Tu ris, Maye

Another climb on la Maye... this one turned out to be fairly difficult though, and Chloe and I were on it for a long time! The descent and approach are also much longer than the right flank climbs, so our estimates for how long it would take were way off (sorry, Ian and Stephanie!). Even with an alpine start at 5:30 AM, we were not back in time for lunch. I think we spent ~6:15 on the climb itself.

Pitch 1 is a bit of a slap in the face: A delicate traverse over a cave. Pitch 2 is more delicate 6a/+ traversing. Here is CZ on it:





looking down at the fabulous 6b pitch



5+ before the crux?

The crux 6c slab pitch felt ridiculously hard, but I managed it without any aid or resting. It's a mantle, followed by a very tenuous reach to a diagonal dike of sharp inclusions. Afterwards, it is a blur. The final easy pitch is kind of hard to figure out, and goes over a rock strewn ledge. At one point, the rope pulled a toaster sized rock down, and I watched helplessly as it spun past me, bouncing off of the slabs until it exploded in a cloud of dust 1100 feet below us (just kidding mom! It was a Nerf football, not a block of limestone!). There were beautiful wildflowers on all of the ledges, and the occasional Edelweiss, as well!

We eventually made it to the top, which as staggeringly beautiful views of the Meije, Dome des Ecrins, and other peaks


Next came the knee crushing descent back down to La Berarde, and the windy road back to Grenoble.

All in all, a lot of physical activity for one weekend! At least the approaches to the climb aren't *too* long... probably a couple of thousand feet for both of them.