Escapades of a Gumby—2019 in the European Alps
- Anthony
- Apr 27
- 12 min read
Updated: May 1
The worst financial decision I made as a young lad wasn't buying a fancy car, getting a credit card, or putting it all on black at the Cass; No, it was seeing the European Alps for the first time, which made me want to return time and time again. A photo doesn't do justice to the architecture of jagged peaks. Sure, photos are amazing: climbers on outrageous mountain faces—perfect, golden granite with a glaciated backdrop. But knowing that I had been not far from there, and the thought that maybe I could be up on that face too? made it a little more alluring. The photos were no longer of some far-away place that I would never visit. In 2019, I realised it could be more than just a dream; I knew where to go, what to do, and how to make it happen. I was now a climber, and Europe was where I wanted to climb.
Jump ahead:
I already knew the secret to making this stuff happen: buy the ticket. Once you have the ticket, the rest will fall into place. Having a year and a half of climbing experience, I had a basis to plan my own trip. However, in the small community of climbers I knew, I didn't have any committed partners. No matter—I had a way to justify buying the ticket. Being a trail runner, I signed up for the Eiger Ultra Trail running race in Switzerland. You don't need a partner to enter a running race. Don't get me wrong—I wanted to do the race. Only a masochist would sign up for a 101km running race through the mountains without a degree of intrinsic motivation. But it was also a convenient reason to commit to heading back—without a solid plan.
No solid plan, true. But I had many objectives. Dent de Géant, the Eiger, the Mönch, Jungfrau and Mont Blanc all had an allure to their names I could not shake. And the granite. Ohh, the golden granite. Photos of climbers on the sweeping slabs of sun-soaked rock from above the glacier sparked my intrigue. The tenuous nature of their position on steep, slick granite above the void—it was not a place that many humans go. There was a curiosity within me—an itch to see whether I could also go and exist in that vertical sea of rock in the thin alpine air. My guidebook was my constant companion—the page of the Rebuffat-Bacquet route on the Aiguille du Midi flattened due to frequent opening. Ten pitches of glorious granite, in the footsteps of one of the most famous alpine climbers of all time, on an inspiring wall. This is what I wanted to do.
Acclimatizing in Chamonix, France
I got off the bus outside the church in the small village of Les Praz on the outskirts of Chamonix. Here I found the apartment that Michael, Daniel, Carla and Lucas were staying. I had reached out to the Australian and New Zealand climbing community on Facebook and had some Australians respond and let me join in their plans for the tail end of their trip. This provided some structure for my first two weeks in Europe.
My first days in Chamonix were all about acclimatising. We climbed the Frison-Roche on the Brevont and then the Arête de la Table on Aiguille du Tour. I felt worse and worse as we passed 3500m elevation for the first time as my body adjusted to the thin air.
After Aiguille du Tour, we wanted to go higher, and climb something more difficult. We tossed up between visiting either the modern, granite playground of the Envers des Aiguilles, or the stomping ground of alpine legends at the Aiguille du Midi. My eyes lit up at the thought of heading up there and seeing the South Face of the Midi that had captured my imagination—even if it was only for a look. So it was settled—we would head to the Cosmiques hut at the base of the Midi, stay the night, and then climb one of the less committing—but still exceptional quality—climbs on the Eperon des Cosmiques: The Rebuffat-Pierre.
On the morning of our climb, we approached from the South, and the wall was illuminated and shimmering in the early morning light. The granite lived up to expectations. The climbing was enjoyable and we soon came to the top of the wall and joined the wildly popular Cosmiques Arete climbing route, one of the most heavily trafficked climbs in Chamonix. We got caught up in the traffic, but the stress levels were low because the sun was shining, and the moderate climbing remaining did not phase us.
After this phenomenal climb, we packed our bags and left Chamonix. Our next stop would be the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, on the hunt for some snowy 4000m giants.
Switzerland—the Bernese Oberland
There is a network of valleys we travelled through in Switzerland whose beauty seemed to defy belief. I have read that one of them, Lauterbrunnen, even inspired JRR Tolkien's Rivendell. Towering cliffs surrounded the valley of green meadows with traditional wooden Swiss huts dotted throughout that seem to have been plucked from a fairytale. The horizon was dominated by three huge mountains: The Eiger, the Mönch, and Jungfrau. I knew before coming here that a classic mountaineering objective—the Berner Oberland Trilogy—is to get to the top of all three of these peaks, and even better if done in a single push. That was our plan, but I had learnt that things don't always go to plan in the mountains...
We had a few nights booked at the Mönchsjoch hut at the base of the Mönch, which was our first objective. Our plan was to climb the South-West ridge, and descend the normal route on the South-East ridge. At the time, the South-West ridge was plastered in snow and ice.
I saw the snow covering the line of our ascent, and thought it will be fine, the grade isn't that difficult. We started climbing as the first soft light was cresting the horizon. I was using my ice axe and crampons on the snow-covered rock. For each handhold, I would first scrape away the snow with my axe, then grab the hold. It felt like the real deal: like I was climbing a real mountain—hard enough that it made me huff and puff to overcome short vertical steps. To start with, I was loving this—the challenge. The morning went on and more of this terrain came.
When you look up at a mountain or a wall from the ground, you have the perspective of the whole climbing route. But when you are up there on the wall, your perspective is more limited. That morning on the Mönch, I thought we were approaching the top of a major gully system, which would mean we were making good progress and approaching the halfway point of the ascent. As we got higher, I spotted this gully as our perspective changed: It was still a long way in front of us. I had mistaken a smaller gully below for this major one, and given myself a false sense of progression. I suddenly had an uneasy feeling inside, like my body knew that the situation just got more serious. We had a long way to go, and the sun was well and truly up. Not for a moment did turning around cross my mind—the acknowledgement that we were moving too slow would have been a blow to the ego. Instead, I was spurred on with a sense of urgency. We need to climb faster! We continued upwards, climbing higher alongside the sun.
Soon, our next dilemma became clear: the hot sun climbing higher in the sky had started to melt the snow on our route. What was dry snow and climbable rock soon turned to slick rock with water running over it. The rock quality deteriorated as we climbed higher on the ridge. It became tenuous: I found myself trying to strike a compromise between moving fast and staying safe over increasingly insecure terrain. Eventually, I slipped. I remember seeing nothing but rock flash upward in front of me, like a curtain being drawn up in front of my eyes. I didn't know when I would stop, or even if I would stop. I thought, maybe this is the end. As immediately as it had started, everything became still again. By nothing more than luck, I had come to rest on a ledge, completely unhurt beyond some grazes and ripped pants. I was right at the edge of the ridge, beyond which dropped down to the glacier below. As I came to, I saw the loops of slack rope and the single unweighted piece of gear in the rock, between Michael and myself. Stopping on that ledge was my stroke of luck—anything could have happened if I went over the edge.
After that scare, and acknowledging the danger of our situation, we started pitching out in 60 metre rope lengths, just one of us climbing at a time to provide a higher margin of safety. This method slowed us down even further, as the clouds accumulated in the valley below—a change in the weather was coming.
The final pitch of climbing traversed out and up over the North-West face, before gaining the final summit ridge. A thin veneer of sugar-like snow covered bullet hard ice below. With one ice tool and shaky feet, I trembled my way up through the final section of climbing, before making an anchor and bringing my partner up. On our final slog up the snowy summit ridge, the clouds overtook us and we lost all visibility; the distant sounds of thunder drove us onwards and upwards towards the summit, and to the way down off the mountain. The sounds of thunder and loss of visibility made my anxiety that had been building all day reach a climax. I had never felt so exposed to mother nature as I felt in that moment—being over 4000m in elevation with nothing but air in every direction—not being able to see anything—and not knowing if a stray lightning bolt would smite me down. I had never experienced such intense stress as I did that day.
I learnt some important lessons about mountain conditions on this climb—mainly to stay away if conditions are not right. I managed to survive this one, but it seemed to me that too much luck was involved. This would change the way I approached going into the mountains forever.
Following a rest day, we made an ascent of the normal route of Jungfrau. My anxiety and paranoia lingered from the stress of the previous climb. I thought the mountain was looking for any chance to kill me. We did however have a controlled ascent in good conditions, but the physical and mental strain had taken its toll on me after these two climbs.
The only remaining part of the Berner Oberland Trilogy was the Eiger—the most infamous of the three. It did not even require a conversation—we were too broken to even contemplate having an attempt.
The Eiger Ultra Trail E101
After our escapades in Switzerland, I parted ways with Michael and pitched my tent in Grindelwald where I would stay for the next 3 weeks, in preparation for the Eiger Ultra Trail. In the campground, I met a fellow contender of the 101km race, Jules, who was also a climber. We both had plenty of time to kill with a week remaining before the race. We did some hiking, running and reconnaissance of the course, and when we got bored, we snuck out to Zermatt for a few days to attempt the Zinalrothorn. We didn't make it to the summit (due to the crowds, not the mountain!), but had a remarkable day out in the Valais Alps.
Back in Grindelwald, we were soon at the start line for the race. At 4am, we were off. The course started with a long climb up out of the valley onto the surrounding ridge system—I looked back from the crest of the ridge, the headlights of 600-odd runners zig-zagging down the switchbacks of the mountain trail.
The day was long, and the sun grew hot. There seemed to be always another 600 to 1000 metre climb just around the corner. My legs burned, and maintaining nutrition and hydration was a constant battle. The watch on my wrist marked my progress; both a tool and a hindrance. I could not look at the kilometres: there were too many remaining for it to be of help. Tracking the hours was my yardstick. Keep moving for another hour, then look at the watch again.
The finish line always felt like another world away. The last 400 metre climb from Kleine Scheidegg to the Eigergletscher station at the 85 kilometre mark pushed me to my wits end. Finishing that climb, even still with 15 kilometres to go, felt like the biggest win of all. I knew the last section of the course and had ran it before. I had a renewed burst of energy and knew a sub-19 hour finish would be possible, and made this my sole focus as the sun set and I ran on into the night.
19 hours and 25 seconds after setting off that morning, I crossed the finish line in Grindelwald. It had been a big day out in the hills, and I had dug deep. Afterwards, my cardio system suffered for over a week. Walking up a gentle incline without a pack would be enough to make me huff and puff. I left the campsite in Grindelwald and headed back to Chamonix.
Chamonix Granite
A week later, I felt invigorated and ready to head back out into the mountains. Once again, Facebook helped me with my no climbing partner dilemma—I met up with some other budding alpinists who were keen to get out into the mountains. We settled on the Aiguille Purtscheller South Ridge—six pitches of quality granite took us to the summit. On one of the chimney pitches, my belay device unclipped from my harness and fell into the abyss below—good thing I knew how to rappel with a Munter hitch. Several abseils got us back to the glacier and on our way back to the valley.
The end of my trip was approaching, and I had one last effort in me. The dream of the South Face of the Aiguille du Midi didn't leave me. I wanted to climb the Rebuffat-Bacquet so badly, but it felt too committing, and maybe pushing beyond my limit. I had already done that once on this trip on the Mönch, and I wasn't keen to have another epic. We settled on a plan of a "warm up" on the Guiffra-Monaci on the Eperon des Cosmiques, followed by the Rebuffat-Bacquet, the next day—if we felt up to it. However, the weather wasn't on our side. We had to delay our first climb by a day—every day was critical as I had a flight home to catch.
We caught the lift up from Chamonix on a cloudy morning. We had brought the bare minimum in terms of warm gear as it was going to be a difficult climb for us, and we didn't want to be too weighed down. When we arrived up high, the wind was blowing icicles in my face and the tips of my fingers started to go numb. We took shelter at the lift station for a few hours, hoping for the conditions to improve.
Eventually, we headed down onto the glacier, the visibility barely allowing us to see each other a rope length apart. By the time we got to the base of the Eperon des Cosmiques, the clouds were starting to clear a little, and there was some sun to take the edge off the biting cold, so we started up the first pitch at about noon; incredibly late by alpine climbing standards.
The first pitch was chossy rock with bad gear, but by the second pitch we were on the quality rock and the climbing became first class. The route followed a crack system, with the crack on the fourth pitch being the crux—about 100 metres above the glacier was a 20 metre offwidth crack. The crack was too wide for our largest gear, but there were a few pitons in a seam off to the side. The rusty, thin pegs did not inspire confidence, and flexed an alarming amount when being clipped. The gear available made for a spooky lead, and I resorted to some desperate laybacking at the top. I was relieved, elated and ecstatic when I pulled onto the ledge at the end of the pitch. The sum of everything—the dubious weather, the beautiful golden rock, the exposure in a wild alpine setting, the physicality, the psychological relief of overcoming that offwidth—all cumulated with a state of nirvana.
We soon reached the top of the Eperon des Cosmiques, and joined the Cosmiques Arete route—this time, we had it to ourselves. We started out moving quickly unroped, but still had to rope up for the hardest sections. By the time we got back to the lift station, we had missed the last ride down to the valley by an hour.
Even with facing our dilemma, I recall an overwhelming stoke at the experience of this climb as a whole. That morning it had seemed pretty unlikely we would get any climbing in—most people would have headed to the pub. But showing up and seizing the opportunity had paid off.
Ultimately, this 2019 European trip held many failures for me: I hadn't climbed the route that had captured my imagination, I had been utterly humbled in the Swiss Alps, and I was now being forced to sleep on the floor of a high-altitude toilet block because we couldn't climb fast enough. Yet I was so happy, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
We watched the sun set over the mountains. The alpenglow illuminated the jagged needles of granite, and the snow caught fire before fading to darkness. This is where I belonged. This is where I wanted to keep coming back to.
