Climbing Into the Wild

Kacper, Kasia, Gianluca, Julia, a friend of Gianluca's, and myself went climbing. We drove to a small parking lot near the Hotel du Buet between Argentiere and Vallocine. There is a campground near the parking lot as well, and the hotel looks inviting with a rustic charm. After biking about the Jura all day yesterday my legs were pretty tired, so I almost felt like skipping the climbing and sitting down for a beer fist thing in the morning. Kacper was much in the same predicament having cycled around lake Geneva the day before. So we lamented our foolishness, formed a weak legged climbing team, and packed our gear for the trail. After some discussion with Kacper and Gianluca I decided to leave most of the lunch I braught with me with the cars, except for a few snacks. I should have known better :-)

From the parking lot it is a short walk though rugged country roads through some small buildings. Just follow the markers towards Mount Buet. The road continues to a cafe situated on the side of a cliff with a terrace over a mountain stream at the Cascarde de Berard. The train starts by the cafe following a beautiful valley stream. It takes about 75 minutes of hiking to get to a small cairn marking a trail to Mount Oreb on the right hand side of the path. It is a steep scramble up to the base of the two climbs on Mount Oreb: L'Ete Indien and Into the Wild. While scrambling up the slope to the climb we were greeted by a group of mountain goats. There were already a couple of climbers at the bottom of the climbs, so we queued up. While waiting we snacked on some Nuss Stängli, some stick-like hazelnut cookies I had spied on my previous visit to Klosters and promptly located at the local Coop. They were delicious.

After a short wait we got to start on the climb. Since Kacper is the better climber I started the first pitch since it would lead me to naturally climb the easier pitches. None of the climbs were very hard, though it was still early in the year for the sections where we walked through soil were muddy. Some of the dock was still we also, making it slippery. While the climb itself was clear, there was still a fair bit of snow around the same altitude we were climbing, though it will probably be gone soon. Once we got to the 6th or so pitch we were rewarded with a beautiful view of a glacier across the valley. The beautiful scenery of the mountain valley below giving us some idea of how high we had climbed.

By the time we made to the top we had precious little daylight left to rappel down and hike out. Since Gainluca and his friend were right in front of us we decided to rappel as a group of four: One team setting up the current rappel with one set of ropes, the other one taking the old one down. Second person heading down the next section took the ropes from the previous rappel, so the setup for the next one could get started as quickly as possible. We could have made record time on the way down except that one of our rope sets got stuck, so we had to climb up and retrieve it. After rappelling down we hicked out at a fairly brisk pace, with just enough light left to see by as we got back to the parking lot. We met the Julia and Kasia at the Hotel bar, where they had already established themselves as veteran climbers enjoying beers and the local company. We enjoyed a beer and some snacks before heading back to Geneva. That you to everyone who came out for yet another fantastic day in the mountains!