The Conclusion of Winter
As a writing exercise, I’m trying to make it interesting for you to read about my winter. This is a story about drama, ambition and the ego. It takes place in Chamonix, France (home of big cheeses and Big Cheeses), around the turning of 2024 into 2025. There will be fireworks, swearing, and even first ascents.
As winter approaches, I felt the excitement grow. The snow line drops, dusting the pine trees like icing sugar on a cake and creeping into the valley. I braced myself for sliding around on the roads, and start scoping steep mountain faces. The mountains appear more impressive in their winter coats, and although winter alpinism is more of a faff, it can also be more rewarding.
But in the autumn of 2024, I was more focussed on rock climbing. Somewhat sated after two good expeditions, (Alaska with Gašper Pintar and Pakistan with Aleš Česen), I switched my energy to warm, sunny crags. I wanted 8b+ or ideally more.
I worked with a coach all autumn, only briefly getting distracted by the Bonatti Route with Olivier Gajewski on the north face of the Toblerone (a new trademark name for the Matterhorn?). Training was going well until I injured a pulley in my finger. How classic: start training, get injured. More like, ‘how annoying!’ I didn’t listen clearly to my body, and suddenly even crimping the air was painful. “Fffffuuuck..!” (I warned you there’d be swearing.) The problem was exacerbated because I could still climb, so I did. Then injury hurt even more. “Double ffffuu…!” In hindsight I should’ve rested properly and immediately. “Ooooh!” I said as fireworks brought in the New Year, although maybe I was just poking my finger.
I thought holding ice axes was marginally less painful, so I went climbing. When Gašper visited in February, we went for Les Barbares 2 on the Pre de Bar wall (good, hard but quite chossy) and then did the Dru’s North Couloir Direct from the first lift (steep, short-lived but excellent). We made it back in time for the Cham Bala rave, bouncing giddily in our smelly mountain clothes.
Leo Billon and Enzo Oddo established Les Barbares 3, giving a grade of M10, which re-energised me to find my own hard test-piece. I like to grade harshly and fairly, subsequently down-grading many routes I’ve climbed, which meant I have resisted giving big numbers. Now I was actively looking for the biggest thing I could find, my ego wanting the same ‘M10 level’ of Big Cheese. It was time to go shark fishing. Noticing my prattling on about the Barbares, Christelle started singing, ‘Barbara Ann’ by The Beach Boys.
In early March, some friends were going for the same idea as me on the Barbares wall, so I pivoted and went to the Dent du Requin (’Shark’s Tooth’) with Rob Smith. It was strange to think the mountains were ‘busy’ and that another team had ‘rights’ to the climb, but I opted to leave them to it. Over three days we established a great new route up the north face (never believe it when the people who put up the route say that). It featured steep dry-tooling, some mixed climbing, and even a rock-shoe pitch near the top. We called it Shark Attack and hopefully sandbagged it at ‘M7.’ (Great, five stars, maybe…?!).
The finger still didn’t get better (how strange!) so I decided to properly rest. In the meantime, Ben Tibbetts and I nearly went to the top of the mountain via the Supercouloir (strong line, great conditions, go early). Then Christophe Dumarest invited me to climb the Croz/Slovenian Spur on the Grandes Jorasses (bold, fun, impressive on the F.A.!) with his client, Didier. Finally combining climbing with paragliding, I flew down much of the descent, and although I crash-landed at least I was close to the pizza.
By April, the sun was “bloody fucking hot” as my friend Kim the Aussie says, and it felt like time to send all my rock projects, but my finger still wasn’t fixed. Silvan Schüpbach tempted me with Les Barbares 3 (“how many are there now? 48?!” said Christelle). “I’m curious about this ‘M10,’” Silvan said. A strong climber, particularly with axes, I was inspired by his open confrontation with his ego. He simply wanted to try and was open to the outcome, which is better than not going at all.
We boldly braved hot temperatures and dehydration as we quested up the wall, but unfortunately ran out of steam on our second day. Silvan wasn’t enjoying the M10 pitch and decided to come down. At the moment I should’ve said, “I’ll take over”… I said nothing. My legs had gone numb from the hanging belay. Down we went. I’d like a rematch some time.
Was this finger injury a way of forcing me to take it slow, to detach myself and my ego from my goals? Hard (for me) rock climbing shouldn’t - and won’t - fit neatly into one of my grand plans. Just because I made time for these objectives doesn’t meant mean I’m ready for them. I’m also very lucky to have been able to climb in the mountains with great friends. Although it might seem like a distraction from a finger injury, in truth I’m very happy with the winter and the routes I’ve climbed. As always, the list of routes I’d like to do has become longer, not shorter. I now have clear ideas for when the temperatures start to drop and the nights arrive earlier.
After Les Barbares 3, I decided the winter was officially over for me, and I wrote a version of this story. But like a speeding fine, the piece sat here without me wanting to touch it. Now that it’s June and my pulley finally seems to be fixed, I feel like I can close the chapter of ‘winter,’ even though it technically ended months ago. This story didn’t seem finished until now, because otherwise I’d be writing without a conclusion. That’s climbing, isn’t it? It needs an ending. It’s about climbing up and coming back down.