorting gear in the morning

Guidebooks

Problem. There are no foreign language guidebooks to Adr and Teplice in print that I know of. The current Czech guide book for Teplice has some useful topos for a few of the nicer face climbing sectors, but is mostly text based. 

The Czech guidebook for Adr is fully text based, and very terse too. There is a select guidebook in German for Adr, but it is out of print, and difficult to get hold of.

Grades

My wide crack-climbing and pistol-shooting mentor Alf in Moab will be pleased to know that grades are considered to be the intellectual property of the first-ascensionist. Only they can change the grade. Thus the grades might not be as predictable as we in the fast-food generation would like them to be.

Generally speaking, the routes are safer the harder and newer they are. Above French 7a/UK E4 or so there are plenty of routes to choose from where a ground fall would be implausible.

The grade is given by a roman numeral. For grade VII and up Latin letters a, b, or c are used as subdivision.

Any grade conversion table is a fiction in the best of times, but I nevertheless include a rough guide. For more detailed fiction, please refer to Wikipedia. 

I-IV This is probably a chimney. Can be easy or hard, but only a fool will fall out of a chimney, right? It can also be a trivial face route. A grade III chimney could be pretty far from trivial.

IV-V You should be fine. This is an old route, so protection might be scarce but the climbing should not be too hard. Might involve slab climbing, juggy face climbing, or fist cracks.

VI Translation tables claim that this is around Hard Severe. Makes sense. Climbers where braking in to this grade before the turn or the old-old century, making this grade quite unpredictable. Worst case scenario is that it is a 70 year old friction slab.

VII Many old routes that follow striking lines are this grade. HVS+ or 5.9+ says it all.

VIII Still on the most striking natural lines. Often quite pumpy. Prepare to fight for it.

IX Some of the master pieces from the 70s have this grade. Think 6c or E3/4 and up. If it looks bold it probably is.

X Mostly safe and hard, or if it was put up by Berndt Arnold in the 70/80s: unsafe and hard. E6 and up. There is probably a bolt every 5-7 meters or so. Or it could be death on a stick.

Rules and reality, a footnote

Some of the rules, and my own comments and interpretations. All eventual misunderstandings are my own.

1) No metal gear in the cracks, only knots and slings. In recent years a new form of expanding sling chock, dubbed “ufo”, has been developed in the Czech republic. We tried one and found them quite trustworthy. Otherwise the crack protection is the same as hundred years ago: different form of knots in slings.

2) No chalk. Chalk-use is a source of real controversy in the Czech republic. Not so much in Germany since chalk is illegal in Elbe valley. However, in some areas on the Czech side sparing use of chalk is sort-of OK on non crack climbs of sufficiently high difficulty. Suffice to say that this is a sensitive subject and that I recommend to do without everywhere.

3) All new routes must be put up ground up. In Saxony the mere suspicion that parts of a new route where inspected on rappel has been ground for removal of bolts and the first ascent claim. In Teplice bolts where recently chopped when it transpired that they where drilled from rappel.

4) No aid climbing. What the Victorians dubbed “combined tactics”, where the leader climbs up the body of other climbers is OK, but none of the team can be hanging from protection to make the ascent valid. It seems to be OK to drill from aid stances as long as you climb free up to it, and on modern hard face routes in Czech most lead-bolts are drilled from improved hooks (bat hooking) or rivets, (after the lead bolt has been placed the first hole is glued shut).

5) Minimum amount of bolts. This rule has been understood different through time and is interpreted a bit differently depending on area. Suffice to say that fully bolted routes are few and far between and that they seldom are what we have started to call “sport routes” (i.e. fully and closely bolted short routes).

Sud-Est Directe, 540 m, 6c>6a at Pointe Jean Santé, Pic du Midi d'Ossau

Julia on the approach to Pic du Midi d'Osseau

If you for some reason end up close to the border between France and Spain in the summer and are trying to find cool rock, there are very few good options unless you head for the mountains. One option is to go to the classic “Climber's peak” Pic du Midi d'Osseau in the French Pyrenees.

All routes, even the normal route, are rather involved. This is not Chamonix. There are no fixed belays, at least none that you would happily rappel off. Even the most straightforward routes require double ropes, a big rack with lots of small gear, and a good nose for finding solid safe climbing. The mountain is of andesite, a volcanic rock that is quite slick with mostly thin cracks.

The mountain is interesting on all sides, so getting down involves scrambling, easy climbing and rappelling.

When we climbed the route we did not need crampons or axes to cross the randkluft (rimaye in french and catalan). We called the guardians of the refugio next to the mountain to enquire about the snow conditions and if we would need to bring crampons. The guardians where hesitant to give a clear answer, which was understandable as it was a marginal call.

When I looked on the topo, our chosen route, Sud-Est Directe looked like an easy day out—for a 500 m route anyway. In reality it took us a long time to get up and down the route, I don't remember the time exactly but we managed to return to the refugio just in time for the dinner so it must have been around 12 hours.

The pitch-grades on Sud-Est Directe is of the typically parsimonious Pyrenées's standard. The same holds true for other routes I've heard.

The route, some pitch notes

Bearing in mind that we climbed this in 2014 and I did not write down any notes, take everything I say with some grain of salt. I'm sure it's all true, but I might miss some crucial details.

The approach was very easy, about 20 min from the refugio/camping. The first pitch is easy and nondescript, but the second pitch is one of the hardest, with fairly complex terrain (6b+, the main problem is to find a good combination of good gear and easy climbing).

Julia following the 2nd pitch

A few easy pitches leads up to a cool ledge with a very cool hanging tree before the crux pitch.

Javi belaying from a mighty flake on top of pitch 4...

Julia found a good belay in the shade....

....while Julia is belaying in the shade before Pitch 5. Photo: Javier Aranda

The crux pitch (6c) had some really nice climbing up to a short boulder problem in an open grove. The crack in the bottom of the groove was too thin for my fingers, but I could find a sequence with mostly stemming and face holds. Very pleasurable pitch up to an obvious belay.

Joaquim above the difficulties of pitch 5.

From there the climbing started to be surprisingly sustained. The pitches followed generally a big corner system and the line is mostly quite obvious.

Joaquim climbing somewhere on the route. Probably on pitch 9. Photo: Javier Aranda

 On pitch ten the original line keeps going straight up the ever steeper dihedral at A1, while the most common way to climb it now is by finding a tricky traverse out left to a hidden dihedral (6a). I missed the true line of the traverse and climbed to high up on ground protected by inadequate fixed gear (6b+, at one point I clipped a fixed cam-hook...). One or two of the smaller ball nuts would have been lovely. The best line should be easy enough to find if you pay attention to the topo (or in my case: if I'd payed attention to what my partner told me).

Me being a bit uncomfortable on the tenth pitch. Photo Javier Aranda 

Our catalan friends, who found it hilarious that I complained about the pitons, were clearly held back by us at this point,.

The following  two pitches were surprisingly difficult and should not be treated lightly. Then easier climbing follows to the top of Pointe Jean Santé. I suppose it is possible to link this route, which finishes on the subsidiary (Pointe Jean Santé) with a route up to the prominent peak of Pic du Midi d'Ossau, but like most we were totally satistifed having done Sud-Est Directe.

The decent was a bit tricky and I recommend to find a good topo of this, and to talk with the guardians as well. The decent is a mixture of scrambling, easy fifth-class downclimbing (many pitons and fixed threads) and rappelling which leads back to the glacier on the west flank. We were able to cross the randkluft (bergschrund) and downclimb the glacier using sharp rocks as improvised ice tools. For this decent, stiff soled boots are better than trainers or approach shoes.

Refuge de Pombier

Back at camp—while you enjoy your evening meal in the Pompie Refugio (reservations needed) or by your tent on the idyllic green field by the small nearby lake—take some time to reflect on Serge Castéran's amazing solo enchainment of Sud-Est Directe with Le Plilier de l'Embarradère and Le Pilier Sud, done in a day in the late 80s. Almost unimaginable considering the insecure complex climbing some of the pitches offers. Castéran's solo got very little press at the time. Crazy.

Getting there
The mountain is just on the border between France and Spain. One and a half hours north of Huesca in Spain, and one and a half hours south of Pau in France. Park on the road a kilometer south of the border and hike up to the Pombier hut (less than an hour). I've dropped a needle on 27crags.com both for the peak and for the parking lot.


Staying there
Tent or the Pombier refugio. If you're staying in the hut, or eating there, reserve in advance. There are not many climbers around, but plenty of hikers. The guardians of the refugio are good climbers and can give detailed information about most routes. They are also willing to answer questions about the conditions etc.

Gear
Double ropes and a full rack, heavy on thin gear. Until early august, an ice tool and crampons might be needed to cross the snow beneath the route or on the decent.

Season
May to late September. We climbed in July and had very nice conditions.

More information
As usual for this region of the world, Camp to Camp is a good source. There is some information on UK Climbing. This route is also in the bible, with a very precise topo, unfortunately without information how to get down. There is a binder of topos in the refuge.

Guidebook
La Vallée d'Ossau, Xavier Buxo, Luis Alfonso (2011, text in French and Spanish).