Vent du Dragon

the route, it tops out by
the rock spike on
the ridge

This is a route that I have been trying to climb for a very long time, and no it´s nothing big. In fact it´s just a 5 pitch M5 route extremely easy accessible from the Midi cable car. I´ve had this route as a for the easy day or not so good weather options. Somehow every time I was thinking of giving it a go, something turned up; no keen partners, lift opens way later because of deneigement or because of construction work you´re not allowed to abseil from the bridge…

Gustav rappelling down into the
Cunningham Couloir

Today it was again a Vent du Dragon day. Lots of snow latest days and todays weather was only going to be good in the morning, Perfect for a quick outing without too much snow plodding. My friends Oscar Wahlund and Gustav Mellgren were keen on joining.

We didn´t get on the first bin but that didn´t matter the lift was actually running! Once we came up on the top station we were not the only ones wanting to do the 5 abseils from the bridge into to the Cunningham couloir. There were some skiers in front of us so we took the opportunity to check the route out from one of the viewing platforms.

Easy start of the route

No Oscar, you are going to
the Ice runnel... Even if you´re
option looks cool :)

Oscar leading pitch 3

Finally it was our turn to abseil down; we made 3 rappels and down climbed the rest making it down in front of the skiers… We made our way to the start and found it looking that easy that we soloed the first bit. After 40 meters of climbing we took out the rope and made 1 long pitch to the start of the difficulties. The pitch to come was a fantastic looking ice runnel of about 70 degrees. Oscar was the man on the lead and he was more or less running up the start of the pitch. After some minor route finding difficulties me and Gustav started to follow. A High quality pitch with a squeeze under a block in the end to make it to the belay.

From here it was my turn to take the lead, a mixed pitch of almost 50 meters. The pitch offered good and enough ice to climb it confidently sometimes some athletic moves had to be used. In the top part there was a lot of snow to clear so that took a while. From the end of this pitch it was easy ground to make it up onto the Cosmique arête. Luckily for us Nordnorsk Klatreskola (http://www.nordnorskklatreskole.no/) had been there just before us and left a nice path. Some 30 minutes later we were back at the Cablecar.

Squeeze trough the hole! (pitch 3)

Bit more about the route:

-You reach it making 5 abseils from the Midi bridge
-The route has the same start as the route Profit Perroux
-The route is about 5-6 pitches long with al bolted belays
- the route is in one way committing because the only way is up to get back to the cable car (Profit Perroux and Burnier Vogler are both slightly easier options)
-The route keeps a grade of About M5 with ok ice conditions
- On the last meters of the last technical pitch (pitch 4) there are some loose rocks and one bigger block that you easily can torque of with your axe... Be very careful here!
- Ben Tibbets has a nice description of the route on his blog. http://www.bentibbettsguiding.com/alpine-conditions-midi-tacul-2/

4th and last technical pitch, Oscar and Gustav following

Bit of a weather change... (pitch 4)

Gustav on the Arrete de Cosmique on it´s way back
to the cablecar.