Aiguille d'Orny (13.08.2017)
| Start point | Trient hut |
|---|---|
| Endpoint | Orny hut |
| Characteristic | Climbing |
| Duration | 6h 00min |
| Map |
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| Visits of other PBEs | Cabane Du Trient (3,170m) | 13.08.2017 |
|---|
After a partly wet Friday which we used to do yet another via ferrata at Saillon (named Via Farinetta, TD+), Saturday finally brought good weather and it appeared that the weather would remain good until at least Tuesday or Wednesday. However the constant downpours of rain at valley-level had also produced massive dumps of new snow from around 3000m, so even though the good weather was back, the high mountain ridges weren’t necessarily in condition. Fortunately we didn’t have any solid objectives for these 2 weeks so we were essentially free to make plans according to weather and conditions. Aiguille d’Orny became the new objective for Sunday so we did a few single pitch 5a/5b climbs at Dorenaz early on Saturday morning before driving up to Champex-Lac to get the Breya chairlift at 2188m from where we could do the walk up to the Trient hut at 3170m (Orny hut was full that night) and head over to Aiguille d’Orny the following day. It was around 1pm when we’d arrived at the lift car park and repacked all our gear for the walk-in to the hut. We took crampons and ice axes since we were not sure how much new snow had come to the peaks around the Orny and Trient hut, but we didn’t use them in the end.
The walk up to the Trient hut was fairly easy going on a good gently-sloping path which went up the valley and alongside a glacier. It took around 2 hours to get to the Orny hut and we took a short break here before continuing on and up to the Trient hut. Since the path up tp the Trient hut also went past the start of the route we planned to do, it also gave us the opportunity to stop and check out the route from a distance with the guidebook Sami had brought along. It looked steep! Good thing we were going to do the climb in rock shoes instead of mountain boots :) After some 3 hours of hiking in a gentle pace we arrived at the Trient hut late afternoon and around an hour and a half before dinner was to be served. The scenery across the glacier to the Aiguille Dorees and Aiguille du Tour was pretty eye-catching. Very scenic location for a hut. It seemed like a busy weekend for both the Orny and Trient huts and the dining room was packed with hikers and climbers when dinner was served at around 6.30pm. We got the usual hut menu of soup, then the main meal with meat, veg and mashed potato. Not bad, but not that exciting either. The dormitories were all full, so it took some time before it was quiet enough to fall asleep, but fortunately I slept quite well. We didn’t plan to eat breakfast before 6am which was quite a pleasant time of day compared with the 4am alternative.
We were packed up and ready to leave by around 7am, and from the Trient hut it took maybe ½ hour or 45 minutes to walk down and up some scree slopes to the start of the route which was called ‘La Moquette’ which consisted og 9 pitches ranging from 4a to 5b. Unfortunately we weren’t the first team out on the climb, so we had to wait some time for other climbers to finish the first pitch before Sami could start climbing and we could follow on. At least we had plenty of time to change from mountain boots to rock shoes, though we packed our boots into the rucksack for the climb so that we’d have some proper footwear to wear on the descent path.
The first pitch was 4c but was pretty short, but since I hadn’t yet got into climbing mode I found the crux move somewhat daunting but it worked out OK. The second pitch was a more pleasant 4b and we topped out on a nice sunny ledge where we waited again for the party ahead of us to move on. The crux move on the next pitch (5b+) pitch was straight out of the belay stance and involved getting up onto the crest of the ridge – after that it was slightly easier again with two more pitches at 4a and 4b respectively which brought us out onto the ridge again. We walked up this and over to the start of the summit tower. The next two 4b/4c pitches went more or less up the wall and were pleasantly challenging in places (I don’t like slabs). The final pitch (5b) was probably the most fun pitch of the route, with a bit of chimney climbing and then ending on a rather airy edge which culminated right on the summit of the Aiguille d’Orny. The views were unfortunately rather like we had on the Grand Perron traverse and somewhat obscured by afternoon clouds :( Due to the fact the route was fairly busy and there was not a lot of space on the summit we didn’t spend too long admiring the clouds there before starting the single abseil down to the stance where the final pitch started.
From here we traversed across a ledge to get down to easy ground where we could stop and comfortably put on our mountain boots again for the rest of the walk down toward the start of the route where we had stashed unnecessary crampons and ice axes. Some parts of the descent required some careful downclimbing/scrambling so we remained roped up for part of the descent until we got down to easy ground. It had been a nice climb and great rock, just a shame about the views again!
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