Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
that 'they' let us out of the loony bin each summer just to come and see him. And,
when the storm had passed, and the day stayed that way, there was more rum crêpe;
then it was back to Chamonix, haunted by every passing Aschenbrenner or lobster-
clawed Grivel.
Three weeks of bad weather passed, and ideas changed. Terry King turned up, and
Gordon came back from Leysin. They directed their considerable charms towards the
Croz Direct
. I wanted to do the Dru Couloir and teamed up with Nick Colton, an 'ar-
istocrat' from Longsight and one of the scruffiest people on God's earth. Once, hav-
ing just had a vision in which he had cleaned the Fissure Nominé, he threw away all
our hardware except for an ice screw and a couple of Bugaboos. (Ever lost eighteen
krabs and twelve pegs at one go?) That night, two 'enlightened' persons perched
themselves on top of the Petit Dru, to freeze in the teeth of a northeasterly and study
a starlit and by then plastered Jorasses north wall. Visions of Armageddon faded,
and around midnight we cracked. We decided to go back for another try.
Which indeed we did, though we nearly didn't because I left my headtorch behind
and so dedicate this affair to the congenial Froggy who lent me his, and to the half
roll of Sellotape with which I repaired it. Ten-thirty on the night of 6 August 1976
found two little lads at the foot of the Walker Spur. This time we had decided to beat
the 'schrund with a short left cross. Water was still running, but the face was quiet
and the night clear. To start the spur, we took the left-hand rock alternative - the
initial ice slope did not exist - and followed this as far as the main ice slope that cuts
into the buttress on the right. Then it was softly, softly rightwards, to slip between
the upper bergschrund and the rocks above, out on to the ice field for a tense tip-toe
affair, like ants going the wrong way up a bowling alley, with not a sound uttered lest
we bring the house down. We hung left to avoid being anywhere below the mouth of
the Japanese Gully - vulnerable, so vulnerable. A roar: hearts in boots, we froze in
fear, but it was only a plane passing low from the south.
At two-thirty in the morning we hung back on our ice screws, sorting the gear, rop-
ing up, peering and wondering, because it looked steep up there. At least, it looked
steep as far as we could see, which was as far as you can throw a headtorch. There
was no moon and it was dark in the couloir.
There followed five pitches in a grand Scottish illusion: steep, bulging, demanding,
all engrossing, totally rewarding. Up through a spindrift flow, in the teeth of a biting
wind. Belays for sitting, but not for falling. Few runners - no time - fantastic stuff.
We emerged with the daylight on to the ice field separating the two rock bands.
Around us, ropes darted in and out of the ice like frozen umbilical cords. I counted
footage, but thought in cash. We rescued a couple of shiny krabs and took a hefty
swing at a little blue sack, but its coffin was hard and rubbery and it would have
taken an hour to release, so we left it with parting tears. It was no place to linger: a
sensational, exposed, vulnerable, fifty-degree platform in a vertical sea, a mean place
to quit in trouble.
Above, fixed ropes ran up a broad shallow gully of compact looking rock, but we
were hungry for ice and, a little to the left, there seemed to be a connection with the
runnel above. It looked a little like The Curtain on Ben Nevis, but the first fifty feet or
