the birm*

Mt impossible…or so it was!

Back in 1492, the king of France wasn’t happy with the fact that a mountain in his lands was called “Mont Impossible” (a beautiful 300m high, 1km long, 50m wide piece of rock with grass on top). So a team of his best castle wall climbers was put together and the name was changed to “Mont Aiguille” (pin mountain). History books claim that this is the beginning of “mountaineering”, because this mountain was climbed for no other reason than because it was there and because it was…impossible!

Evidently the “voie normale” is still there but numerous other climbing routes have been put up on this amazing piece of limestone. Eric and I set out and did “la tour des Gémeaux”, a 200m 6a route up a set of cracks, corners and faces.

The climbing was classic…and so was the gear! There was a mix of old pitons, new bolts and scary long exposed run-out sections. Thankfully, despite the thousands of people that have climbed this route, only a few sections were smooth and slippery.

The climb was fairly homogenous, with a really hard boulder problem half way up (which I got after a few tries), and too many scary sections due to loose rock and poor pro. The descent route was also a bit sketchy until you got to the rappels, but what an amazing experience to be on top of this amazing free standing wall!

When finding out is a disappointment…

So I went climbing with Franck yesterday not far from home. It’s a site I quite enjoy, as it’s enjoyable (2 min walk from car park and about 30 “easy-ish” routes to choose from on sweet rock.

After a couple of warm-up climbs we headed to the harder part of the wall and I lead up “Rubicon”. Not having the guide book with me, we had no idea of the grade, but looking at the start I remember that one of those climbs had an “physical” start. Talk about huffing and puffing!

So I got to the top after a few frights and a bit of pump (this line was quite steep and juggy) and smiled all the way down, thinking to myself that this had to be at least 6a (but I was hoping for 6b+…), as I know I can lead 6b but had it been any harder I probably would not have succeeded…

I just read the guidebook and Rubicon was indeed the climb with the “physical” start, but unfortunately the grade was only 6a. bum!