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Outside Magazine December 2003

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The Hard Way
Fire and Ice (cont.)

FOLLOWING A SNUG NIGHT in the Eccles Hut, John and I scampered up the slag heap of steep talus to a knobby pinnacle called Punta Eccles. The entire southeastern side of Mont Blanc, in all its intimidating splendor, rose before us. To the left, the Brouillard Face; to the right, the Fréney Face; and the two separated by the jagged Innominata Ridge.

The top of Mount Blanc seemed to have been hit with a mortar. Stones came rumbling down the face—one the size of a van, bouncing like a ball.

Rivers of stone were cascading down the Brouillard Face, but the Fréney Face appeared pacific. Then the sun pulled itself above the morning haze and, minutes later, rockslides began ricocheting down between the Fréney's four main rock pillars. The top of Mont Blanc seemed to have been hit with a mortar. Stones came rumbling down the face—one the size of a van, bouncing like a rubber ball.

The roar diminished. "Guess that clinches that," John said.

As the hut keeper had predicted, fusillades of rockfall made climbing the Fréney Face out of the question. Desperate, we began glassing the Innominata Ridge, directly above us, our eyes drawn to a red granite pillar split by a gorgeous dihedral. "It's never been climbed!" I enthused. This I knew from a visit to the Office de Haute Montagne, in Chamonix, a constantly updated library of Mont Blanc climbing routes.

"Might be because of that ten-foot icicle dangling from the first overhang," John replied. Two hours later we were at the base of the pillar.

"I wouldn't waste time when you're directly below the icicle," John remarked. It was a delicate way of saying that if it broke off at the wrong time, you might be cleaved in two.

After 60 feet, I was below the icicle, fist-jamming in the overhang right beside it, when the back of my shoulder accidentally glanced against the monster tooth and the whole thing let loose.

Miraculously, all the head-crushing junk missed John.

"Good work!" he bellowed.

In less than two hours we were standing atop the 200-foot pillar, talking big about our new route.

It was late, 4:30 p.m. There were only two shorter pillars above us, and our first ascent of the Super Directissima —as we had modestly named it—would be complete. But heavy clouds and buffeting winds were rolling in; the foretold winter weather was arriving right on schedule. If we continued, we'd have to rappel down—or, worse, bivy high—in the snowstorm.

John had a different idea: "We leave most of our rock gear up here, snow blows through, then we come back up and knock this baby out."

It seemed to make perfect sense, so we bailed. All the way back down to the Eccles Hut.

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