Aiguille Sans Nom (07.08.2018)
| Start point | Cabane d'Orny |
|---|---|
| Characteristic | Alpine climbing |
| Duration | 8h 30min |
After our day trip to Pointe de Tsalion the weather forecast was checked again and the conclusion was still the same as before; fine in the mornings but high likelihood of heavy rain and thunderstorms in the afternoons. Tuesday morning wasn’t looking too great either so we made a decision to head for the Orny hut where there were numerous options for less committing and shorter climbs than compared with for example a 4000m peak. I’d stayed at the Orny hut once before and I guess it’s pleasant enough with easy access from the lift at Champex-Lac and there is plenty of climbing to do close to the hut and also further up the valley around the Trient plateau. We had in mind to do the south ridge of the Aiguille Sans Nom (3444m), one of several tops in the Aiguilles Dorées (translates into ”golden needles”) and do part of the traverse as far as Col Copt from where it would be possible to abseil back down to the glacier if the weather was deteriorating.
After a relatively late morning departure from Evolene we drove up to Champex-Lac and got the lift up (saves about 600m of hiking). It was around middle of the day by the time we started the 2-hour walk up to the hut, so the sun was hot and lots of suncream got used! The walk itself is easy, firstly contouring around the mountainside for a long time before any major height is gained on the second half of the walk. After a bit of lunch and chilling outside the hut David and Tim decided to try and squeeze in a bit of rock climbing before the rain came while I couldn’t be bothered to join. I’d probably have made the effort to go if the climbing resulted in a peak being summited, but rock climbing for the sake of rock climbing doesn’t really motivate me so much……
Anyway, the following morning we got up for breakfast at 4am, drank some coffee and ate a couple of slices of bread before starting the hike up to the Trient glacier just before 5am. David didn’t join unfortunately as being diabetic he’d had a very low blood sugar episode during the night and hadn’t had much rest. There were few remnants of overnight rain clouds around, but fortunately they were disappearing and clear skies were on the horizon. I guess it took around an hour to walk up the path to the junction where the path splits – either to continue up to the Trient hut or go down toward the glacier. We went down the short distance to the glacier and by now the sky was lit up with some rosy sunrise colours and we put on glacier gear here. Despite the overnight cloud cover the glacier snow was surprisingly firm with patches of ice around. We trudged for about ½ hour up the gentle snow slopes to the Col des Plines, a saddle on the ridge where we’d drop down into the south side of the Aiguilles Dorées and traverse around to the foot of the south ridge on the Aiguille Sans Nom. A short descent down a narrow snow arete brought us down to a somewhat secluded little glacial lake. With the jagged tops of the Aiguille Dorées towering above it was almost a bit Paratgonian (I’ve not actually been to Patagonia, but it seemed like pictures I’ve seen of Patagonia!). We descended further before traversing around the vertical granite spires beside us; the surroundings were incredibly beautiful in the morning light, it felt like we’d entered into a totally different part of the Alps!
Finally after about another hour from the Col des Plines we were ascending the steep snow slopes leading up to the start of the ridge The initial part of the ridge leading up to the pitched climbing was still a bit loose in places but scrambly in nature. The climbing itself was rated up to 5b so I did a quick change into rock shoes at the start of the first pitch and stuffed the mountain boots away into my rucksack together with the crampons, ice axe and a load of other stuff which was making it feel pretty heavy!
Once on the ridge though the climbing and granite was of superb quality with handholds and footholds in all the places I would want them to be :) I guess this must be the Chamonix granite that people rave on about all the time?!! The views were just as amazing as the rock and looking west all the well known Chamonix peaks such as the Aiguille de Chardonnet, Aiguille d’Argentiere, Aiguille Verte og Les Droites came into view as we got higher up the ridge. I don’t remember how many belays we ended up making in total as we simul climbed for some of the time and probably skipped a few which was pretty efficient. Once up on the main ridge that joins all the summits of the Aiguilles Dorées there was maybe only 15m more of height to climb – but the summit itself is a proper pointy summit that you can’t actually fit more than one person on it. There was however, a bolt at the top so Tim climbed it first and set up a sort of top rope so I could go up after and tag the summit!
It’s a bit difficult to try not to be over excited about terrific mountain days such as these and remember that the top is only halfway; there was still a bit of ridge traversing and abseiling to do first before we’d get down to the glacier. From the top we did a short lower/abseil to reach a kind of ledge system where we traversed for a while before climbing down to the next abseil (changed back into mountain boots for this). This took us to yet another exposed traverse along to the Col Copt and by this time I think I was ready for a proper drink and snack break; probably only the second we’d had all day….. Four or five more abseils later and we were back down on the Trient plateau (the first abseil was a bit awkward and there are various spikes where the rope can get stuck when retrieving it after the abseil) and it was almost a relief to put on crampons and just walk on something flat again. The snow was by this time a bit mushy in places but not too bad. In total I think it was about 8.5 hours for the return trip back to the Orny hut where we finished off our lunches, filled up water bottles and continued the hike back down to the lift station above Champex-Lac. In any case we’d used 5.5 hours from the hut to the summit…The walk out was just as hot as the walk in to the Orny hut, but by this point I didn’t really care anymore since the rest of the day had been totally awesome!
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