An adventurous day climbing a route called 'Voie Rodrigue (6a+ 300m), a 10 pitch rock climb up to the summit of Pointe de Sosay! Due to the heat, this looked to be a good choice due to it being mostly north facing, so in the cool shade for most of the day.
It was a good job that I checked with our map before trusting google to direct us to the starting point. It's number one route choice would have had us driving across this high altitude plateau on dirt tracks!
As it happened, the other alternative was almost as exciting and involved numerous steep switchbacks right up from the valley floor! It was gripping stuff - only slightly less gripping than the actually rock climbing - but thankfully it was (mostly) tarmacked and being relatively early in the morning, we only met one other car on the way up. Still, we were both glad to finally reach the parking area!
The walk in to the base of the climb was idyllic, with perfect temperature and just the sound of tinkling cow bells in the quiet of the morning as we traversed the hillside past a few old farm chalets.
A French team were just in front of us, which (for once), was actually quite helpful as locating the start of the climb, involved disappearing into the wooded area at the base of the mountain. With their rope already up the first pitch, we had a good marker to head for. Later on, we caught them up and they very generously let us overtake.
The climbing felt super adventurous, with long pitches and us placing a few extra bits of gear between the sometimes quite spaced bolts. Some of the pitches were a bit harder than we'd normally opt for on a multi-pitch climb and at times, we had to haul on the odd quickdraw to aid safe upward progress! All of the pitches had good bolt belays and usually a good sized ledge to hang around on. This is the view looking down one of the easier pitches (I was too busy hanging on to take photos on the harder ones!).
Higher up, we encountered an un-usual obstacle - a semi-fallen tree was blocking the way! Thankfully, we had some gear with us to protect the way around it.
We'd started climbing at around 09:30 and around 14:00, Clare led the final difficult pitch which led off the north face and into the full force of the summer sunshine. The last few moves were made even harder by having the sun in our eyes! Layer of clothes had to be quickly removed due to the sudden rise in temperature.
One final scramble along the easier ridge got us to the summit shortly after arriving into the sunny side.
It was a great feeling to be on top, in the sun and with all the difficulties behind us! Although I was pretty sure we'd be able to get to the top, it wasn't given, so there was a lot of psychological tension released as we guzzled water under the summit cross and took in the incredible surrounding views.
Happiness and relief on the summit!
Behind us, we could see a few people on the higher peak of La Jallouvre and the impressive ridge traverse that leads up towards it.
Just in the middle left of the photo, we could see the car far below us.
We could have stayed up there for ages, but the heat was crippling! We had to get down and into the shade again!
We dropped down on foot to the south side of the peak and then headed west to join a footpath that took us back to the bags that we'd left at the foot of the climb.
As we walked back towards the car, the face was fully lit up in the afternoon sunshine. On the drive down, we did meet a couple of ascending cars, but luckily only on corners, where there was just enough room to squeeze by. Rather than stop at a valley cafe, we kept going and enjoyed a celebratory fruit smoothie back at the pad feeling deliriously tired and extatically happy.
Pointe de Sosay Climb:
- Voie Rodrigue, 6a+* 300m (5b, 5a, 5c+, 5a, 6a+, 4c, 4c, 6a, 5c, 3a)
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