{"id":812,"date":"2012-08-19T19:27:12","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T16:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/?page_id=812"},"modified":"2012-08-19T19:36:07","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T16:36:07","slug":"traverse-of-the-grandes-jorasses-august-2012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/pictures\/traverse-of-the-grandes-jorasses-august-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Traverse of the Grandes Jorasses &#8211; August 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The traverse of the Grandes Jorasses is one of the bigger routes I&#8217;ve been eyeing at for a decade now. It&#8217;s number 73 in Rebuffat&#8217;s book &#8216;The 100 Finest Routes of the Mont Blanc\u00a0Massif&#8217;. By modern standards the climbing is not hard but it&#8217;s exposed, long and committing.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;A magnificent\u00a0traverse, always at high altitude, on mixed\u00a0terrain, and taking\u00a0two days. <\/em><em>The\u00a0place is\u00a0isolated and you are very close to the mountain, aware of the closeness of wind and cloud, snow and rock. Perhaps too you will feel the satiscation of a true mountain venture, far from hotel-like huts, telepheriques, caravan of climbers which are sometimes all too noisy;\u00a0your isolation will lend to the air you breath and the light around you. <\/em><em>The route should not be attempted except in good weather. It is the most unpleasant to be caught by a storm on the crest of the\u00a0Jorasses, especially if there is lightning, or if you&#8217;re between the Pointe Marquerite and the Pointe Croz.&#8221; &#8211; Gaston Rebuffat<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XtgnvVzFoYI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The route was also featured in Patrick Berhault&#8217;s film &#8216;Sur Le Fil des 4000&#8217;. It&#8217;s one of the most stunning camera runs ever produced. I&#8217;ve embedded it above since I absolutely love that shot!<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0camera run starts from Col des Hirondelles and\u00a0goes over the Grandes Jorasses towards the Dent\u00a0du Geant. The\u00a0main summits are:<br \/>\n&#8211; Pointe Walker 4208m (0:14)<br \/>\n&#8211;\u00a0Pointe Whymper 4184m (0:29)<br \/>\n&#8211; Pointe Croz 4110m (0:40)<br \/>\n&#8211; Pointe Helene 4045m (0:47)<br \/>\n&#8211; Pointe Marquerite 4066m (0:51)<br \/>\n&#8211; Calotte de Rochefort\u00a03966m (1:14)<br \/>\n&#8211; Dome de Rochefort 4015m (1:20)<br \/>\n&#8211; Aiguille de Rochefort 4001m (1:35)<br \/>\n&#8211; Dent du Geant 4013m (1:59).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8OO30Kj82nU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the film there&#8217;s also a short camera hoover over the steepest bit of the ridge around around Pointe Helene. I get shivers every time I look at that masterpiece of a film.<\/p>\n<p>In\u00a02006\u00a0I\u00a0tried climbing the ridge\u00a0but the conditions were snowy and we turned back before reaching Canzio hut. We were a team of three and we were simply too slow. Climbing\u00a0this ridge is all about being efficient on easy and exposed terrain and we certainly weren&#8217;t that time.\u00a0Ever since 2006 the weather has not been good enough while I&#8217;ve been around. You&#8217;ll actually need a pretty good three day weather window for this route. Imagine\u00a0getting caught\u00a0in high winds or lightning on such terrain\u00a0&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Aretes du Rochefort\u00a0(AD, ridge)\u00a0&#8211; August 2nd, 2012<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In my opinion\u00a0this climb is\u00a0safest\u00a0if you\u00a0start\u00a0from the Torino hut and proceed over the Aiguille de Rochefort towards Canzio hut. Doing this clearly tells you if you&#8217;re\u00a0fast\u00a0enough to\u00a0continue\u00a0along the second part of the ridge. The climbing is very exposed and balancy from the very start and it&#8217;ll continue\u00a0being so\u00a0untill the Pointe Walker.\u00a0 After having done the first short\u00a0step\u00a0to the Aiguille de Rochefort you&#8217;ll\u00a0know if this climb is for you.<\/p>\n<p>ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<br \/>\nFor the first part Rebuffat gives 6 hours and Camptocamp 6-8 hours. It took us\u00a0a little less than 8\u00a0hours. We started at 9:30\u00a0from\u00a0the Courmayeur cable car and arrived\u00a0at the Canzio at 17:15. We started fairly late and we probably should have started earlier but we&#8217;ve always been late\u00a0sleepers.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Traverse of the\u00a0Grandes Jorasses\u00a0(D, ridge) &#8211;\u00a0August 3rd, 2012<\/span><\/p>\n<p>While hanging out at the Canzio hut we figured it should take us about 10 hours for the route untill the Pointe Walker. We did the first part in more or less guide book time and for the second part Rebuffat stated 6-8 hours and Camptocamp 8-10 hours. From the top we reasoned we had 5-6 hours of daylight left to\u00a0find the route\u00a0down. With all\u00a0this we\u00a0figured that starting at first daylight should be enough. It&#8217;s better to see where you&#8217;re going than get lost in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>ngg_shortcode_1_placeholder<br \/>\nTeppo was born on August 3rd, 1972\u00a0and today he was turning\u00a040.\u00a0He had a big grin on\u00a0his face ever since\u00a0he woke up. You don&#8217;t\u00a0get to climb this kind of route\u00a0very often\u00a0and especially not on a day you&#8217;re turning round years. He said he&#8217;ll be having\u00a0his 40th birthday reception on the top the Pointe Walker today. I answered with a big grin that there won&#8217;t be too many people around!<\/p>\n<p>It was very true since during the day we saw only two people climbing the regular route but they were in the distance. Ever since climbing down the Aiguille de Rochefort untill\u00a0waking up\u00a0on the Boccalette hut we didn&#8217;t see or meet anyone else. There were some tracks in the snow but\u00a0it seems\u00a0the Grandes Jorasses can be quite isolated like Rebuffat said.<\/p>\n<p>Teppo\u00a0had his reception\u00a0on the summit at\u00a015:50 later that day and\u00a0it was roughly 9,5 hours after we left the Canzio hut.\u00a0The descent took us five or six hours and we reached the Boccalatte hut just as the sun was setting. It was one heck of a day for a birthday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The traverse of the Grandes Jorasses is one of the bigger routes I&#8217;ve been eyeing at for a decade now. It&#8217;s number 73 in Rebuffat&#8217;s book &#8216;The 100 Finest Routes of the Mont Blanc\u00a0Massif&#8217;. By modern standards the climbing is &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/pictures\/traverse-of-the-grandes-jorasses-august-2012\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":7,"menu_order":88,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-812","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/812\/revisions\/843"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.patagonia.fi\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}