Biffa and Boy-Wonder Venture into The Super Couloir.

by Nick Bullock

The vista was spectacular. A sea of pristine white surrounded by jagged, ice-encrusted mountains. Mont Blanc de Tacul to our right, an ice-cream dollop, drooling unconsolidated death. The Aguille de Midi to the left, tall and slender, fragile but strong, the super-model of the range and Gros Rognon, rising from the middle of the Valley Blanche directly in front of our position, dramatically thrusting into a sky bursting from the glacier and glowing red with the setting of the sun.

Small dots hung forlorn, suspended from thin, rusty steel cables running between the Aguille de Midi and the Gros rognon. The tele-cabins swung in the wind, redundant. Unemployed for the winter, the bitter cold would need to subside and the tourists return before they would move again on freshly greased cables.

Maybe my arms needed greasing. They had locked at the elbows forming perfect right angles. My hands had turned to claws and refused to open. My stomach churned, my legs wouldn’t work and I was starting to think my dream of a full-time climbing career was over before it had even started. All I needed to climb at the moment was the wooden step into a small rickety garden shed perched at the end of a knife-edge snow and rock rib below The Cosmiques Hut, but as I sat at the door taking in the savage and beautiful scenery I knew I couldn’t make it.

“This is it then”, I thought. Game over. At the worst, a stroke or a heart attack maybe cerebral oedema. At the best, my body had obviously decided it didn’t want to work at altitude any longer, not a very suitable situation for an alpinist. Clawed and twisted like an old Oak tree I gazed over the Valley Blanche wondering how to get myself out of this, the latest episode in the Bullock gets sick scenario.

Boy-Wonder was also looking decidedly worried. With several Alpine trips behind him he only had the Frendo Spur and The North Face of the tour Rond in the bag. He did have several epics, a life saving rescue from the Midi-Arete and a benightment from an icefall to put behind him and this was the winter he promised himself to do it. Unfortunately it was looking like his string of bad luck was continuing and the curse of Boy-Wonder had now struck me. I imagined him running through the scenarios of how to get me rescued when the final coup-de grace took me and I could hear him later describing the situation to friends,

“At last I go to climb with someone who has a proven track record and I end up rescuing him! What a waste of time.”

I didn’t want to let him down, but as I sat on the toilet in the chalet that morning wondering how so much could run from one so thin, I had warned him that all was not as it should be in the Bullock in ternal plumbing and maybe we should hang on for one day hoping for signs of an improvement. He agreed. Then in a rush of “it’ll get better when I’m on the hill” I decided to ignore the searing pain and go for it anyway….

Sat huffing and puffing with pins and needles coursing through my body and the loss of use of several limbs, I was regretted my brash decision.

Boy-Wonder busied himself around the small wooden shack, given the grand title of ‘Winter Refuge’, while I built up enough energy to drag myself onto a snow covered and damp bunk. Here I proceeded to throw up violently. Not known for doing things by half I am pleased to say that also goes for throwing up. The concern on Boy-Wonders face now intensified though I suspect it was not due to my condition but more concern about his own safety as he was now stranded on a deserted mountainside, in a wooden shack, in winter, with someone giving a damn good impression of a scene from the Exorcist, all it needed was my head to spin and he would have been out of the door in a flash.

As it was the projectile vomiting put pay to all of my dysfunction in one fell swoop and the climb for tomorrow was back on. The climb in question was to be The Super Cou;oir with the direct start, a Jean-Mark Boivin and Patrick Gabarrou classic from the mid-seventies and a climb I had lusted long and hard for.

Leaving the garden shed in the first light of morn both Boy-Wonder and I took our lives in our hands and skied to the start of the route. Luckily The Valley Blanch was deserted so with no flash-French suntanned ski-gods around we unceremoniously weaved our precarious way to the base of the climb. The wind whipped spindrift into wild snow dervishes and the weak light of the early morning reflected from the clouds of fine powder swirling and twisting their way around rippled fins of snow carved by the chiselled hand of the wind.

Leaving the ski’s half way up the final snow cone beneath the climb I forged ahead, plunging deep steps into unconsolidated snow, the condition was a tad worrying but I consoled myself with the fact that already on this mini-adventure I had survived food-poisoning (we had come to the conclusion it was the six-month old mayonnaise that was to blame) and the skiing, so nothing untoward could possibly happen now, but it was a relieved Boy-Wonder that arrived hot and bothered beneath the first pitch.

“Right, clip to that, put me on belay, lets get moving its ten o clock for heavens sake” I yawped desperate to get to grips with the climb, the first for the both of us this winter in Chamonix.

“What the hell is that your belaying me with?” I shouted pointing at the Magic Plate Boy-Wonder had pushed the ropes through.

“It’s a Magic Plate!” Came the cocky twenty-two year old retort, dripping in “can’t you see that old man”, arrogance.

“Yes I know what it is” in a father to son patronising drawl,

“BUT WHY ARE YOU BELAYING ME ON LEAD WITH IT?”

Not so cocky now, Boy-Wonder suspects there might be bad-Biffa-karma heading in his direction for reasons unknown at the moment.

“Is there a problem with belaying you on lead with one of these then?” Son to father, inquiring, learning, growing.

“Yes…so don’t do it again.”

Axe-picks sunk into perfect nèvè that drooled between grey-pink granite. Ten, twenty, thirty feet was quickly made in height above the rapidly diminishing form of Boy-Wonder. The promised hooks to dream about didn’t materialise, but ice choked cracks and edges gave security above and beyond that called for. The first pitch passed by in a fantastic meandering technical fest of the delicate and decisive. Boy-Wonder sampling his first taste of modern technical mixed climbing huffed and puffed, but eventually reached my position.

“You need to move faster” I said in what I hoped was not to much of a bossy voice (it wouldn’t do to upset the young man!), but now we were into the climbing I was focused and determined, I didn’t do pleasant days out or climbing for fun, I did climbing for success and the top. My fun was retrospective.

Having run the ropes through and sorted the gear, I led the second pitch, both Boy –Wonder and I thought it for the best. It proved to be less technical than the first due more to the perfect water ice dribbling over and around the sharp granite edges than to an easing in the technicalities. The ground covered was a fantastic broken jumble of large blocks, steep corners, tight chimneys and bulges all cemented together with clear blue water ice and nèvè. In no time I was clipped to the in-situ belay, leaning back and swinging from the mélange of tat threaded through a collection of old and rusty ironwork. Life was good, I was climbing, the sun was shining (unfortunately no longer on us), and the hardest climbing was completed, or should have been if the guidebook description was to be believed.

Boy-Wonder chose to believe it and as he pulled alongside he suggested that the next pitch should fall to him. Now, bringing on new talent is fine in a controlled environment where skills can be developed and honed, but bagging a Biffa long lusted climb in the alps and in winter, is not the most friendly of situations to learn, and looking at the third pitch it certainly didn’t resemble easy ground. Diplomacy is not my greatest trait; in fact diplomacy is near non-existent when there is climbing to be done but on this occasion I even surprised myself.

“Ok, go for it”….

Boy-Wonders innocent-little face lit up like a child’s on the verge of seeing Santa for the first time.

“Really?” Excited now…. His turn to sit on the lap of some stranger dressed in red was rapidly approaching.

“Yes, really, but beware…

(Oh no, this is the time every parent hates, the time when you have to inform your offspring that Santa doesn’t really exist and that fat old man dressed in red is now doing six-years in prison.) That innocuous looking chimney filled with perfect looking ice is like Santa in the supermarket all over again.”

Boy-Wonder obviously deprived of the delights of supermarket Santa looked at me as if senile-dementia had taken hold.

“I’m sorry Nick, but I really don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is that overhanging chimney up there is going to be desperate if that bulging ice at its top is rotten and the likely hood is it will be.”

Puppy-dog enthusiasm reduced, Boy-Wonder was deep in thought, his face screwed and resembled that of a constipated baby.

“Hmm, maybe you will be a bit quicker leading the next pitch”.

“Ok, lets sort the gear and get going.”

Thick ice, nice ice drooled. Turned thin, turned hollow, turned vertical. I had moved with relative ease leaving the belay but on entering the tight confines of the narrow and vertical chimney the cocky Biffa attitude crumbled, much the same as the hollow, aerated ice stuffed into the back of the chimney. On occasion the ice was strong enough to hold bodyweight, but mostly torques and hooks were sought, searched, dug, my axe picks to thin for such demanding climbing bent and twisted. Perched hanging from the right arête of the chimney I swung and fought to remain balanced. Delicate foot-placements were found on the left wall, the right wall, inside the chimney and outside the chimney.

“This is a bit sketchy, WATCH ME.” My repeated call bellowed to Boy-Wonder Hanging from the belay 20 meters below as yet another tiny edge was utilised for the front-point of my crampons.

“Is it difficult?” Naivety of the young sometimes astounds me.

“No its really easy that’s why I’m swinging around up here battling ice and snow and shouting at you to watch me, YOU BLOODY NUMB-NUT!”

“Ha. Yes, a bloody peg, thank God for that.”

While scratching around on the left of the chimney an old, but solid peg had appeared from beneath the layer of powder sprayed onto the rock by the driving wind. I clipped the peg, which gave added courage and continued with the fight. Now just to make things a little more interesting a constant flow of powder poured from the top of the chimney. The wind caught hold of the powder as it cascaded from the hidden edge of the overhanging tube I was thrutching my way up. A spinning vortex of white fine snow slapped me, covered me, sprayed and turned me white and frozen. Thick dark eyebrows clotted with white lumps. Eye lashes stuck together, matted and congealed causing eye-lids to droop with white weight. Breathing became a chore, fine-frozen-crystals were sucked and drawn in and drawn down into lungs stinging with the effort.

For a second I was once again a boy in the hay-making fields of North-Staffordshire sucking the lung-searing dust of hay. Grass seeds stinging my eyes and dust stinging my lungs in the hot-cloistering summer air.

Returning to the job in hand, I clung to the memory if only for the warmth and continued the battle eventually crawling through the deep powder overhang, blocking the chimney exit.

The release from the cloistering confines of the chimney lifted my spirit although the continuing snow-powder maelstrom froze any celebrations.

“Climb when ready.”

Boy-Wonder began to climb.

Boy-Wonder fought hard.

Sucked powder. Breathed deep. Gulped hard. Cranked-pulled-twisted-scraped-thrutched and grovelled. The learning curve was as steep as the climbing. Finally he crawled into sight covered in snow and gasping.

“Mental.”

“Aye, strenuous I suppose…. On occasion anyway.” It wouldn’t do to let on that the climbing was taxing and quite difficult, where would that lead? After all, I had climbed long and hard over the years and this was Boy-Wonders first hard alpine climb. No, it would never do to let on that he had just climbed well. Inflate his ego? We couldn’t have that.

“Get on with it then.”

I pointed him into the wide couloir above. A dark and steep ice covered back wall hemmed in by even steeper side walls led all the way to an easing of the angle and an end of the difficulties. We climbed the swathes of tumbling ice running the length of the deep couloir until the light faded with the dipping of the sun behind the jagged horizon. The chill was instant and the usual breeze with the onset of night started. Boy-Wonder climbed to my side. Young meets old. Together we stood huddled beneath the right wall of the couloir. Head-torches were donned. Zips were zipped. Ropes were pulled, tied together, threaded and allowed to tumble and weave their way down into the dark-depths of the ice we had just climbed.

“Ready then?” I asked.

“Yes I’m ready.” Boy-Wonder replied.

“Ok then, lets get down, but with care eh?”

The End.

Nick Bullock would like to thank Mammut and DMM for kit and Rich Lucas (A.K.A. Boy-Wonder) for putting up with a grouchy old man.