This Sunday witnessed a mass, chaotic and dangerous retreat from Dent Blanche as the weather made summitting the mountain too challenging for many.
Dent Blanche is a proper mountain. When you tell people that you are targeting Dent Blanche, those with some knowledge of mountaineering nod knowingly in recognition that this is a serious endeavour. Just getting to the hut takes four hours of hiking and involves scrambling over loose rock. The hut itself is nice enough but the Guardian is famed for her unpleasant and grumpy demeanour. I tried my best, in my poor French, to flatter and charm her and was rewarded with the hint of a smile and some thawing of her frosty countenance. However, I blew it the following morning when I asked for a bowl for the cereal I had brought with me and a new ice age descended on the hut.
On “Summit Day” we woke late at for a 4:45am breakfast. The cabane sits at 3,500m so I had slept little and got up at 4:00am because I like to “faff” a fair bit first thing. There were 25 people seeking to climb the mountain that day, of which four were mountain guides with clients, including my guide. As there are many tricky sections, our goal was to leave as soon as possible so as not get stuck behind others and hence the need to allow extra time for faffing. We were the 3rd to leave the hut at around 5:15am and there was another pair ahead as well who had “bivvied” that night, sleeping under the stars just below the hut. Sunday morning however was windy, a bit colder with extensive cloud cover.
We set off at a pace that was pretty comfortable for me, but we still quickly overhauled those in front of us. The route begins with some easy scrambling before reaching a snowy section which you cover in crampons. There is another section of scrambling before another snowy ascent before the real mountaineering begins.
It’s a rocky ridge ascent (the “normal route”) but to reach the summit you either have to skirt around or climb a series of “gendarmes” which guard the route to the summit. These are towering pillars of rock, the most intimidating of which is the “grand gendarme” (see photos). Dent Blanche is supposed to be “up there” with the Matterhorn and other serious mountains in terms of difficulty. Initially however I found the climbing pretty easy and we were moving quickly, opening the gap between us and the following climbers.
As we climbed higher the temperatures dropped and frost and ice began to form on our jackets, packs and on the rocks. What was once grippy and easy to climb rock began to become icy, slippery and treacherous. We pressed on, but I was having to take much more care and the risks increased but I was still feeling confident and had no doubts that we would reach the summit. Eventually we passed the last of the five gendarmes and the remaining section to the summit was straightforward. Visibility was poor, so we took the quick obligatory summit photograph and began to head back down.
We were expecting to meet the others still on the way up and we quickly bumped into another guide and his client but then there was nobody. We descended fast, Bertrand lowering me from stanchion to stanchion before he would abseil or down climb. Eventually we began to come across other climbers and they looked grey, drawn and anxious. They asked “how were the conditions and how much further they had to go?” and when Bertrand told them they were not even half-way you could see them break. One chap was almost in tears with the effort and desperation. On hearing this news most decided to abandon and retreat. More and more turned back and many had already abaondoned and it became a mass exodus.
This made Betrand very nervous. We were now fighting our way back down amongst a group of desperate, tired and probably relatively inexperienced climbers. We were all concentrated in a narrow gulley at one point, fighting for space at the protective stanchions. Ropes were getting caught and Betrand was fearful of ropes being pulled violently to free them but in doing so releasing rocks that would come tumbling down, potentially with lethal consequences – you could just imagine how that would happen. We moved as quickly as we could, climbing over ropes and bodies, to get out of the gulley and to avoid the risk of rockfall. Eventually, we traversed back onto the ridge and back to relative safety.
Arriving back at the hut we learnt that only one other pair had already returned. My guide book suggests that it takes 5 to 6 hours to reach the summit and then its usually about the same to get back. Betrand and I summitted and returned to the hut in just under six hours. Of the 25 people who left, only three groups summitted and its interesting to note that only those with guides made it to the top. I am not sure how we managed to move so quickly as I did not feel under pressure and was not working that hard. I guess I must be improving as a mountaineer.
We had a quick bite of cake and hot tea before starting the descent. We saw another couple preparing to bivvy for the coming night. Betrand told me he never likes to bivvy below a hut, especially one where the loos open straight out onto the mountain. I made a mental note to choose any future bivvy spot with care. The descent of three hours was uneventful, but I was very tired by the end and will no doubt be very sore tomorrow.
Expeditions 