Ben had found some nice crags around the Chamonix area and we decided to try some of that out today, starting with some nice and easy climbing.
The day started a bit slow though, as both of us overslept. The clock was actually close to 10 AM before we woke and I thought OMG! and bounced up in a flurry.
Before long we were having breakfast and even tried out the garden, sitting in the sun for the "morning" coffee as the next door neighbours were painting a house. They looked to have fun and all guys were talking constantly. At one point a chubby guy on the really long ladder, instead of getting down to move it, actually jumped and bounced it to the side. It looked really funny.
It was sunny, but not too hot as we headed off toward Chamonix. At first we checked out the station for the cable car to Aguille du midi. On the way we stopped at a really interesting alpine-climbers store. There were so many things we would've bought - for really fair prices, really, but again, we have no space for added weight in our luggage.
After checking out the cable car, which we'll explore further another day, we went for lunch. Steak and fries, yummie (no vegetarians here...)
We sat watching people and mused about their gear and injuries. It's funny how people in a place like this are so much alike. There are four sorts, the regular tourists with regular city clothing, walking around, looking at stuff, shopping, having coffee, taking pictures and wearing sun hats... and then there are the locals of course, the ones who don't take pictures or look around.. and the third group, the adventurers, who wear backpacks, alpine boots or other hiking boots, walking staffs, move with MTBs, dusty and limping after hours upon hours in the mountains or fresh and just about to head out. Oh, and then there is the fourth group, the wanna-be's with newly bought outdoors sets, fresh over the counter. This group may go either way, some becoming the latter (dusty mountaineers), some turning into regular tourists again. Fascinating to be in these kind of places where mountain clothing is the regular style and normal city wear is unusual. :D :D :D
After lunch we headed to Les Gaillands, a quite big and very popular crag with loads of climbing routes. It's easily accessible, just next to the road. There's a big grass plane in front of it and a nice, blue pond right next to it. Also there are cafés close by for a break snack if you haven't brought your own.
There were people everywhere on the wall, every age. I think the youngest must've been 3 years old or something. I did the first lead climb along a fairly easy route. There were a lot of nice handholds in the rock and my shoes got a good grip on the granite. I'm not very experienced with lead climbing so I had to think on the direction the quick-draw should face each time and also to double check the direction of the rope through the quick-draw. Would not be fun to fall if the directions get messed up.
Going up I reached a ledge where there was a guide teaching two small children and bringing them with him upwards. It was really fun listening to them, the kids speaking British English and the guide's French accent. "Allez, allez!", guiding them up the rock wall. I would've loved this kind of activity as a kid. Or rather, we climbed as kids too, but I think it would be relatively safe to say, the security could've been optimized... (Mum, dad... we're still alive so no worries.)
I went as high as I could, but my route was blocked by the kids so I tried going to the side instead, crossing over to another route. This though, gave me a moderately clear experience of what rope drag consists of. Wooh, seriously, I had no idea the rope friction could be so obvious. That added to the weight of the rope itself. I was more or less fighting the rope every cm of the way. I realized I had to give up and went down again... or tried to, but the friction almost wouldn't let me. It took a while to get down as the rope simply dragged too much.
Ben went up next. He removed all my quick-draws and continued even higher, this time in a straight path, instead of my friction zigzag. He found this route to be quite easy and didn't even break a sweat, but I was having fun and a little bit of a challenge and needed to think on some moves.
When he came down I went up again and continued one step higher. At that point the wall was vertical and had some hand holds that required a bit more strength than I could muster so I came down again. Ben ended the climbing session by going all the way up, this time bringing another rope, in order to be able to rappel back down. I was standing on the ground and wondering about why it took him so long to get back down. When he finally came back it turned out he had forgotten to bring his ATC and instead went with an old fashioned panic solution using a prusik and a carabiner break method.
Afterwards we decided to go check another wall out, but it was getting late and the evening clouds were descending down the mountain side. Instead we headed into town for a coffee, more people watching and then back to the hostel for dinner and a movie.
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