The Frendo Spur

The Frendo Spur from our bivy

When Cam, Staples and I arrived in Chamonix the weather was pretty unstable, so we spent a few days sport climbing and drinking whiskey, waiting for a good window to get on something big. We decided to have a go at the Frendo Spur of the north face of the Aiguille du Midi, a 1200m rock and ice route that we could climb in 2 days with a bivy near the top if we had to. It would be an insane thing for Staples to do as his first ever alpine route, but the forecast was good and we just couldn't resist it.

Just like a hut, only cold

So the evening before we got the bin up to the Plan D'l Aiguille and hiked up to the bottom of the face. We bivied on top of a flat boulder and spent a fun evening eating cold pasta and getting drizzled on. I slept fitfully, getting colder and colder as the night went on. Eventually, 4am came round, and we munched on some Cliff Bars and got going. A short trudge up a snowfield led us onto the spur, via an easy slanting ramp system. Soon the climbing got harder, maybe UK Severe standard, but we carried on moving together in big boots to save time. None of us wanted another freezing bivy on the mountain if we could do the whole route in a day.

Typical climbing on the spur

 

Lovely lovely choss

 

The first crux was a grovelly overhanging crack that I aided up as quick as possible. The plan was to play to our strengths, with me leading all the rock, and Cam leading the steep ice pitches at the top. Once established on the crest of the spur things were pretty steady, easy scrambling. Some awesome exposed shuffling on a proper alpine ridge led to the second crux, a tricky corner system. Off I led, finding things OK until a stupid move saw me wedged in a chimney with all my weight on my balls, screaming my tits off in agony. After scraping my way out, minus most of my sack, I hauled myself up on fixed gear to a belay.

Awesome exposure on the crest

 

Crossing the col before the second crux pitch

 

From here the climbing got really sustained. Never super hard, but it was constantly stressful smearing on small edges in mountain boots. We followed a shallow corner system, maybe HS in places, to another ledge below the final rock crux. It was basically an overhang formed by a fallen block and I aided the whole thing with a bit of a struggle. Cam and Staples took a far more sensible alternative route to the left, and finally we were at the top of the rock section.

Turd ledge below the snow arete

 

We had originally planned to bivy here but we were much earlier than expected and didn't fancy hanging around for hours and hours waiting for the next morning. So we carried on. Which was probably a good thing considering the whole ledge was strewn with turds and stank like an open sewer.

Moving together around the rognon

 

My job done, Cam took over the lead and we plodded up the easy but exposed snow arete towards a rock rognon. The angle steepened gradually to 55 degrees or so, but the snow was firm and well stepped-out, so we kept on moving together.

One of the steeper pitches just below the top

Finally the angle kicked up again, and Cam did a great job leading the last steep ice pitches, probably Scottish III or so. It took the odd screw in places and made for an awesome finish to the route. A last wallow up unconsolidated snow and we were on top.

On the Midi plateau

 

Job done!