Tried by Les Courtes - Duncan Lee
By Duncan Lee
The previous two weeks of glorious weather had seen me gently acclimatising and preparing for Dave, the human dynamos, arrival. As per usual he was as fit as a butcher's dog, highly motivated and armed with a mouth watering hit list of classics but unfortunately his arrival in the Chamonix valley coincided with four days of storms raging over the Aiguilles. The resulting precipitation saw the mountains plastered in a deep coating of fresh snow. One report from the Cosmiques Hut had the layer of snow as deep as one metre. Suitably uninspired by these conditions we fled east to the Dolomites and Switzerland for a week or so to let things settle down.
Once in the Oberland the occasional good weather window had allowed us enough climbing time to begin to gel as a team and finally a deceptively good weather forecast lured us back to the Chamonix valley with the hope of bagging a gem or two. Sadly the weather forecast had mysteriously deteriorated by the time we drove into the valley and as far as the visual evidence went, everything was still smothered in snow so all the higher predominantly rock routes on our list were out of the question. The Chamonix meteorological office had done its bit for the valleys economy once more by luring in the unwary, but they were still predicting a day of good weather so something had to be done. Initially our uncertainty about the snow conditions saw us erring on the side of caution by opting for a bivouac near the Albert Premier hut and an ascent of the Forbes Arête on the Aiguille du Chardonnet, but once a plan had been made temptation stepped in our way. Two friends of Dave's, Sue and Helen, strolled over for a chat, dismissed our plan as unambitious and proposed a far more adventurous alternative. They were going up to the Argentiere hut to look at The Swiss route on the Argentiere wall of the impressive Les Courtes. Dave's ascent of that route the previous summer had ignited a desire in him to do the North-North-East (central) Spur on the same face, a Difficile with a tough reputation, so our gentle foray onto the Forbes Arête was shelved in favour of a more arduous goal and the rucksacks were repacked. Until, that was, Dave changed his mind once more and the rucksacks were repacked with the bivouac gear for plan A. Then he changed his mind again. Finally after half an hour of "do we, don't we" the pendulum eventually swung in favour of Les Courtes leaving us with a paltry five minutes to cram the last few bits and pieces into the sacks and sprint for the last telepherique up to the Aiguilles des Grand Montets.
The gentle stroll up the Argentiere glacier to the superbly situated hut took us below the vast awe inspiring bastions of the north face on the Droites and provided my first sight of the North-North-East Spur (first ascended on 12th July 1939 by J.Jonquiere, A.Maillol, M.Villarem with E.Frendo and A.Tornier) as it came into view in profile on the flanks of Les Courtes. Side on the ridge looked very easy angled and friendly but as we approached the hut and the viewing angle changed the entire north face of Les Courtes no longer looked so amiable a place as first appearances suggested. In fact, whilst watching the last light of a spectacular sunset play across the face the whole venture began to seem a lot more serious, so I turned my back on the mountain and retired indoors as the beast lurked outside towering ominously over the hut. After a chat with the warden Sue and Helen's plan of doing the Swiss Route was in tatters due to pour conditions so they decided to be sociable and join us on the NNE Spur.
Thus 1am saw four bleary eyed souls silently munching their ways through breakfast and doing the final last minute gear checks. Being female, and therefore more organised, Sue and Helen were out of the door first and had sensibly reconnoitred the path down the step moraine ridge the previous evening. As a result of this forward planning they were well on their way to the base of the route whilst Dave and I were still slithering, or in Dave's case plummeting, our way over the moraine towards the ice. The last flat area of glacier ice saw us all gearing up before the uphill part of the day (approximately 1000 metres there of) began, a gentle slope towards the serrated gash of the bergschrund started the climb but the gapping chasm provided the first impasse of the day. Dave and Helen lead off for the teams whilst Sue and I stood in the darkness belaying whilst gazing in wonder at a star packed sky as those above solved the route across the bergschrund and were rewarded with lots of steep rubble to skitter around on. Apart from the odd sparking crampon, the crashing of rocks into the crevasse and the odd expletive, mainly from Helen, they were progressing well and it was soon game on for everyone. My first step across the bergschrund appeared to be my first mistake of the day seeing as that the first time I glanced down at my feet I was cracked on the back of the neck (below the helmet) by a tennis ball sized rock that whistled out of the darkness above having been disturbed by one of the ropes. The painful blow left me rubbing the back of my neck and being thankful for the protective qualities of 2 inch thick dreadlocks without which I am convinced the damage would have been far worse. As it was a stiff and bruised neck was not going to stop the days play and we all pressed on.
The next few pitches were most unpromising but the first light of day saw us taking a breather on a ledge below a beautiful honey coloured slab of granite, the start of the "elegant mixed climb" that the Lindsay Griffin guidebook describes. According to the guidebook the climb avoided the appealing slab by taking a snow gully to the left but this also seemed to be avoiding the point of the ridge as well as the issue so we pressed on up the slab which despite being amply protected by pegs still felt a tad demanding (about VS) and serious in big clumsy boots but the climbing was excellent, enthralling and over far too quickly seeing as the next pitch saw a return to near vertical choss. This however was the last section of Alpine esoteria and the rest of the climbing on the route was stunning. A big traverse swung out right across a superb steep field of ice and neve (Scottish 3-4) circumventing a huge red tower of granite before curving upwards once more towards a sunlight breche. Moving together was enabling us to put in big long sections of leading but as a result the relief of cutting a small ledge to belay on and get the weight off my front points was amazing. As my calves recovered Dave progressed upwards as Sue approached from below. With perfect timing the rope above went taunt and I moved away from the sanctuary of my ledge as a grateful Sue took over occupancy of the tiny oasis of the horizontal. Unknown to us, Dave at this point was comfortably ensconced in the sun on the crest of a ridge.
Having joined Dave to sample the first warming rays of sunlight for the day we set off along the ice slopes below the subsiduary ridge to reach the final slope to the summit. The three hundred metre final slope of fifty-degree ice was covered in about six centimetres of sugary powder snow and proved to be never ending. Belaying provided no rest bight from the burning of ones calves merely provided you with an opportunity to be liberally dusted with snow dislodged from above by the snaking of the ropes. After the second turn over of the lead I was back in front with Dave confidently predicting that I would reach the ridge for certain this time. However with only one ice screw left I paused to assess the situation and tried to guesstimate the distance to the ridge. As I looked up the world disappeared into a milky painful blur as the dreaded combination of sweat and sun tan lotion ran into both eyes at the same instance, thus I blindly placed the final screw, buried in the axes and brought Dave up as my eyesight slowly returned. The old maxim about clouds and argent linings proved to be true once more however as the distance to the ridge turned out to be far longer than it initially appeared but finally at 12.30pm we reached the 3856 metre summit of Les Courtes where we sat admiring the stupendous vista of surrounding peaks as Sue and Helen continued to toil up the endless final slope. Watching others suffer whilst it was over for us was very satisfying in a sick sort of way but by 1pm the constant grind upwards was over for us all and we began the descent.
The first stage of the downhill leg of the day saw us following a pleasant snow ridge down to the Col de la Tour des Courtes from which sodden brown snow slopes, that had already avalanched, swept down towards the Talefre glacier basin. The snow was so soft that the risk of another slump was high so we gingerly abseiled down the rocks to the right of the snow before coming to an impasse where it became clear that we would have to cross the slope to reach a moraine ridge on the other side down which it would be safe to descend to the glacier. After a quick conference it was decided to send the teams heavy weight out onto the slope first as the "sacrificial avalanche poodle" so off I set at speed to the other side of the slush. Having subsequently belayed to the biggest boulder available the others followed quickly to the sanctuary of the moraine ridge, down which we then carefully picked our way to the glacier. Here our paths parted as Sue and Helen sensibly headed to the Couvercle Hut in time for the evening meal. Dave and I, being tight, headed off down the Mer de Glace towards Montenvers in an attempt to catch the last train down to the valley. Unfortunately we were still negotiating the maze of crevasses below the ladders when it departed. Suitably deflated the energy sapping toil up the ladders became an arduous form of torture that quickly paled into insignificance on the quality suffering scale compared to the endless three and a half hours of foot mangling plodding down through the woods to Le Praz that followed. With the benefit of hindsight we should have bivouacked at Montenvers but the desire for beer was strong enough to over ride common sense. Thus we stumbled onwards and eventually reached the nearest bar for an extremely well earned beer, a mere twenty hours after leaving the Argentiere hut.
