UKC

Hi, looking for advice on the abseil onto the Contamine route on Pointe Lachenal...

Ideally I'd like to approach from the midi to Pointe Lachenal, leave kit at the top then abseil the route. Is this a good idea, as I see lots of reference to winding route etc but I figure you either need to abseil the route before climbing it or after climbing it (unless you climb with all your kit)...

Any general advice is welcome.

Cheers

Luke

In short; your rope will get stuck.

I’ve never absailed anything as snaggy as this in my life (and I’ve done a fair few hundred pitches of absailing by now). It was a massive pain and our rope got completely stuck twice, once freed by some nice Spanish climbers on another route and the second time by re climbing almost a whole pitch. 

If I were to do it again, I would carry my boots and walk off the top.

I didn't have any problems getting my rope stuck but it seems counter intuitive to do it this way around. What if you need to escape of the route due to accident or bad weather? I did it in spring with a ski in and out and it was one of the best days I've had in the hills so maybe consider saving it until you can do that?

Yes, I skiied in. Took a few minutes and were were well up the route before the first plodders arrived. I've just checked and it was the end of March but it used to be normal to approach these things on skis given good snow cover, in summer, which I'd have thought there is now? We didn't do the Contamine but A l'orée du bois. The abseil descent was a bit of a nightmare as it's so diagonal. Still we were skinning back up to the midi while everyone else was still climbing!

The preferred method seems to be to be to ab down the route just to the left of it (as you look at the cliff). When it only takes a couple of minutes to walk down to it from the top I don't really see the point in abbing in. It may also make you quite unpopular with the parties starting early but with it being such a trade route it won't really be out of the norm to ab on top of people.

We walked in to the bottom and abbed a line to the left of the Contamine. We’d no snagging issues but may have just got lucky. There seemed to be lots of ab stations across the face, and there was choice - but admittedly it had been helpful to spot some of them on the way up. 

I think it was roughly seven abseils for us, but I can’t be sure. I wouldn’t want to ab the route itself. It’s very flake-ridden - and brilliant! Enjoy. 

As Tyler has said, you would be far better off going to the bottom of the route, its all downhill and relatively straight-forward approach.The ab line is just to the side of the route, and seems fairly snag free. 

There are obvious disadvantages of abbing in from the top as retreat for any reason will be more complicated! The only advantage i can think of is that the walk back to the Midi will be quicker.