Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
However, none of these attempts met with much success. The spurs on either side
of the Central Couloir were eventually climbed, but the couloir itself came to be re-
garded as a deathtrap. In view of the time-consuming nature of ice climbing at that
time, a successful outcome would have been a tenuous affair in all but the most fa-
vourable conditions.
A dramatic indication of what one might experience on this part of the face came
during the first ascent of the Pointe Whymper by Walter Bonatti and Michel Vaucher
in July 1964. Initially, the pair followed the line taken by Brehm and Rittler, but then
they moved up on to the rocks of the Pointe Whymper, where they made their first
bivouac. During the night they were bombarded by stone-fall, which cut their ropes.
Nevertheless they continued the following day and eventually found an old piton,
which probably marked the line of the 1931 attempt. That evening they bivouacked
again, under the shelter of an enormous bulge. It was just as well, because during the
night there was an enormous rock avalanche.
Bonatti wrote: 'I woke with a jump: the rock was shuddering as though in an earth-
quake. I had a terrifying sensation of falling … no, it was the mountain collapsing
around us. As I stared up through the blackness I saw the slope beginning to give off
fire as though a volcanic eruption were taking place. The air was full of a deafening,
terrifying, continuous roar. In a moment the fire was pouring towards us, was upon
us, incredibly passing over us. By its light I saw dark blocks the size of railway car-
riages thudding into the face.
'Each blow struck another fountain of sparks, while all around everything was pul-
verized and disintegrated. I heard myself yelling as I flattened myself against the
rock, trying to retract my head into my shoulders, to disappear completely; then I
stopped thinking at all and simply waited. A blast of air squeezed me against the
wall, taking my breath away. The rumbling became less intense, the showers of
boulders and sparks continued on their way towards the glacier. I was completely
buried in stone and ice rubble, a freezing shower, which was almost pleasant as be-
ing a sign that I was still alive. But what had become of Vaucher?
'Before the thought was complete I was calling out his name just as his voice rose
up from below calling mine. The mountainside was now still again as though nothing
had happened, but I was seized with uncontrollable fits of trembling that only gradu-
ally faded out into sleep.
'As daylight came, the mountainside revealed itself transformed, almost planed.
Projections and ledges had been shoved off by the thousands of tons of falling rock
that we could now see spread out below us on the glacier, which was blackened and
ironed flat for hundreds of metres.
'The first three huge crevasses and seracs had entirely disappeared.'
Such incidents did little to attract climbers to this part of the world.
It was equipment development and the growth of winter alpinism that put the Cen-
tral Couloir back on the map. 1972 was a bumper year. First on the scene were Brit-
ish climbers Chris Bonington and Dougal Haston, supported by Mick Burke and Bev
Clark. They chose a line of ice fields and narrow gullies running up the northwest
flank of the Walker Spur.
