Via RoMa, new climb on Grandes Jorasses

"Nothing happens by chance, everything happens for a reason." That’s what was on my mind as Roma and I got on the Freboudze glacier in early summer 2016. We were looking at the east face of the Grandes Jorasses and we already imagined ourselves climbing there. I said to my friend: "It’s not by chance that we have come here, not by chance for sure."

The idea to climb this face was like an obsession. It was really remote and wild, so untypical for this region of the Alps. Though there are a number of routes, we tried to find a new line or at least climb something really forgotten just to get some mountain spirit and adventure.

The left side of the wall, just next to the big dihedral, hasn't been particularly popular with climbers. So we started studying it. Eventually we managed to find something that didn’t seem real but... the left flank of the dihedral is quite wide, about 80m, and up it goes a line of cracks and corners. It didn’t seem to be true because it was such obvious terrain, still unclimbed, up there, on the Grandes Jorasses, hmm... In any case, we couldn't find any topo of any routes there.

On 26th of August, after a night at Col des Hirondelles, we started. Following easy but dangerous terrain, we climbed below the "Y" couloir. Our first pitches probably coincided with Pilastro Rosso. But quite soon we continued slightly right towards the big dihedral. At the beginning of it there is a good ledge where we set our first bivi and After an hour of construction work we managed to pitch up our tent there. Quite immodestly we called this spot "Russian bivouac" :-)

The next day brought cold wind and some hard pitches. From the "Russian bivouac" to the next bivi we climbed six pitches of 5c/6a A2 with difficulty spread equitably along the route, before some easy pitches led along the Tronchey ridge. We stopped below the last tower of the Tronchey ridge. We had time to climb it but were not sure how long the last part of the ridge is. The weather was changing and a risk of spending a night on the ridge in a storm was too high. At least there was a good ledge for our tent.

At around midday the next day we stood on the top of Pointe Walker. Clouds were shrouding the summit. No nice views, no nice pictures, we were tired, but a sense of belonging to this mountain made us happy.

After a while I was able to contact Luca Signorelli who knows this region well. I hoped to get some information about the line where we had climbed. Luca assured us that at least the upper part of our route between the "Russian bivouac" and the Tronchey ridge was an independent line. It's incredible we were lucky to set a new line on the Grandes Jorasses!

by Maxim Foygel

VIA ROMA
Grandes Jorasses Pointe Walker (4208m)
Climbers: Maxim Foygel and Roman Gorodischenskiy (Russia)
Date: 26.-28.08.2016
Grade: ED 1350m 6a A2
Pitches:
R0-R1 ~300m snow/ice/loose rocks or mixed 50°
R1-R2 50m IV-5a
R2-R3 50m III-IV
R3-R4 45m III-IV A1
R4-R5 45m IV
R5-R6 45m IV-5a
R6-R7 35m 5a
R7-R8 45m 5b-6a A2
R8-R9 30m 5c
R9-R10 35m 5c-6a A2
R10-R11 40m 5b-5c
R11-R12 30m 5a A2
R12-R13 45m IV A2
R13-R14 100m III-IV
R14-R15 45m IV-5c
R15-R16 35m 5a
R16-R17 25m III
R17-R18 300m II-III loose rocks along ridge
R18-R19 50m snow ridge