Flammes de Pierre

Flamme de Pierre - Three routes in a blow
Away from the crowds, well beyond the "merde du Glace" is a well keept secret on solid red granite, the flames of rocks, Flamme de pierre
Hiding under the Charpoua glacier but still only a 1 1/2h walk from Montanvers. The issue is, there is no available topos!
So a ree-found enclosure from Vertical turned out to be a winner, giving a lot of ideas of great climbing and the sac was promptly packed for a day in the mountains
And, as the Compagnie du mont Blanc serves us with early bird departures we was happily en route with the 08:00 train for Montanvers, togheter with a load of "tourists" and a few other climbers.

Aim for the white dot on the other side of Merde de glace

The day starts already with warming up on the marathon ladders getting down to the "merde" and then...climbing up on the other side after crossing the glacier moraine, the almost overhanging ladders which are most spectacular. A huge Merci to the people putting them up!

Ladders en masse!

As the topo issue is a big deal we soon run into some lost climbers who are desperate to find their thought of line of the day, the only other team we saw that day on the other hand.
And after a bit of look seeing they found their route in the topo, got some pictures and we headed off again, with our new friends behind us. Since they probably still wasn't sure of where to go they decided to stick on our backs and climbing behind.
A warm, close to hot approach later we stood at the base of our first goal, "la Reprise" 7a, 300m

Rough climbing on "la Reprise" 7a

As the first pitch is a bit of sad story we scrambled around it and started up the nice looking dihedral and crack system

Flame in flames!

Quite soon I found a non solid anchour, thought the pitch was very short, but backed up with an extra nut I aimed for a belay. Thinking that then we at least would be climbing the both of us.
Next pitch had a sensitive move past a good bolt and again I had a short pitch since the real belay was an other 20meter up

Anna Backlund following on "du Désir"

Another couple of pitches brought us at the base of P4, a wake up pitch indeed! The earlier 6b pitch had already made me thinking of how this should go and suddenly I was knowing! As in hard!!
But always good secured and never to desperate, just on good rock

All the anchours are on good bolts, just neccecery to put in some new cord here and there to tie them togheter

Perfect crack on "Les Feux de la Rampe" 7a, ED, 340m

And the best news are, now you find some pictures and topo over the Flames!

Anna rappelling down the "du Desir"

Flammes de Pierre
La Reprise 7a, ED sup 300m
Not. Pitch 4, 6c is plutôt sévère!
Head right after the first bolt, do not! aim for the obvious dièdre on the left!
Les Feux de la Rampe 7a, ED, 340m
Great climbing up the diedre pitch!
Les Flammes du désir, 6b, TD, 250m
Nice and soft climbing

Equipment
2*50m rope, set of stoppers, green-red Aliens, 0.5-3.0 Camalots (double of mid size cams/Aliens)
8QD's
Overall, take care on the belay stations, the bolts are getting old!
Consider bringing extra cord to leave on for the rappels, some VERY old slings

For mor topo info send me a mail for a pdf file

//Five things on your perfect rider?
-Single malt from shetland, a cure for loneliness, a cure for anger, a real knife and a true love!

Mountainpassion