'No Siesta' On The Grandes Jorasses

‘Why not?’ Christophe Dumarest seemed to agree with my idea of climbing No Siesta on the Grandes Jorasses. It would be our first route together, but we both had confidence in each other’s abilities and were drawn to the mountain’s North Face (in my opinion, one of the biggest and best faces in the Alps). It’s known for being hard and committing...

No Siesta, first climbed in 1986 by Jan Porvaznik and Stan Glejdura using some aid, is now a mixed challenge which gives us an opportunity to test our free climbing skills. The route takes an ingenious and demanding line through one of the great walls of the Alps, the north face of the Grandes Jorasses. Climbing such a line in 1986, with the techniques and gear used 17 years ago, was truly outstanding.

But for me the first crux was the approach, as a Brit, my skiing ability isn’t the best! In icy January temperatures we skied down from the Aiguille du Midi in our climbing boots... I zig-zagged carefully down the slope, possibly setting a new record for the most number of turns!  Christophe seemed far happier, flicking powder snow into the air and saying, ‘pas mal, non?’ I felt intimidated but also psyched as we skinned towards the mighty north face.

We started climbing and immediately made good progress up ice runnels and placage (ice stuck to the rock in couloirs or blobs). I was pleased to find squeaky neve and ‘first time’ placements, but not always. Nowadays the mountains are often without ice (‘dry’), and we often have to accept this new normality. It reminded me of a fantastic route I climbed last winter with Matt Glenn: Vol du Dragon on the north face of Les Droites, we made the first free ascent/second ascent, and had an excellent adventure on high-quality granite with tough climbing.

Overcoming steep sections of dry tooling on No Siesta (which once would have been aid climbing), Christophe and I reached Pitch 12 as the sun set around 5.15pm. ‘Climbing in January is real, no?’ I agreed....  Huge plumes of spindrift trailed from the summit, glowing gold in the last light, but thankfully we were sheltered in our little string hammocks. These transformed rocky, sitting platforms into (relatively) comfortable beds. 'Ça va?’ I asked Christophe. He seemed content, but there wouldn’t be time for siestas…

The next day we climbed through the meat of the route, intricately threading through the steep wall. I was impressed by the route-finding, which often went left or right. I took a short pendulum to get back on track, then enjoyed overhanging sections where I could slot my NOMICs into cracks and plug in cams. One of the cruxes was actually a slab, which required very delicate moves and complete concentration on our mono points. Christophe and I encouraged each other on, shouting ‘allez!’ We decided to bivy a few pitches below the summit, smiling because we had climbed the hardest sections.

We wriggled out of our hammocks again and took the final pitches to the summit, taking a short break in the sunshine. Christophe gave me a ‘pain au chocolat’ at the Refuge Du Boccalate part-way through our descent; this generosity kept me going until we stumbled into an Italian village in Val Ferret.... Down at last!