Climb Against Time: Dent du Geant
1 Down 40 to Go
Prelude
The Climb Against Time, my summer challenge to climb 41 4000ers in one season and raise funds to develop an Implantable Artificial Kidney, started with disappointment. Here, after a good warmup stage of preparing both my body and mind in May, I was hit by terrible snow conditions.
In early June I attempted Allalinhorn through the Hohlaubgrat, mainly a snow route with a little bit of rock scrambling at the summit block. This attempt proved futile as we were bogged down by slushy snow straight from the hut all the way to 3600m where we turned around. This futility was followed by heavy bouts of diarrhea and vomiting, having contracted some stomach bug from the water or the fellow inhabitants of the dingy winter room at the Britannia hutte. Between trying to keep my immunosuppressants down and running to the toilet, days passed, and the snow that had plagued us on the approach had long since vanished in the raging rays of the early summer heat wave.
The week after, I was again in the Alps, this time to try Les Droites or the Aiguille Verte. Neither was in condition; the mixed routes were too soft and prone to rockfall, and the rock routes were too wet and filled with rotten snow. Instead, we did Aiguille du Moine as a workup climb. I was getting incredibly frustrated. I had 41 4000ers to go and here I was, grounded, without any so far. I needed a win, and I needed it fast.
Under these conditions, I accepted Freddy’s offer to try our luck at Dent du Geant. I met him in a cafe just next to the telepherique going up to the Midi. He seemed somewhat out of it, tired and hazy. He had just been up the normal route to Mont Blanc and had come down that night, slightly dazed from the exhaustion. In all likelihood, I had a similar daze, having just come down from my ‘emergency bivvy’ that I had set for myself by the Courvecle refuge at ~2700m to get a bit more acclimatization in and catch the train from Montenvers at 1800m, saving my legs almost 2000m of vertical. Two men, at two different sides of the massif, yet the same cold, sleepless night.
We went over the plan and agreed to meet in two days. We drove across to Italy over the Mont-Blanc tunnel in Freddy’s van. Here we promptly got the lift to Pointe Helbronner at 3462m to make our bivouac. The Italian side of Mont Blanc is steeper and wilder. Layers and layers of rock buttresses rise abruptly from the earth to meet the gently sweeping glaciers coming from the French side at the high summits. It amazed me that there was a path straight down almost from Helbronner to Courmayeur, a sickening amount of vertical on mostly loose rock.
Dent du Geant
The Bivvy
We got off the lift and could immediately see our objective, Dent du Geant or, Dente del Gigante as Italians would call it. The Giant's Tooth did indeed look like a tooth. I was used to the view of it from the French side; from there, with its sweeping North Face and its cloud perpetually lingering under it, it looked impressive. Now, with us so high up, it looked small and, importantly, attainable.
We moved slowly up the glacier towards our mountain and settled on its shoulder, off the glacier at 3600m. It was an impressive bivvy location. Only 400m below our summit, with the entirety of the Mont Blanc massif to let our eyes gorge upon. Here I started with the ritual of collecting, melting, and boiling snow.
It always amazes me how long it takes to melt and boil snow. For the subsequent bivvies with easy lift access, I decided I would bring water up from the valley and save the time and hassle. Yet the time spent over the Jet Boil was not in boredom, for there was tomorrow's route behind us, and the routes for later, in front of us, to admire.
I had met my partner Freddy on a belay at Pointe Lachenal just a month prior. I didn’t know him well, aside from the coffee shop chat, and we had never climbed together either. Yet from the get-go, I was at ease; things were just meshing well without trouble. So we lay feet to head, as two wide-shouldered men could only lie in this tent, and slept soundly.
Until we were woken up around 2 am by the sound of metal and the flash of headlamps. I opened the zip of my tent and looked up; lo and behold, a train of lights heading up the approach gully. "What the hell? It's 2 am, are these people mad?" I asked rhetorically. This was not a long climb, and I certainly did not expect people to start at the hut at 1 am, yet here they were, clambering up the mountain in our backyard. I suppose it makes some sense to be the first on route for such a popular climb, yet the thought of leaving the tent at such an early hour and doing most of the climbing in darkness did not appeal to me at all.
Let them, we thought. We will get going at dawn. No need to rush; let the rock warm up. As I got back inside the tent, I looked up at the Kuffner, the mythical route of my desire. It cut so steeply up the side of Mont Maudit, intimidating at this time of day, with the deathly skirts of the Cursed mountain dropping steeply to either side. It, too, had a train of lights moving up it. I hoped and dreaded for it in the coming weeks.
In our tent, we brewed up, ate, and slowly but steadily got ready. At 5:40, just on the tick of dawn, we joined the light train going up the approach gully.
The Climb
The first part of the climb was about 250m of steepish snow mixed with some rocks and rock passages. It was not too difficult, and we had a good clear night and so a refreeze. We moved past these sections to the start of the technical climbing slowly and easily in about 1hr 30 minutes.
We looked up to see that even the first pitch had fixed ropes aiding the way. We decided to simul climb this (climb while moving together). I remember this being the hardest pitch of the whole climb. Perhaps because I was still cold and not in the climbing mindset, but tugging on the fixed line in boots, it all felt very powerful. In either case, we made it up the first pitch to the second. I led the second pitch fairly easily placing a few pieces here and there, mostly just to place something, rather than a strict absolute need to place something.
The last move of this pitch was interesting, a mantle move using huge shipping ropes to help on to a massive terrace, at the beginning of the Burgener slabs. Freddy soon joined me on the belay.
The Burgener slabs, though on every photo I have seen look intense and hard, were far from it. Massive cracks go up the rock with good places for both foot and hand. The climb is only marred by the massive shipping rope yarding up the face, detracting from the seriousness of such an objective and its beauty. Yet the ropes were there and so Tug, started to tug, all the way up the slabs to the steepening just before the summit ridge.
Here it got a bit powerful as I entered the chimney, without the ropes I would definitely need my rock shoes but in this case there was no need. The climb was also as well protected as a multi-pitch sport route. So it all felt quiet breezy. I quickly led the remaining pitch on the summit ridge to the Maddona and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
We had made it, my 1st of the 41 4000ers. There was a huge welling of relief. Finally, at-least one was done.
Soon after this I took my immune suppressants. There is always one set at 10am and one set at 10pm, summit or valley, sleep or climb, this was the 10am set.
After summiting there was only the 7 or so rappels down the south face to do. These rappels were quiet fun (when expertly done as Freddy did so) with large overhanging sections which suspended you mid air.
All in all it was a glorious start a very long adventure, where good partnership met good conditions to give a beautiful outing.