Alpine Cowboys - Cocher-Cochon and the Traverse AD,5a

Funny how things turn out. We had a stroke of good luck today, which at first seemed like bad luck. Barney and I had set off to climb the 240m 'Cocher-Cochon' Ridge, which can be linked onto another 190m ridge traverse. However, while nattering on the walk in, we took the wrong path and ended up heading towards the top of the route (which is the start of the traverse). We could already see people queuing at the base of the ridge, so opted to carry on and do the traverse first. This meant that we had the traverse to ourselves (as no one had reached it yet), and could then walk down to the base of the ridge afterwards and climb that, once all the teams had gone! A bit of extra walking, but otherwise, genius! 

The traverse was great fun, climbing up and over huge towers and pinnacles, which then had to be abseiled back down. We'd skimmed the guidebook and knew that there was a tryolean traverse crossing between two of the towers. I had assumed that this was an 'in-situ' cable, but we we arrived on top of the relevant tower, we discovered that we had to rig it ourselves! Some hillarious lasso action took place as you have to throw a rope over a spike on the far tower. 

With a team effort, we got it on our second attempt, fixed it as tight as we could, held our breath and ventured out across the void!

We ropes retrieved, we carried on with numerous more abseils, some of which seemed more safe and solid that others. Some were bolts, others, a collection of rotting tat!

With the ridge traversed and lunch eaten, we decided we still had time to climb the ridge. It was a tricky scramble down to the base, but over soon enough. Then it was back into climb mode as fast as we could. It seemed to go on forever and we had thought that we could escape at half height to head back to the cable car. 

This turned out not to be the case and we had to press on to the top as fast as we could.

The final abseil and subsequent slab were a relief, but not as much as making the last cable car! (it would have been a two hour hike and 1000m vertical height drop if we'd missed it!).

Aiguille Rouge - Brevent:

- Clocher-Clochetons Traverse AD,5a*** (10 pitches + 5 abseils + Tryolean)

- Cocher-Cochon TD,6a (8 pitches)***