Number in series 70; Year of publication 1986 - Fell and Rock ...

Geoff Oliver 111masterplan so there was no real sense of urgency.The glacier and the bergschrund at dawn went without a hitch, then on up achimney couloir, moving together. The weather was a little too warm, givingmelt-water problems as the rising sun scanned the bottom of the spur. Cagouleswere the order of the day but Dave's turned out to be still hanging in the hut.Never mind — the lighter your equipment, the faster you travel. The ice-coldwater running into my sleeves and down to the nether regions was certainlyconducive to speed and we quickly broke free of the constricting chimneys. Thecouloir became open and snow-filled, narrowing again below the junction withthe spur at breche 3407 metres, reached at 8.30 a.m.A light-hearted jaunt up to this point, the glacier and hut within spittingdistance, on cresting the spur the climb began to show its teeth as the NorthFace made its chill presence felt and the first hard rock barred our path. Perhapshard is not strictly the right word for it; with chalk bag, rock boots, shorts andwarm rock it would have been a 'doddle' but with the ice-choked cracks,verglassed holds and the numb response of plastic boots, the diedre gave us afight. Easier chimneys and ledges unwound afterwards back to the sunshine anda huge smooth step which brought us to a dead stop. On our right was a'traverse of the gods' line, fitting the guide-book suggestion that we shouldmove that way. There was even a big detached flake to fit the description. Twohorizontal pitches on loosely-stacked dominoes led away from the spur and intothe dark regions of the North Face; a tilted wilderness of ice, rock ribs andshallow couloirs; typical mixed climbing. For those unfamiliar with this sort ofterrain, 'mixed' is not readily definable, let's just say that there is not enough iceto be pure ice-climbing, but too much to be treated as rock; difficult to make thedecision to move together or belay, in crampons or without; no one move ofgreat difficulty, but add them together and you have a long drawn out encounterwith the mountain, sapping the strength and concentration as the day wears on,which it always does.On this part of the ascent, we could look across at the famous North Faceroute, stripped of its glamour at this angle. The pristine white slopes facing theglacier were now revealed in their true coloui; a basic grey, streaked withavalanche runnels and pock-marked with stonefall. Way up to our right Ispotted movement; the Germans 'topping out' on the skyline. I could hardlybelieve my eyes. With the time at 2 p.m. I mentally took my hat off to them.Some 14 hours for a rope of three was impressive. All very well for them, but wenow had this big lonely mountain to ourselves and to add to the 'wildernessexperience' the clouds began to close in. This in itself was not serious; the peaksoften build up a little cloud in the late afternoon; but it did hinder our routefinding.The aim of the game was to rejoin the spur above the main difficulties,where it would become a simple gendarmed ridge. But how? A teasing couloirto our left, revealing just enough to lure us on, looked like the answer. To addfurther encouragement there were signs of recent traffic heading that way. A'si