The three French mountaineers came to the end of the Walker Pointe Monday, after five days and four nights of ascent. An unprecedented winter performance, thirty-seven years after the opening of the track by Patrick Gabarrou and Hervé Bouvard.
by Nicolas Lepeltier
New feat in the Mont-Blanc massif. Monday, February 13, around 1:30 p.m., after five days and four nights of ascent, the trio of French mountaineers Charles Dubouloz (33), Symon Welfringer (29) and Clovis Paulin (26) defeated the directissime From Pointe Walker, in the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, one of the three legendary peaks of the Alps with the Tervin and the Eiger.
Very technical, the 1,200 -meter way, reputed to be among the most difficult of the jorasses, had been opened in June 1986 by Patrick Gabarrou and Hervé Bouvard, but had never been repeated since, and never made in winter. It is therefore a new first for Dubouloz, who had made himself known to the general public and had amazed the world of mountaineering a year ago by carrying out the first solo and winter ascent of the Rolling Stones Way, always In the north face of the big jorasses, “his second house,” said the Haut-Savoyard, joined by phone on Tuesday.
The trio had left Thursday, February 9, at the dawn of Chamonix to attack this guideline, that is, as its name suggests, the most direct path to the summit, without bypassing the difficulties following the lines fracture as it is used in mountaineering.
By temperatures of – 15 ° C (up to – 30 ° C felt on the night of February 10), Dubouloz, Welfringer and Paulin have erased a large part of the line in simple climbing slippers and with hands naked. Equipped with a few instructions “succinct” on paper, established thirty-seven years ago by the Gabarrou-Bouvard duo, the three men doubted a lot on the route to follow.
“New page in the alinniac book”
Charles Dubouloz notably remembers a “very confusing” moment in the middle of the ascent, when he and his rope companions found themselves at the base of a 150 -meter pouring wall. “There was not really a logical line, recalls the Haut-Savoyard. The bivouacs were not obvious to find, most of the time, these were simple snow benches”, binding the three men to sleeping sit in the icy and austere night from one north in winter.
But once at the top (4 208 meters), Charles Dubouloz, Symon Welfringer and Clovis Paulin could exult: their performance, which has become rare today in the Mont-Blanc massif, is “a new page that is written In the big book of mountaineering “, describes, for MO12345lemonde, Patrick Gabarrou, present Thursday alongside the three men when they left.
“It is a lot of happiness”, says Dubouloz, who emphasizes that making this ascent with “friends in everyday life, beyond being Cordée companions”, adds an additional emotion to the adventure. “It is the dream of three kids to do something beautiful together that has just been realized. And it is true that this line is dreaming,” says Gabarrou enthusiastic, who initiated the young aspirant guide Clovis Paulin in the mountains .
