Every Thursday, in its “off-field” section,
20 Minutes
explores new spaces for expressing sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or in full swing.
This week, we are dedicated to the crazy ascent of the Haute-Savoie mountaineer Charles Dubouloz, from January 13 to 18, on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses (Mont-Blanc).
In coming to the end of the 1,100 m to climb the formidable “Rolling Stones” route, this high mountain guide experienced a form of “achievement” that moved beyond the world of mountaineering.
A week after signing the first solo winter ascent in history in the "Rolling Stones" part, on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, Charles Dubouloz was in the middle of a "little quiet recovery" when he replied to
20 Minutes,
Tuesday . Namely a hike with 1,000 m of elevation gain, from his residence in Talloires (Haute-Savoie), in order to fly over Lake Annecy in a paraglider.
To measure the value of his feat completed on January 18, the only solo feat of this magnitude for twenty years in the heart of the Mont-Blanc massif, just consult Kilian Jornet's Instagram post.
“Charles is one of the best mountaineers in the world, an enormous artist!
“, underlines the “ultra-terrestrial” Spanish, absolute star of the mountain and admirer of this 32-year-old French mountaineer, whom he faced as a teenager during the biggest ski touring competitions.
Images from a drone, a rarity in mountaineering
High mountain guide and former editor-in-chief of
Vertical
magazine (from 2002 to 2015), Claude Gardien is surprised by this unusual media enthusiasm for the discipline for a week: "I can't explain it to myself, especially since the news is loaded.
But it's a great story, with some great images taken from a drone, which is rare in mountaineering.
And then the inclusion of mountaineering in the UNESCO heritage, two years ago, may have marked a turning point to talk about its good sides, and not just its dark side, with its disappearances.
»
Three months after the death in Nepal of Louis Pachoud, Gabriel Miloche and Thomas Arfi, “the turn taken by this ascent is incredible”, thus appreciates Charles Dubouloz.
On the afternoon of January 13, he tackled a 1,100 m climb to reach the summit located at an altitude of 4,208 m, on a “rolling stone” route opened in the summer of 1979 by four Slovaks.
"It's hard to compare such huge climbs"
Is his historic performance in six days and five nights - because it combines solo and winter period - the equivalent of that of another French mountaineer, Lionel Daudet, who completed the Eldorado part of the Grandes Jorasses in fourteen days, in January 2002? “It's difficult to compare such huge climbs, explains Stéphane Benoist, who had achieved “Rolling Stones” during the winter of 2002 with Jérôme Thinières, who died two years later. Between this leading performance and the one he signed at Chamlang, he has in any case entered the field of very high level mountaineers. »
Because the Haute-Savoie high mountain guide, addicted to climbing (including ice climbing) and ski touring, distinguished himself three months ago in Nepal.
He has indeed succeeded in his "high-flying" bet by opening a new route in the Himalayas with Benjamin Védrines, to reach the summit of Chamlang (7,319 m above sea level), after four days and 1,600 m of ascent. .
A funny sequence for the one who especially made a name for himself in March 2021 with a previous solo in the Mont-Blanc massif.
“It really is a very impressive wall”
"This is what is remarkable here: Charles really landed on the radar screens with this ascent on the north face of the Drus, summarizes Claude Gardien, also author of the book
Les Grandes Jorasses
(ed. Glénat), published in 2019. But the Jorasses is something else.
It really is a very impressive wall.
There are about thirty routes there, and the one he chose is full of mystery, with few attempts and stories around it.
»
There was a story to be written, and Charles Dubouloz heroically did it, reaching the summit with his hands partly bruised, and part of his right foot frozen and blackened.
Filmed by his mountain videographer friend Sébastien Montaz, he then spontaneously confided, in tears: "It's not six days, it's thirty-two years
of sharing to get there.
I really got into metal.
An expression of his own, just like this unthinkable solo adventure.
“There is no one to watch over you”
"For me, it's a dream, an achievement, the quintessence of my practice," notes the person concerned.
Being solo increases everything tenfold: handling ropes where you have to take a lot of leeway, reading the terrain, decision-making.
There is no one to watch over you.
A solitary approach that is increasingly rare in mountaineering and which clashes, especially since, “for the sake of saving time”, he opted for a few lengths without a rope, “in full solo” therefore.
Now coach of the French Federation of Alpine and Mountain Clubs (FFCAM), Stéphane Benoist sums up the extreme dimension of such a feat without a rope partner.
“The biggest difficulty is not having shared decision-making.
Everything is less nervously and physically difficult for two.
As a rope, when you belay the buddy, you can nibble a little.
There, Charles was mobilized all the time.
And the mental energy required does not leave time to eat and hydrate.
»
He has to give up his '70-year-old guy' playlist
From this side too, Charles Dubouloz is a UFO, since he limited himself to three freeze-dried purees throughout the duration of the ascent. "I wonder how it was physiologically possible, but I couldn't eat," he says. I actually threw up one night trying to swallow a meal. Likewise, it was bizarre to find that I only drank half a liter of water a day, while melting snow in a stove, when I should have consumed 5 liters each day. In six days, the Haute-Savoie mountaineer has therefore lost 6 kg, but also his mobile phone, victim of a fatal fall halfway through.
This was both valuable for the topos it contained and a playlist of “70-year-old guys” (from Brassens to Sardou) who “feels good in the evening at – 30°C in the sleeping bag”.
A nice snub to the “Rolling Stones” route he climbed.
According to Charles Dubouloz, the success of such a feat also depends on the optimization of the equipment transported.
This is why he “hunted for weight” (35 kg in total), opting for example for only six pitons.
Hanged every night on his hammock, "between two bad ice cubes"
“I know exactly that such a carabiner weighs 22 g or 13 g.
A tent being too heavy for him, he opted for a 95 g hammock.
Because the latter is not always synonymous with a peaceful siesta in the summer, under the pines of the Landes.
"Wow, for each of the five nights, it was tinkering on a ledge," the mountain guide said smiling.
I was hanging for a few hours between two bad ice cubes to try to rest a little.
" Dad of a 3-year-old girl, Charles Dubouloz easily recognizes this: " I am systematically afraid in my adventures, but fear above all allows me to be on the alert all the time.
It awakens my senses and keeps me hyperfocused.
There are no second chances in mountaineering”.
Our off-road file
If Marc Batard (70 years old) will try in the spring to become the oldest mountaineer to climb Everest without oxygen, Charles Dubouloz does not have such a dream of longevity.
"I'm not going to do this for another ten years," he says.
We are still walking on a red thread, the one that the media most often talk about.
But if the conditions are met, maybe in three weeks I'll do something big again.
We can understand that simple hiking, paragliding and climbing sessions are quickly boring, aren't they?
Sport
Mountain on stage: "It takes a drama to talk about us", regrets the mountaineer Mathieu Maynadier
Sport
Snowboarder Victor Daviet recounts the "unreal" extradition of the Afghan team, threatened with death by the Taliban
Sport
Mont Blanc
Mountain
Mountaineering
Mountaineer
off-road
0 comment
0 share
Share on Messenger
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Flipboard
Share on Pinterest
Share on Linkedin
Send by Mail
To safeguard
A fault ?
To print