UKC

We intended to climb the south ridge of Aiguille Moine a couple of weeks ago but we went off route and basically went straight up after the first pitch instead of heading left on the ledges. We went up for a further few pitches but then retreated ( basically it was too hard for me). I can't seem to find out exactly what route we were on. There were in situ belays so it must be a recognized route. Any info much appreciated.

In reply to goatee:

sounds like you were roughly in the line of the descent for some of the ordinary route descent. its all a bit chossy and route finding is pretty hard, could be you were just on a line of bail tat as someone had previously made the same mistake as you.

P.s we tried going up the ordinary route earlier this summer and couldn't find the crux chimney and eventually gave up. there are cairns and tat everywhere

In reply to goatee:

Yeah, as Webster says. From the description it sounds like you'd have been vaguely on the South Face normal route but there's enough tat on from descentst to make following 'the' line pretty difficult (I've only come down it, though, so can't say for sure.)

In reply to alexm198:

Possibly we were on a descent route. The normal route was well to our right as we climbed.

In reply to goatee:

sounds like voi contamine labrunie (spelling), it's roughly 6a/TD, little necky. I vaguely recall (2004/5) there is a open groove low down a little like brant, then not so step, then a little tough again, before more straightforward grooves at the top.

There are gear/stances all over the place, as folk coming off south arête, can't find the voi normal etc.. and tend to straight line it down.

In reply to summo:

The second pitch was pretty easy but then we went up a corner with a chockstone at its top followed by another more laid back corner with a crack high up in it. easier ground (but loose) lay ahead but we decided to return from here.

In reply to goatee:

Well if you were going to do the S ridge and you found the rock that you ended up on too hard then you can't have been on the ordinary route. It's really a scramble with a couple of slightly harder bits - a sort of groove-come-chimney with an overhang, maybe formed by a chockstone - I've done it at least half a dozen times but always in descent and it's normal to rap down the groove. Even in descent it's not that easy to follow as you can climb more or less anywhere but often end up in a cul de sac. It's worth noting for future reference that from the starting ledges (where you should have gone leftwards up a sort of ramp/ledge system to eventually gain the S ridge) the ordinary route heads up slightly rightwards. I'd guess that you ended up somewhere between the two and that the in situ belays, as webster and alex suggest, might well be from climbers who've either made the same mistake or indeed tried to descend too directly.

In reply to jon:


voi contamine labrunie heads pretty much straight up, but when we did it, there were times when we thought the pitch wasn't quite right and we may have just linked someone abseil pitches, but was certainly in the right direction. The OP could have been just 1 groove line to the left or right and as you say you'd just hit a cul de sac.

As an aside I think it's a great little mountain, once you get a feel for where you are going, having been on it 5 times now and the hut is passable too.