Fourastier route on the Ailefroide
A historic route in the sanctuary of the Glacier Noir.
With Arnaud.
This fickle summer at least had the merit of offering beautiful autumn conditions for mixed routes on most of the big alpine faces. In the Ecrins, the wall of north faces above the Glacier Noir is streaked with beautiful lines of ice and mixed, and those around the Ailefroide, which we are heading for, are in particularly good condition.
We set our sights on a big, beautiful classic, the Fourastier route on the north face of the point of the same name: 800 sustained metres where you need to keep up a certain pace to top out early enough and manage the descent, which is full of short passages with great potential for trouble... Opened in 1936: it makes you dream...
After a strategic hitchhike to leave the car in Ailefroide and spare ourselves a little bonus of five extra kilometres on foot after the route, we leave the Pré de Madame Carle and go up to bivouac at the top of the Glacier Noir. We soak up the warmth of the last rays of sun for the next twenty-four hours.
Night has already fallen and two small, hesitant headlamps come and go high on the face. Those two must have struggled; let's hope they quickly find a way out. For now, already numb with cold, we slip into our sleeping bags with our boots, thermos, gas and water bottles for maximum comfort...
4:30am, a hand slips furtively out of the sleeping bag to light the stove. The air is biting, the cold sharp. Even though we took care the day before to pack the snow into the pan as tightly as possible so as not to have to refill it too often in the morning, it is always disheartening to see the pathetic trickle of simmering water that comes out of it. Anyway, we end up drinking our tea, get ready, quickly take off our down jackets and off we go!
Arnaud crosses the bergschrund and handles the first pitches, which turn out to be the trickiest to climb and protect. Then it's a festival of "squeaky" snow where the tools and crampons bite wonderfully. By scraping away a little snow, you easily find ice for protection.
Despite a few rare icy patches where our calves burn and a little unpleasant powdery snow, we find our rhythm and progress steadily up to the summit bastion.
A hidden ramp finally reveals its logical line and today lets us exit via two beautiful mixed pitches, where the picks lock in wonderfully, with a few delicate edges for the feet. The protection is very good: pure pleasure!
The days are short and we make the most of the last light to manage the abseils on the south side, without the round trip to the nearby Pointe Fourastier.
We track down the famous ledges of the normal route on the Ailefroide Orientale and treat ourselves to a last tea/crêpe/brownie break in the valley before letting our minds wander and our feet guide us back to the car.
A long day biting into the mountain with relish!
Photo gallery...