Tim Neill Guiding

Long time coming…

With a few days free early Sept I arranged to climb with Pete Graham. We’d met in Patagonia last season and had climbed Super Domo on the same day with our respective partners. Pete had stayed on there and amongst plenty of good attempts at lots of routes had made the summit of the mighty Fitzroy…well deserved! Pete had previously climbed the Walker and Croz spurs on the GJ and the less travelled East Face Gervasutti route and over the previous week had been soloing a number of classics around Chamonix like the Frendo and the Swiss route on the Courtes. Even though we’d never tied in together, I couldn’t have had a better partner.

So we walked in, bivied a little below the rimaye (to try and be ahead of folk from the hut), got up at 1 and set off…into the heavy rain! It felt like we’d missed the boat…the route had been climbed a lot earlier in the week. With an unsettled forecast, we went back to our bivi and went through the options. We decided to go to the hut and wait for a forecast….nothing to loose, everything to gain. After a day of rain Chloe the hut gardien announced “clearing skies at the end of the evening and a cold clear morning, freezing at 3100m…”

Sunrise at the top of the first runnels

We left a little later than normal next morning to garantee a better freeze. The rimayes were how they had been described and got the adrenalin going. The first ice field flew by and we caught some new friends up at the first steep pitches…got a good spindrift pummeling. The crux pitch was! Not as steep as the pitch below, but no gear and very insecure steep snow. Another ice field and we took the Extreme Dream pitches through the top of the Walker Spur on incredible ice to the summit of Point Walker. Conditions were once in a lifetime.

Another team arriving post crux..

Exetreme Dream exit pitches

I’ve wanted to climb this mountain since I saw it on my first alpine trip….it was everything I hoped it would be and a real  privilege to climb it by this route…I’m sure one of the very best ice routes in the Alps. I can’t wait to return.

Jorasses summit

We set of into Italy and wound our way down towards the Boccalatte hut, made a brew and carried on, and on down to the road. It’s a long way.  Some friends took us back through to Chamonix and so we made it to our own beds after a well deserved beer.

The chapter in this great new book about the first ascent is fantastic….http://v-publishing.co.uk/books/categories/biographies/one-day-as-a-tiger.html

Thanks Pete for an amazing climb.