Alp visit

At this time of writing I am in Stockholm working. About 3 months ago I left Stockholm and drove south to the Alps for some skiing, climbing and the first course for the mountain guide course. Unfortunately this winter hasn´t reached any records yet when it comes to snowfall. Green Christmas celebrations had been reported from all over the Alps. With a quick stop in Chamonix to collect some gear I went to pick up Gustav Mellgren at the airport in Geneva. We had both done some research on for that moment the best ski locations. Andermatt was high up on the list, when Gustav on top of that by coincidence met his friend Klas Englund at the airport with the same destination in mind, the choice was made.  

Being the days just before new year´s finding accommodation was not the easiest, luckily at the famous ´´Swedish house´´ a.k.a. ´´Villa villakulla´´ (a group of seasoneers that rent a house and nowadays work and live fulltime in Andermatt) they were kind enough to let us stay for some nights, even though it already was very busy.

In Andermatt we actually found fairly good conditions. We varied lift skiing with some easier touring. Al the time we had to be quite cautious because of the tricky avalanche situation that is the main theme in the Alps this season…
The main discovery of this trip was the Gotthard tunnel to the Swiss kanton Tiscino. On the bad weather days this was the quick escape. With a ride of just under one hour from Andermatt you enter a complete different world; sunshine, warm temperatures, palm trees and one of the best bouldering i´ve ever done.

Klas Englund cruising in Andermatt

picking lines in Andermatt

Cogne with warm temps

After the trip to Andermatt I went to Cham for a couple of weeks trying to make something of the conditions. I filled the days with some skiing, working out, drytooling and some easier alpine climbing. Something that´s almost a must do is to start a ski or climb from the aiguille du midi-lift but for the first time on I don´t know how many trips to Cham I never made my way up there…strange idea.

Short visit to Verbier

Gustav Mellgren climbing rock instead of ice...

Sunshine skiing with my dad :)

Before it was time to go back Sweden, I went to Davos. Even I you would think that, I didn´t go there for the WEF. In Davos the ´´Schnee und lawinenforschung´´SLF is based. This is one of the world leading institutes on avalanche science (www.slf.ch). The Swedish mountain guide organization (SBO) had planned a week long avalanche course for us as part of the guide training.
The course started with a refresher of our skills and a visit to the ski patrol. Two full days where spent with Manuel Genswein, a real guru, and probably the mind behind your transceiver. By his lead we trained a lot on transceiver search methods and how to solve tricky multiple burials. If we got cold that was easily solved by practicing digging, jup even that you can optimize by digging in a V-shape or so called conveyor belt.
The other days we had some shorter lectures about snow physics and national avalanche forecasting but mainly we were out in the field together with Stephan Harvey, a mountain guide working for the SLF. We dug snow pits to examine the snowpack, trained on route finding in avalanche terrain and much more. It was very interesting given that there was a lot of avalanche activity. We even managed to trigger some small avalanches from a distance, a clear sign of instability.

Conveyor belt or V-shape digging

Stephan Harvey measuring density

Mikael Almlert checking out the avalanche we triggerd remotly 

Can you see the weak layer?

Czech route and SBO

Already a couple of weeks have already passed by since returning from the Alps. The last week of my stay in Chamonix was pretty exciting! The weather forecast had predicted some good weather so Gabriel Mazur, Gustav Mellgren and me decided to go and have a look at the Droites NE face. We had heard that the Czech route had been in condition a month earlier so we we´re keen on trying that route out.

Party at Grand Montets

No stove needed for melting water

We headed up the Grand Montets with the last bin. It was the last day of the season before closing the lifts so there was a big party going on at mid and top station. We enjoyed the party for a while until the ski patrollers started to send down the party people.  In the end we were the only ones left and made ourselves ready for a night in the toilets. Luckily for us the staff of the Grand Montets had left the heating on especially for us. 

Early morning packing

At 2 a.m. we got up and after a ´´breakfast we started to make or way down onto the Argentiere glacier and up towards the Droites face.
It was already light when we arrived at the start of the route. Looking up conditions looked doable but it temperatures were already quite high. The first part of the route is all easy snow climbing so we made pretty good progress moving together. After a while we came to the first proper ice pitches. Gustav took the lead. By now there was quite a bit of ice coming down because of the warmth but nothing big so we continued.  For the hardest ice pitch it was my turn to lead. Al three of us were pretty skeptical because it was very warm and the ice was just dripping. I climbed up to take a look, it was obvious… time to turn around. 

first easy snow slopes

Gustav taking the lead

Bergschurnd crossing

We abseiled down and had a great ski out, we all agreed on the fact that summer was officially here.

The Days after the climb it was testing time.  Already a year ago I got accepted to the Swedish mountain guide course SBO. Unfortunately back then there we only three of us that got in so they decided to postpone the course with a year.
We had 3 days on which we got tested on rock climbing, Ice climbing and skiing. It all went well for me and coming winter me and 7 others will start the course. I am already excited!

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.

Summertime

Oh yes it´s time, time to join the blog culture… After spending more time in the mountains I started to feel that it would be fun to except for logging my climbs maybe also share some experiences from and around the mountains.

Of course summer is running to an end and for me work is waiting in autumn and with that much less climbing. But in June and July I was lucky to spend 2 months in Chamonix, just climbing and no working. Here a little recall from the summer.

It all started of with a very snowy Chamonix with loads of steep lines in perfect condition for skiing, of course I had been stupid enough to leave my skis at my parents place after some skitour guiding in the Swedish mountains. So unfortunately no skiing for me this time but luckily Italy and the Arve valley are just an hour´s drive away and houses some fantastic rock climbing. For me that was great having set the goal to get the grades up to 7a onsight during the summer.

A couple of weeks into the trip I met up with a Finnish guy with the name Antti Ahola, a very strong rock climber but not so experienced on alpine terrain. Me having more of that it was a perfect match. I was taking care of the approaches and was Antti the king ones on the rock. We climbed both the grand capuchin by the route  ´´Elixir d´astaroth´´ and a route called ´´Or or´´ on point Lachernal. On ´´Or or´´ it was just amazing to see Antti  onsighting the 7A cruxpitch with a daypack on his back filled with boots, crampons and so on.

For years now it has been a bit of a tradition to do some climbing every summer with my father Tom Doude van Troostwijk. Also this year he came along for almost a month! We managed to do loads of climbing. A lot of our inspiration we found in Rebuffats book ´´100 finest routes´´ mostly high quality fun routes with a lot of challenge for my father and perfect training ground for my guiding skills. We climbed for example on the Aiguille de l´m, pyramide du Tacul, Tour Ronde and much more.  On Tom´s rest days I had the chance to climb the Kuffner Arette. Me and Rhys found the route in excellent conditions so with nice cruising along the route we made it to the summit of the Mont Maudit.

In the beginning of July my friend Daniel Joll came to Chamonix. We had some high ambitions but unfortunately the weather didn´t cooperate so well.  A lot of thundery afternoons made spending nights high up in the mountains less attractive. But still we got to do loads of multipitch rockroutes  on perfect granite some nice climbing on the Gervassuti pillar and a bit of an epic on the Droites. Hopefully we get a new chance on our planned objectives next year.

After the 2 months in the Alps it was time to pack the bags and head north to Sweden. Here guiding on the Kebnekaise was waiting. It was very nice to get back on easy ground and get a ´´everyday life´´ again. My mind was pretty wrecked after the about 45 days of climbing in 2 month’s time so it was time get some rest and new motivation. With bouldering, nice Ice-climbing in an ice-cave and a solo climb on the classic route Silhuetten on Tuolpagorni the season got a very good end.