I believed that I owed that to my friend Gilles Bodin. Ours made the traverse high up on the face disproportionate. On Thursday the 18th, Gary Hemming, who had been climbing with Lothar Mauch up the Peuterey integral ridge and who had to come down due the bad weather, learn in a Courmayeur bistro that the two Germans have been stuck for 4 days on the West face; evaluating the chances of the EMHM to rescue the two Germans as very poor from the South side with the drastic weather conditions, and with his intricate knowledge of the West face (he had done the first ascent of the "American Direct" route 4 years before, aside having climbed the key west face routes) decides to go back to Chamonix where he formed a rescue team of volunteers with Gilles Bodin, François Guillot, Lothar Mauch, Mick Burke and Gerhard Bauer, all top climbers at the time. From that day René was to keep a petty hatred of Gérard Géry. This would have taken quite some time particularly with one of Germans who was sick and quite weak. It will finally be climbed in 1952 by a group of the elite climbers from Paris (Guido magnone, Lucien Bérardini, Marcel lainé and Adrien Dagory) in a succesion of two attempts  and much artificial aids, solving what was then considered ' the last great problem in the Alps' and repeated many times since. The sudden loss of Egle was a moral blow for us, but we managed to react. E. Giraud, J. Ravanel, A. Comte, 1903, September 6. I must have shouted, my neighbour moans... one cries, Gaby was lifted up and fell back behind a two metres high boulder. Louis Jannin’s hotel de Paris will be transformed in a Press room and up to two helicopters will be put at the journalists’s disposal. No, for I hear moans, groans, teeths chattering. And then on the second day, we heard shouting in the gully. If I get out alive, mountaineering will be finished for me! Aided climbing was then in its infancy on granite which was believed to be, wrongly, more difficult to peg than limestone…”. Dan heads in to the Sans Nom at sunset. in einem ganzen Satz, denn es kommt auf den Zusammenhang an. We are struck by lightning! A true feat! The Thanks for posting. He had sent people on the normal route of the Drus to abseil down the North face of the Drus and then the West face to get them off, but this was nearly impossible. 2nd row : Lothar Mauch, Mick Burke (with glasses), Gary Hemming (in red). On Monday the 22nd, at around 2 am a terrible hail storm hits them at the same time than Daniel Meot's team on the South side of the mountain. Some time later, or much later, as in a dream, I still have the feeling of a hawsome light, but the noise comes a fraction of a second later. Descent in the American Direct. View 1966 - The DRUS Rescue Image Gallery - 1 Images, Indeed an important piece of mountaineering history. From there, with Gary Hemming, we practically equipped the gully in order to get up it, because of the truly bad weather; it was snowing. Thanks to it, he gained national fame by the indignation which it aroused: even the Sea Rescue French national organization sent a protest, stating that as far as they were concerned if René had been one of them, they would have given him a medal! The sun appears quite late on the route. These cookies do not store any personal information.Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. David: And there, it was fully equipped with fixed ropes? "Monte Bianco Vol. During the summer two Germans start climbing the West face of the Drus and are caught in bad weather. David: Climbing up in the bad weather, how was it ? The finest alpinists are always those who climb with the best ethics, with what the English name: "the spirit of mountaineering" which the Alpine Club launched in 2006 with the Piolets d'or and not necessarily those who search fame (and money) at all costs! Please enable it to continue. Thank you Mark. Unfortunately they have a significant part of the equipment that will be sorely lacking later. This is what many years after Georges Livanos will write: "Confirming the line of ascent on the centre of the face, this reconnaissance left us with many doubts on its feasibility. Also their opinion was erroneous on the best route to take: they did not know the American Direct, the way down the North face included a number of traverses, much loose rocks, which with a total of 14 men meant taking far more risks of rock falls hitting one or several of them than on the American Direct route. So, as planned, they take the American Direct descent route, bivouacking first at the "jammed block". For example, theAconcagua mountain page has the 'Aconcagua Group' and the 'Seven Summits' asparents and is a parent itself to many routes, photos, and Trip Reports. We went to see colonel Gonnet who was commanding the EMHM, because in those days, the mountain rescue in Chamonix was separated in three parts during the summer, one third of the time the Military School for High Mountaineering, one third the ENSA and the last third, the Chamonix guides. But the Chamonix guides from the ‘Compagnie’ were wrong on the last point: René did not lead the rescue party and had no say in the decision taken by Gary Hemming and François Guillot not to descend from the North face but to take the far more direct line of the American Direct route. In the afternoon, a helicopter drops them at the Rognon, their intent is to reach the Germans by climbing the North face and traversing to the West face below the Lambert crack.This party will bivouac the same night below the Lambert crack. Then, early in the morning, from that place, it was François Guillot who took us up as rucksacks right up. For the ENSA and the Chamonix guides it meant going down to the foot of the North face which they will reach quickly the same day before night and for the EMHM teams scattered on the North face to climb up to the Petit Dru summit and descend to the Crystal ledge to bivouac before descending the South face the following day. You'll find the path pretty easy. This time it is the end. Classics shown include the American Direct, the Drus traverse and the Y couloir on Aiguille Verte. Though les Drus might be most famous for the extreme lines on its North and West faces, the Charpoua basin is a granite paradise with some moderate long rock routes, including its "normal" route. Despite the huge risk factor, some new route were made: Léna,10-16 February 1998, by Valery Babanov and Youri Kochelenko in 7 days; in 2001, winter solo 1rst ascent of the Lafaille route by Jean-Christophe Lafaille. Gilles: Well, we realized one thing slightly amusing, well amusing no : we knew a little bit but Desmaison did come, sent by PARIS-MATCH and RTL. /Hans. So, first bivouac on the West face ledges. Au loin, un matou frileux et discret Miaulait d'étrange et grêle façon. Several rescue parties will be involved. It is past noon but by evening they have managed to equip 120 m of abseils in the North Face, and they come back up to bivouac. Unfortunately the pillar collapsed after the repeated landslides between June and September 2005. --Georges Livanos (The Greek), The West face route - Sketch Guido Magnone. La traversée Petit Dru – Grand Dru vue la veille du refuge de la Charpoua : This routes are descending. Gilles: No, no, no way. David: and then, organizing the way down, how did it go? It is like the electric chair, I shake from head to foot. Chez les garçons. The national Gendarmerie and Civil Protection helicopters have just landed at the Rognon where the ten alpinists have bivouacked last night. So we told him, we are going to try; our plan is to get up by the West face and get them off. By creating an account, I agree to the Egal wer Sie sind, egal was Sie suchen, wir haben die perfekte Unterkunft für Sie. For climbs in the Nant Blanc Glacier (N and W faces) either: Take the Grand Montets lift, traverse levelled to the GM ridge, cross it and descend via a 350m couloir (loose rock, 1 abseil in the bottom 3rd)to the Nant Blanc glacier. There are several classic climbs, especially on the West face of Petit Dru and on the north face of Les Drus. La face ouest des Drus dans le massif du Mont-Blanc est une des plus fameuses parois des Alpes. Enjoy! All subsequent parties did use that rope and the two Germans were less than 300 meters from the summit. The last rock avalanches … He replied: 'don’t worry, we will find the people'. The valley of Chamonix is the place to get started for any of the routes on Les Drus. Parents refers to a larger category under which an object falls. Friday the 18th at 5 O'clock, the team is at the helicopter airport in Les Bois, mais the weather is still too bad so at 7 O'clock they take the rack train to Montenvers. Although from a distance it looks like a monolith, it is actually composed of two nearby but separate summits. You'll need 1 to 2 hours. Lothar Mauch was climbing with Garry Hemming on the Italian side of Mont Blanc when they heard about the two Germans stuck on the West of the Drus and decided to go back to Chamonix to help. We grouped together some friends, of whom François Guillot. In the year 1935 Pierre Allain and Raymond Leininger performed the first ascent of the North Wall of the Petit Dru by climbing the route Allain-Leininger, considered one of the six classic North faces of the Alps. Ah, yes, a slightly amusing event: Franco who was the director of ENSA had sent four guides on the North face. Mind you, we were big wigs! I told him: but who are you? After some discussion with François Guillot, Gary Hemming decide to get down using the American direct route as originally planned. On Friday 19th at 2 am they start for the foot of the West face of the Drus with the intention, to climb directly to the Germans by the West face route. The two Sloveanian climbers (Yopugoslavians then) were blocked by a storm above the green slabs (at the level of the Flammes de Pierre ridge). They are bitter as if they had had the missing equipment the previous day they believe they could have reached the two Germans in the morning (not aware the dificulty of the traverse onto the West face on the Marcel Lainé "small golos", by now, 14 years after the first ascent, fully rusted and with one third or more missing). Le ciel était gris. He must have had a hard time, but he is truly an exceptional climber and still today thirty or thirty five years after. All Rights Reserved. Weitere Ideen zu klettern, bouldern klettern, bouldern. Time is 10 am and they believe that they could reach the Quartz ledge [narrow ledge running horizontally across all the South face of the Petit Drus at around 3650 m, 100 m below the Peiti Dru summit] before night. This is the route he opened in 1962 with Royal Robbins and which Mick Burke not only made the second ascent of in 1965 but had to take down his wounded partner all the way from the 'jammed block' in 15 abseils - in fact the idea to go down that route was his -, so they both knew very well what they were doing, unlike the Chamonix guides who had never climbed this route (the 3rd ascent will be done the following summer by François Guillot).