Foto: Falt
Climber: Babanov
Finally some real climbing on some real mountains. Its hard to make plans when you are off to alpine routs as conditions are hard to predict and ambitions and goals easy get spoiled by storms. So lets all pay tribute to the great adventurers of the Himalayas. Chamonix this weekend was not showing it self off from the best side and it was only me and Valery plus a bunch of tourist from Japan who wanted to go up to Midi. It was pretty cold and stormy but a great day on the hill. And my climbing partner is a true super star so it was no effort.
This is just a few of Babanovs achivments:
2008 Broad peak new route : 3000m, VI, WI 5, M6, 90 °, G1 General description of the new route: 2300 m, VI, WI 4, M5, 80°. 2007 Mt. Jannu (7710m) Kumbhakarna, The West Pillar (3000m/VI, WI+4, 80 degrees, M5)Valery Babanov & Sergey Kofanov, Alpine-style First ascent. Nuptse East, South-east pillar, Nepal first accent. Babanov is climbing hard NEW routes on high altitude and that is a few select groupe who manage that. Most people are happy to summit a 8000 meter peak. Babanov wants the same only with out O2 or fixed ropes and via new routs in pure alpine style.
Our plan to do one of the harder routes on Tacule was spoiled by lack of visibility and high winds. No one else was up and no one was skiing down on Valle Blanc. It nice to be treated to onliness in Chamonix in February a true luxury experience. We where Abseiling off the bridge and down to the Profit route on the NW Face of Midi. We did a slight new variation on the start and found some nice dry parts as well as some good Ice. A short and not to hard rout but great fun in "iffy" conditions and much better than hanging out in the wally.
Well as you understand it was a nice day and some future plans where made lets just hope we have better conditions in the Alps so some hard routes can be done and I can see some true action.
