West Gully of the Col des Petite Jorasses, Chamonix
- Imogen Potts
- 19 hours ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
With the Easter long weekend approaching and a perfect weather window, Steve and I were excited to be heading into the mountains. With the good conditions, we wanted to avoid the crowds so we decided to go slightly further afield to Petite Jorasses.
Friday morning, Steve arrived from Zurich and met me at my apartment. I’d spent the past week in bed sick and he reassured me there was no pressure. There was, but it was all self-imposed and fuelled by perhaps a detrimental amount of psych. We made a mandatory pit stop at a bakery and headed to the train station.
The novelty of the infrastructure in Chamonix has not yet worn off. We hopped on the Montevers train, took our sweet time to stare at the west face of the Dru and debated about when conditions would be in for American Direct. The answer seemed to be to ask a crystal ball. Off the train, onto the gondola and we were on the Mer De Glace.
From the gondola, it took us a bit under 3 hours to get to Lescheaux Hut on skis. As we approached, we could see the Petite Jorasse- it’s rather large and I was finding the name somewhat comical. Then the Grand Jorasse came into view and I started to understand why the Petite Jorasse got its name. We stashed some gear at the base of the ladders and ascended to the hut. With magnificent views of the north face of the Grand Jorasse and only one other party there that night, we were happy.
We woke up at 3.45am, aiming for a 4.30am departure. I had slept for about an hour, still not feeling all that well. Steve kindly reminded me that there was no pressure or expectation to go. Despite feeling reasonably terrible and decidedly stubborn, I shoved down as much food as I could tolerate and we descended the ladders. From the hut, we estimated 2 hours to approach to the base of the route. We had been loosely aiming for Goulette Beaumont, but as we got there at first light it became evident it was not in the best condition- not much ice and consistently thin. A few of the gullies higher up the col looked to be in better condition so we kept heading uphill to the West Gully of the Col des Petite Jorasses.
From the Lescheaux Hut, it ended up being about 3 hours and 1000m of vertical gain to get to the base of the route. The route itself was in thin, but climbable condition. The ice was brittle and progress proved to be slower than anticipated.
For gear, we brought a single rack .3-2, a small set of wires, 10 draws, 10 screws, 2x 60m half ropes, two pitons, plenty of cord and a knife. In hindsight, we would change to 8 screws (a few red stubbies would be very useful) and ~3-4 pitons. As these routes don’t see much traffic, the anchors were in poor condition. We replaced the cord on the anchors and removed a lot of excess tat on the abseil descent. The routes are west-facing and our route came into the sun at about 2pm, but the routes further to climbers' right (Goulette Beaumont, In Memoriam) were in the shade until about 3.30pm, keeping in mind we were there at the start of April.
Although the routes weren't in perfect condition, they are well worth the journey for the sense of remoteness and lack of crowds. Due to there being quite a selection of gullies that form ice, it seems the best approach would be just to go and see which line looks to be in the best condition as they are all quite close together.
Despite being a terrible skier, the efficiency is not lost on me. Steve, forever patient, waited for me while I initiated some survival ski techniques (definitely not necessary) to get down the mildly angled slopes that filled me with fear. Give me run out trad climbing over learning to ski with a heavy bag and pin bindings any day. Rewarded with some nicer snow lower down, it only took us half an hour to get back to the base of the ladders leading up to the hut. Feeling decidedly sick, we emptied our bags and headed back up the ladders to collect our gear and hustled down the glacier to make the last train back to town.
Big thanks to Steve for his patience and understanding. Being able to go into the mountains with someone with such experience and knowledge is invaluable and gives me a lot of gratitude to be a part of the team.
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