UKC

Had a brilliant week in the Gorges du Verdon, despite getting totally spanked! Neither myself or my partner are sport climbers and I can't remember the last time I climbed on limestone before this trip, so needless to say we found the venue quite tough haha! Despite that there was plenty for us to go at and it's a truly beautiful place - trip report with lots of photos here:

http://www.mistymountainhop.net/2017/10/an-exposed-spanking-in-the-gorge-du...

Dave

In reply to MrRiley:

Fond memories. Have to say it looks even more stunning in Autumn than early summer.

In reply to MrRiley:

Sounds fun, looks beautiful.

I went for my first trip there last year and got my arse way more kicked than that. Every day we abbed into the wrong route (even failed to find the start of Wide Is Love and found myself on the hideously top-roped to death 6c+ next door thinking, 'shit me, this is hard for 6a' and eventually aiding sideways to the right belay...), or we got a rope stuck in a tree, or it rained half way up the route, or I just couldn't climb the bloody things. It's an amazing place, just really hard work!

Yeah I was totally blown away by how beautiful the place is. The weather is just so benign that the autumn colours get time to develop rather than being blown away.

Haha that sounds exciting Jon! You're not the first person to tell me about getting the start of Wide Is Love wrong either! We found quite a few of the last pitches of routes to be glassy thanks to all the top roping, luckily the angle tends to ease slightly at that point. Hard work indeed!

In reply to MrRiley:

Thanks - I liked that. Good photos too. Tell me, are there many bolts in Voie de la Demande nowadays? it's one of my fondest memories from when we did it on my 40th birthday in 1985. At that time no bolts at all but perhaps less polish, though low down I do recall polish. I remember the whole way our minds were full of trepidation at the thought of the much talked about psychological crux, the protectionless vee chimney very high on the climb, and the large number of abseils necessary if we couldn't do it! We did, with a wonderful sense of relief and achievement as this was the top of our standard. I wonder if they've bolted the fear out of that pitch by now?

In reply to Martin Bennett:

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the write up!

The bolting was pretty odd on the first three pitches of La Demande to be honest. There was one on the first pitch which protected a hard bold section but then some more quite close to cracks that would have taken cams. On the second pitch there is a committing wall with some quite thin climbing straight off the belay ledge/spike. I protected it with a couple of micro-cams but there was an absence of bolts. The vertical soap pitch had 3 bolts at the start where you definitely wanted them, but none higher up in the chimney/offwidth thing. Whilst we didnt get any higher apparently there are now some bolts in the upper chimneys, but our host told us that falling would still be very bad in places.

I have really mixed feelings about the route; on one hand I'm gutted we weren't up to the challenge but on the other the climbing itself was pretty miserable - ultra-polished grovelling! I think doing it with a grade in hand is the key to enjoying it

In reply to MrRiley:

Really enjoyed that. Cheers