SAMAYA x KILIAN MONI

 

 

The Pilier des Séracs on the north face of Ailefroide is very sparsely documented and is no longer even included in the most recent guidebooks. This did not stop Kilian Moni and Maxime Bertrand from launching an assault on this legendary Ecrins north face. For Samaya, Kilian looks back at this outing, where the journey was filled with pitfalls.

 

"On July 16, 2023, we set off for the Pilier des Séracs on the north face of Ailefroide, in the heart of the Ecrins. It is a route that was opened in 1981. It is quite committing because you have to skirt around the Glacier Rond, a collection of hanging glaciers that send down cold air and make it feel like they threaten to collapse on your head at any moment.

 

This 900-meter route, which exits at the summit of Pointe Fourastier, is essentially divided into two. The first part is the Pilier des Séracs, spanning 500 meters in height, rated TD+ with 5+ climbing over about a dozen pitches. We had a very rough topo. We knew more or less where a belay might be and where we could potentially pass. We were setting off a bit into the unknown. According to the hut warden, it had only been repeated twice in the last 15 years.

 

We started from the Pré de Madame Carle in the Ecrins, to go up the entire Glacier Noir valley and the glacier itself to the very end. We set up a super cozy bivouac on the glacier facing the route, which we were able to observe and decipher all evening.

 

We got up at 3 a.m. the next day. The cool thing is that there was a lot of snow this year, which allowed us to get directly onto the rock from the glacier. We reached the first belay just as the sun was starting to poke its nose out. This face gets the sun in the morning for about thirty minutes, despite being a north face.

 

Rocks and ice chunks started falling in all directions. Fortunately, the hyper-steep pillar protected us: everything fell over us. It was still terrifying, and we hurried to link this second pitch.

 

Arriving at the third pitch, rated 5+, we imagined it would be 5c and that it would flow. Foresighted, we still brought out our climbing shoes and chalk, kept nice and warm in the Samaya CHALK_002, adding a splash of color to this wall. I gave myself a huge scare on the pitch. There is a hyper-compact wall with no cracks and no bolts. In this 50-meter pitch, I only crossed 2 pitons and was only able to place 2 cams, that’s it. You find yourself 15 meters above your piece of gear, you have to commit to the next move, but you don't know where you should go. I went by instinct and ended up stumbling across an old cord with an old piton, with which we managed to set up a belay. In terms of feel, all the 5+ pitches are more like 6b/6c.

 

In the end, we pitched out everything we thought we would do moving together, because the progression was so committing and scary.

 

On the other hand, we had rock that was just too beautiful—hyper-compact—where you enjoy great holds knowing that if you pull, they hold. We progressed like this, finding pitons here and there, realizing that truly no one ventures onto this route.

 

We then engaged in a beautiful dihedral that opened up a magnificent view of the entire glacial valley, before attacking two 5+ pitches of about 30 meters. The memory I have: I’m climbing, I’m climbing, I find no protection, no crack, I climb, I climb, I climb. According to the topo, we were supposed to find belays, but they weren’t there. I kept climbing, until at one point I had to commit to the move. Fortunately, the friends weren't too far, 5 meters below, but you still had to go for it.

 

We lost quite a bit of time compared to what we had planned, almost two hours. But it wasn't a big deal; we eventually exited at the top of the pillar. There was a much less steep section where you skirted a glacier that was very thick—30 meters high and 100 meters wide—lodged in a slope inclined at almost 40 degrees. You were climbing with this monstrous thing next to you and it was just insane. You wondered what planet you were on!

 

Normally, the route skirts this glacier cap and the seracs in the snow. Except that we ended up with a concentration of rock and icefall. We decided to head left into rotten rock where we ended up soloing on a rope for 450 meters. Nothing stayed in your hands, it wasn't better for your feet, and we couldn't place protection. The rope was just psychological.

 

We managed to find zones where the rock was a little better, just so we would feel better psychologically. Little by little, we pulled ourselves to the top of the north face.

 

Then we did the last two pitches; we had to commit. We had 8 hours of climbing behind us, we were very tired, and we only had one desire: to get out for good.

 

We finally arrived at the top, absolutely thrilled. We saw that the time had really slipped away, so we quickly started the descent via a rappel line we had spotted. We didn't get the rope stuck, or anything; it was perfect.

 

On the descent, we were supposed to hit a first glacier, then a second, and skirt around cliffs. We hadn't scouted this section; I had gone there four years ago, so I remembered it and it seemed quite obvious.

 

And in fact, not at all. I didn't recognize anything. We got lost, we went in circles, we went too low to the left. We had to climb back up quite a bit to pick up the normal route, which made us lose almost another hour and a half. We were discouraged. Fortunately, there were some chamois nearby who were there to cheer us up.

 

We found the classic route again, but we couldn't see the tracks anymore. According to my memory, we had to go through a couloir without pulling to the right. We could see faint tracks heading right, but the couloir looked good, so we decided to go down that way. When I had done it, it was full of snow and ice, but since it was summer, there was none of that left. There was only rotten rock that took us a huge amount of time to downclimb.

 

Upon arriving at the hut at 7 p.m., we learned that there was a summer trail that bypassed this tricky section and saved a good hour and a half. We blamed ourselves so much for not having checked the topo beforehand. We were thirsty and completely wiped out, so we stopped to share a good beer and a bit to eat with the hut warden, Sophie, before taking the path home for 7 kilometers and 1400 meters of descent.

 

It was a great adventure where everything came together: it’s one of the three most beautiful north faces in the Écrins, which is almost never climbed, and it’s 900 meters high where you have to commit on magnificent pitches, with beautiful dihedrals and great cracks. Well, the upper part is a bit sketchy, it’s quite rotten, but for everything else, it was really top-notch!"