Kermesse Folk, Brioche and Haribo

Alison on pitch 3 of Kermesse Folk

Last Monday after doing 'Cris-tal' on the Monts Rouges de Triolet, Alison Culshaw and I walked back to the closed Ref. Dalmazzi. We had access to the winter room, and after a quick search we found a reasonable water source. All we need now is food... We cleared the floor and spilled the rest of our Monday and Tuesdays lunches out. Hmmm, not great - peanuts, oat cakes, dairylea cheese triangles, brioche and some stale croissants - oh, and of course - Haribo. We decided to have an evening meal of - oat cake, cheese triangle, brioche pieces, and peanuts, and a breakfast of old croissants. My packed lunch would be more brioche and Haribo. So basically we went to sleep hungry and feeling a bit sick. Early on Tuesday morning we had to try and stomach a rubbish croissant, which didn't go down well... So we went climbing with a small lunch. We got to the base of Kermesse Folk as it got light and got on with it.

We soon cheered up when we found that the climbing was awesome. On pitch 1 the rock was still cold but there were good moves low down. Pitch 2 included a great steep, juggy hand traverse. We discovered at this point that the climb would be semi trad - the guide book told us to bring some cams, so Alison had 4 camalots. After a couple of weeks on bolts, it took a few minutes to get my trad head back on for the traverse (where are the runout slabs when I need them?) - a perfect steep juggy pitch. Pitch 3 - a steep wall, with some perfect trad cracks to the belay - my fav pitch of the week, if not month!

Alison eyeing up her next lead, about a quarter of the way up the climb

We continued even though we both felt strangely sick. We were eyeing up the clouds, for signs of the forecast storm - we didn't really want to be abseiling off 19 pitches at 3200m in a storm.

Alison cruising

Alison checking the topo - where does the next pitch go?

Spot Alison

On the way down at the end of the day

After a day of eating more brioche and haribo, feeling sick most of the time, it was good to be abseiling off after a great climb, with mostly awesome pitches on a great face. We were glad to get down to an earlier belay where we had left our shoes - my toes were very grateful for a rest, and so we eventually headed back to Chamonix as the rain started. I managed to eat an entire Poco Loco large special for the first time in my life, happy to see the back of the haribo! These last 2 days taught me how far you can stretch 2 packed lunches.

On Wednesday morning in heavy rain, after fighting the Geneva rush hour, I headed back to Fort William - to be greeted by more rain - it's good to be home (the rain is the same, but the rush hour is a bit different in the Highlands!).