UKC

I’m Romain 30 from France living in Brighton with a big project:

INTEGRAL PEUTEREY SEPTEMBER 2018
I know it’s still a long way to go, but as I don’t have extensive experience of mixed alpine climbing I believe it’s never too early to get ready.
I’m gonna make a film documentary to show the training process and ascent in order to show that with commitment self discipline and enough time anything can be achieve.

If anybody with experience are willing to be part of the adventure please get it in touch.

In reply to Romain87s:

Just out of interest which alpine routes have you all ready climbed?

In reply to alasdair19: nothing in the alp but I’ve done 5 years climbing on ice in the Pyrenees

In reply to Romain87s:


That would depend if you wish to be guided up it, or share the lead of it. Is summer 2018 enough time for either? Possibly and probably not.

In reply to summo:

I’ll share the lead of it

In reply to Romain87s:


Then I presume you are willing to at least cover some costs for your future partner, they've got some work to do training you up.

In reply to summo:
Of course

In reply to summo:

Plus if we realise by next summer that it’s not feasible safety wise I rather drop down a notch and take an easier route than kill myself I’m not completely stupid

In reply to Romain87s:

Good on you. Dream big! 4500 metres of ascent , 16 abseils, the longest ridge in the Alps. An incredible route. Good luck on your quest.

In reply to Romain87s:
It’s a great route to aspire to. I’ve been aspiring to it for years... You need the right experience, partner, acclimatisation, conditions and weather. For the last three years, it’s been the conditions and the weather which have been frustrating me and my partners. Set off to do it in September 2015 but bailed from the top of the Noire (descending the super chossy normal route) because we figured the weather wasn’t good enough to carry on (which was the right call). The Noire South Ridge is a good route in its own right by the way, apart from the chossfest descent! Didn’t have the weather window for it when I was in the Alps last year and this year.

You need three blue sky days to do the route and you’d want the fourth day to be ok as well (it’s not a route you’d want to be getting on with an impending storm on day 4, partly because there’s a chance it will take you longer than 3 days and partly because storms can blow in earlier than forecast). You also don’t want to do it straight after a spell of bad weather as the rock sections need to be clear from snow (although one hot, sunny day may be enough for the Noire). Not the best idea to do it after a really hot spell either as I’ve heard of people getting hit by rockfall on some of the chossy sections in very hot, dry conditions. Unfortunately I t’s surprisingly difficult to get that kind of stable weather and decent conditions pattern in Cham, unless you’re there for the whole season and ready to go when the planets align.

If you are already an experienced rock and ice climber but don’t have much alpine experience, realistically you would need to plan for a long trip (at least a month, more likely an entire season) to have enough time to build up to a major route like that.

You need to be able to climb quickly up to HVS at altitude and with a heavy pack (so realistically you need to be solid at E1) and move together quickly and efficiently over moderate ground (as well as some pretty chossy ground!). You also need experience of doing long, committing routes and bivvying on route. So you’d want to do a few big TDs first to build up all this experience, plus some 4,000ers for the acclimatisation.

If you’re already reasonably fit, a good trad rock climber and comfortable in crampons on moderate mixed ground, the main training you will need is doing increasingly longer and more committing Alpine routes. Doing long Scottish winter routes will also be good experience, both for the mixed climbing and the suffering. Unless you have a lot of spare time, it may well take you several years to get that level of experience (that’s been the case for most alpinists I know) but the journey to get there will be fun.

I would recommend filling out your profile with your climbing experience - you’re much more likely to get interest that way for a serious project like that.

Good luck.

In reply to Romain87s:
Without wishing to pour cold water on your ambition, I'm trying to think of a stranger and dafter choice of first route in the alps?

Nope, I can't.

The Peuterey Integrale is a serious undertaking, being long, commiting, pretty remote, technical, and even the bail out options require solid alpine experience.

Get caught by bad weather (remember this is more than likely to be a 3 day route, unless you are very good and very fast) and you'll need every bit of the alpine experience and cunning you haven't got, to get off it in one piece.

It really is for serious experienced alpinists only.

Put it this way, in Rebuffet's 100 (111 actually) Finest Routes on Mont Blanc Massif, it's the 6th hardest, ahead of of several ED's.

G.

In reply to Misha:
Thanks for all the details much appreciated.
My plan is to get back into a super level of fitness by January (gym 6days a week lots of strength training cardio and endurance plus around 5miles run a day) and from January I’ll add 3 hours indoor climbing daily with as many trip as possible to Scotland and Wales.

Acclimatisation wise I’m pretty good with high altitude I’m lucky my body react well to it so far I’ve been living above 2000 m while growing up and my teenage year.
However I will spend over 2weeks in the alps to acclimatise before the climb.
And if we don’t we don’t have a weather window we’ll we don’t and we’ll do something else.
At the end of day it’s all about being able to listen and understand the mountain then you make decisions accordingly

In reply to Romain87s:

This is going to sound blunt... If you've no experience in the Alps then Integral Peuterey is a crazy objective to be planning ten months from now. Training won't be a substitute for experience. Get a few trips under your belt first and do something like Integral Peuterey when you and your partner are on equal standing.

In reply to Romain87s:


No, it's like doing a park run and thinking you are ready for Paris des sables.

In reply to summo:

You obviously didn’t get the point but that’s fine !!
Thanks for your input

In reply to summo:
What’s “Paris des sables”anyway?! Anything good?!..

In reply to Romain87s:


I think he might mean the Marathon des Sables.

In reply to Romain87s:
Listening to the mountains is a very sensible attitude.

To be honest, I doubt you’ll do it with only two weeks to prepare, even if the weather and conditions will be perfect for all of that time (which they probably won’t be). If you’re starting from no alpine experience at all, you need to build up by starting with shorter routes and progressing to longer ones, including at least one less committing multi day route. That’s more like a full season of alpine climbing... Training at the gym and the climbing wall is always going to be useful but it’s experience in the big mountains which really counts and it takes time to build that up. Moving quickly on rock and mixed; judging conditions; route finding; glacier travel; knowing what to take and what to leave behind; being able to stick with it and suffer when it all feels like too much and you aren’t even half way; keeping going when you’re tired and don’t have much food or water (lack of water is a big issue on the South Ridge); and having the ability to bail if something goes wrong (this is perhaps the biggest challenge on the Integrale, bear in mind that the helicopter can’t always fly).

It’s a great aim but most people take years to get the required experience, weather and conditons. Aim for it by all means but it’s good to be realistic about the timescale...

The Frendo Spur would be a great and more realistic objective for a first Alpine season. You would be going well to do that after a couple of weeks (although July would be better than September as the mixed section has been bare ice by September the last couple of years). In fact it’s a very good training route for the Integrale - fairly big and already serious (reversing the route from high up isn’t really an option), plus it can be done with a bivvy to practice those skills and climbing with a heavy sack. However it’s not too hard and of course has a very easy descent. If you do the Frendo easily, you should still consider some bigger and more committing routes before the Integrale. If you struggle on the Frendo, you will be a long way from being ready for the Integrale.

In reply to DaveHK:
You probably right

In reply to Misha:
Thanks a lot for your constructive message. To be honest the timescale is the only thing that worries me. I’m gonna train hard and do as much winter ascent in uk as possible this winter and see as I go along I will check the Frendo spur it does sound like a good practice before moving on to more serious routes

In reply to DaveHK:


Yeah.. It's out of my league at moment, so no danger of me entering the wrong race!

In reply to summo:


I have a couple of friends who've done it and they reckon it's not actually that hard. They said the reputation for it being tough largely comes from Muppets that haven't prepared or listened to advice. Cut offs are really generous I believe. That said, it ain't parkrun like you say!

In reply to DaveHK:


"Marathon des Sables is a six-day, 251 km ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert"

You have some tough friends!

In reply to DaveHK:


There are several places to bail out, but they are hardly the most straightforward, and once you get above two thirds height on the the Noire, they are long, complex and easy to screw up even when you're experienced at bailing off alpine routes.

In good conditions and settled weather, it can be fine for experienced alpinists, but I wouldn't take a relative novice on it for 50% of Jeff Bezoz's Amazon stock

In reply to Goucho: I think Dave was talking about the marathon de sables, not the Integrale.

In reply to gavinj:

Yes I was! The integrale is much more committing.