UKC

Has anyone on UKC done this route? If so, did you:

a) Bivouac at Les Balmes de François Blanc. (2445m)
b) Bivouac at the foot of the route. (3000m - 3300m)
c) Bivouac at the top of the Bastion.
d) Do the climb car to car.
e) Other.

What were your timings?

In reply to jon:
I did it about 3-4 years ago, bivied at the top of the bastion - a number of really big flat ledges that you can lie about on, you can get a vague idea here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=449exomW_k0. They're all on some big pile of scree. Took about 2-3 hrs to get here and we soloed.
From the bastion to summit was about 7-8 hrs but I cut my fingers quite badly on the way so couldn't climb particularly quickly.

In reply to sgl:

Thanks. Your Youtube link didn't work, though. When you say 'took 2 - 3 hours to get here', I hope you mean from the foot of the route... This ties in with other reports of 10 hours for the Pillar, though looking at the topo it looks considerably shorter - and easier - from the top of the Bastion to the summit, than from the foot of the route to the top of the Bastion (despite the state of your fingers). I guess the point of my post is, would it be better to bivvy at les Balmes de François Blanc and leave bivvy gear there so as to climb as light as possible? Or is the approach from there better done in daylight, despite possible stonefall danger.

In reply to jon:

I did it about 12 or 13 years ago. There was quite a lot of rockfall and some of the pitches were very loose.We had to stop using one of the twin ropes as it got badly cut by stonefall. We bivvyed way down and walked back up the valley when we had finished the route. The climb took us 15 hours to reach the top.

In reply to Andy Taylor:

Is that 15 hours from the foot of the rock or from the bivvy? Ecrins rock isn't the best sometimes is it!

In reply to jon: I failed to climb this 2 years ago, too slow, retreated from below the Bastion when we realised we would not make the summit in daylight. Unless you are quick, my advice would be to bivvy on the route somewhere below the Bastion. That way you can have an easy first day and do the approach all in daylight.
Once you top out you have a long descent down the glacial normal route and the Glacier Blanc

In reply to Martin Haworth:

Bad luck, but it's nice to know you can get down OK from there...! But where had you started from?

In reply to jon: I meant to say we bivvied at the bottom of the bastion. 2-3 hrs from the base of route to bottom of the bastion. Then the next morning 7-8 hrs to summit. I did have sore fingers and I think we got slightly lost but 10hrs in total seems about right if you're moving reasonably efficiently (not super fast by any means).
The rock on the hardest sections is ok but elsewhere is decidedly dubious.

In reply to sgl:

Ah, that makes more sense, thanks.

In reply to jon: We started from Les Balmes de François Blanc. I admit we overslept a bit and we were a bit slow, crossing the bergshrund and getting established on the route took a while.
We may have been able to top out, but it looked unlikely so we descended. Getting down was not easy but there are belay threads and pitons.
Abbing into the bergshrund in the dark was interesting.

In reply to jon:

We did this route about 2 years ago. We bivvied and left bivvy gear about 2 miles up from the road which just left a very short walk to the foot of the climb. Despite the weather becomming pretty fetid as the day went on the reached the summit after about 12 hours, sat around feeling knackered for a while then jogged down past the seracs (the most exposed part of the whole day!) in the fading light to arrive at the Refuge des Ecrins shortly after dark. Collecting the bivvy gear with nothing else to carry was easy the next morning.

The rock was quite loose in places and where it was worst we found some of the climbing to be much harder than the grade would suggest and with none of the in-situ tat you might expect on such a classic route. I think this says more about our route-finding than anything else but do be careful, it is a long and loose enough without extra detours.

Incidentally, in the hut, look at the times on the wall for various record running up the Barre des Ecrins - completely bonkers.

Best of luck

In reply to jon:

I did the route last year in a round trip from la Berarde, via the col du temple and col des ecrins. We bivied at Les Balmes de François Blanc (we were aiming for the bottom of the face but traversing the col took us longer than expected) and the col des ecrins. The face took us 12-13 hours from the base to summit, we were pretty unfit at the time.

There are loads of Bivy spots on the route.

Kane

In reply to jon:

Did it about 10 years ago, car to car. Think we left the camp site at about 1am and got back at about 9pm (remember getting down in time for pizza). It was an epic big day and I would have thought a bivvy would make life a fair bit easier. Hideous lightening on the top, with the rock buzzing and sparking to our axes, we were lucky to get away with it to be honest! We did save some time on the way down by bum sliding most of the way down the north face.

In reply to tobykeep:

Haven't really got any helpful comments about bivvy sites, I'm afraid I didn't really take them in.

In reply to tobykeep:

Thanks, no problem. Ten years ago I'd have gone for the car to car, but I think it'll have to be a bivvy. I'm drawn to the 'as high as possible before getting to the route' option so I can leave the gear and pick it up later and climb as light as possible...... as long as what's left of the approach isn't too difficult in the dark. If there's two things I hate they're climbing with a heavy sac and uncomfortable bivvying!

In reply to jon: Hi Jon, I did it about 15 -20 years ago by bivvying near the bottom of the route, leaving the bivvy gear there and then doing it in a day, picking the bivvy gear up the following day. It was my first big long technical alpine route, i seem to remember, and i remember it being a good way to do it.....


Cheers Guy Willett

In reply to ATRG, Kane and guywillett:

Thanks Guy(s), that's what I thought I might try and do... I've always said 'if you take bivvy gear you'll use it'. Nice light sac's the way to go.