| Tour Ronde: North Face Trip Report |
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| Tour Ronde: North Face   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Haute-Savoie/Aosta (Mont Blanc), France/Italy, Europe Lat/Lon: 45.84330°N / 6.90740°E Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 12, 1997 | Page By: tor Created/Edited: Apr 2, 2003 / Object ID: 168879 Hits: 986 Loading... Page Score: 81.86% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
La Tour Ronde (3792m) -- North Face
AD+/D- -- 350m from bergshrund -- 4 hrs estimated time
“Established classic ... provides a good introduction to steeper alpine faces”
7/12 -- 7/13/97 Susan & Tor
The beginning of trips planned at the last minute! It had been bad weather most of the week and the weekend was not looking good. We awoke Saturday to a beautiful day and a good forecast for Sunday -- what is it with the weather predictions around here? We called and reserved space at the Torino hut for that night -- we were there!
We first thought to go early and climb the Aig. du Midi and then walk over to the Torino hut but the morning was getting late and we decided to go to the Intersport and buy helmets -- everyone (other than Tor) seems to think they are a good idea. We got to Chamonix around noon and there was a huge crowd of people at the Midi telepherique. We went up to Snell’s to get Susan’s new crampons fixed and ended up buying her a new pack. At this point is was probably too late to walk across the glacier so we headed for the Mnt. Blanc tunnel (using 2 more of our 10 trip pass) and took three very rickety telepheriques up to Hellbronner from Courmayer. We got to Hellbronner at 2:30 or 3 and walked through wet snow over to the base of the route (about 90 minutes). It looked good -- snow at the top and bottom with steeper ice in the middle.
We had a private room at the hut and went to bed around 9pm. Unfortunately, there was a central wooden staircase and we were awoken at midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am, and got up at 4am for breakfast. We began walking at 4:40am and were able to move without headlamps. The snow was well frozen and the approach took about 1 hour. There were at least two parties ahead of us, one on the steeper ice section using headlamps and another pair of climbers just above the bergshrund.
We climbed up the snow face -- simu-climbing with a full rope length between us for about 80m to a first belay below the ice gully. The climbing had been easy (no gear) but the ice section looked harder and the party ahead was sending down a constant shower of ice chips, chunks, and pieces -- thank god for the helmets. They had placed a belay on the right-hand rocks midway up the gully. Tor lead up the center of the gully but quickly reached the level of their belay stance. The climbing was not difficult; he placed a screw and Susan started simu-climbing. The other party cut right about 30m above their belay to get out onto the snow but we stayed in the couloir, placing two more screws and finally a stopper in some rock before reaching the snow. The snow above was easy going but there was little protection. At this point, Susan was in the middle of the ice section and was getting tired -- oops we should have set up a belay somewhere.
The upper snow slope was probably 100m long. Tor kicked steps up the snow for about 50m, heading right, until he join the “trail” created by the previous parties. Although the going was easy and the steps were very solid, the snow was sugary and thus the axes did not offer much support. He belayed at the top of the snow slope and Susan lead off descending along the rock cap of the summit until she could traverse over to the normal route which we followed for the final 30m to the top. We arrived around 8:30 after 3 hours climbing. We followed the normal route on descent, got back to the hut around 11am and then back to the car around noon.
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Graie Alps
