SAMAYA x ARTHUR POINDEFERT

 

 

In February 2023, all the conditions were right for Arthur Poindefert and Kilian Moni to realize yet another dream: to climb out of the direct northern couloir of Les Drus, in the Mont-Blanc Massif. In this interview, Arthur tells us about their experience, their feelings and their emotions.

 

"We went down this road because, for me, it was a long-standing project. When I was in high school, I used to see PETZL advertising videos shot in the direct north corridor with Ueli Steck and Matthieu Maynadier. When I saw that, I thought they were crazy and that I'd never go down that road. At the same time, I wondered what it would be like to climb something like that.

 

As the years went by, I climbed more and more mountains and gained more experience. That couloir resurfaced in the back of my mind. I had to see what it was like. The conditions aren't easy to manage, you never really know, it's a bit far away, lost on this direct northern corridor.

 

Last year, I went down to have a look. Some of my friends had been there via the Pierre Alain and sent me photos, and others had tried the week before, without success, but told us it could be done. It was just that there was snow and the conditions were more difficult than usual.

 

We had a beautiful niche and we wanted to give it a try.

 

We set off on a Friday to reach the couloir des poubelles, where we came across some trackers preparing the Trace des Grands. We used their rope and arrived at the bivouac at 1pm. There were a lot of people in the Drus, but we were the only ones on the direct north side.

 

We had a great night, with a crazy sunset. We were warm in the Samaya2.0 and comfortable in the vestibule. We got up at 3 a.m. for a 4 a.m. departure. By 4:30 we were at the dock. The passage was a bit complicated: conditions were special, with inconsistent snow forcing us to make short work of the step that had become too high.

 

We soon found ourselves in difficulties. It took us 1h15 to climb 300 metres. Kilian was the first to set off on the M7 pitch and went on from there. I caught up with him after a nice bouldering step to warm up. Kilian did it at night, just as it was starting to get light as I passed. I then tackled the M5+ / M6, which turned out to be much more technical than expected. The rock was dry, sparse in ice and crumbly, so overall not great.

 

It really is a huge overhanging crack, similar to gravel, which means you have to stay on unstable scales and be extra vigilant when fitting protection.

 

We'd made good progress and Kilian set off on the M7+, a 60-metre pitch. When he got to 5 or 6 meters below the belay, he didn't feel like continuing, as he had no protection left. He set up an intermediate belay, I joined him in the free and went to the real belay.

 

I set off on the next pitch, the M8/M8+ crux. It was an anthology pitch: a 10-meter overhanging ice plug, with a dihedral also overhanging by 30 or 35 meters. I spent a good 40 minutes deciphering the passage. It was a great battle, but well managed and very interesting to climb, because I learned a lot. Even after watching Ueli's videos, I wasn't climbing at all like him in them: back then, they'd had good conditions, allowing them to make real ice tackles.

 

We'd lost a bit of time because the pitches were so long. Kilian finally joined me in the free, managing to complete this difficult pitch. The last 300 meters are supposed to be fairly easy up to the breach. We didn't realize yet that we hadn't reached the end of our tether.

 

We had to pass two more fairly challenging mixed pitches, between M6 and M7, in inconsistent snow not mentioned in the topo. We were supposed to be out around 2pm, but we took 6 more, alternating between mixed terrain with no ice, and unprotectable black ice on shoddy belays. But that's just what bad belays are for!

 

We had friends in the Pierre Alain who we hoped to join us at the summit, which motivated us and enabled us to push on.

 

We finally reached the summit at around 8pm and made our way quietly back down at night to our bivouac. We thought we'd had a problem with our headlamp, which announced that we had one battery bar left, but it held out for all our abseils. We jammed the rope twice, forcing Kilian to climb up a pitch, before finally finding our Samaya2.0 at 1 a.m., in whose hollow we were able to get a good night's rest!

 

I think it's unique in the Massif to see overhanging pitches like these. When you're in it and you're psychologically and physically ready, doing pitches like these is just great, it's great for morale.

 

You're all about commitment and taking risks. They evolve with time and experience.

 

In high school, it seemed completely unattainable. For me, you either had to have a margin for error, or be completely insane to go for it! In the end, this decision making comes naturally when you're climbing, depending on whether you can protect yourself, what you can technically do - leaving aside external risk factors that you can't control.

 

Often, we see performance from the outside, through eye-popping communications that make it difficult to grasp commitment: is it measured, or do we have to do it at all costs? As for me, I don't go into the mountains to take so many risks, but to do voices that make me dream, by being clear with myself about the commitment I'm ready to give.

 

I'm constantly questioning myself, because the more I climb, the higher I get, the better I perform and the greater my level of commitment. It's at times like these that you have to be careful not to become overconfident, that you have to remain humble and reflect after each race on what you did well, what you did badly, what you can do better next time, so that you can return to the mountains with an even more expert eye.

 

Kilian and I had already done our first rehearsal together at the Dent du Géant last year, which went really well. We decided we absolutely had to do it again. I knew I could trust him in mountaineering and mixed climbing. If I had a slack moment, he could take over and go for the key pitches.

 

Photos by Kilian Moni @kilian_moni