Climbing at Sainte Victoire
So the last few days of our French road trip we spent Climbing at Sainte Victoire. I found it really hard to find out any info on this area, close to Aix-en-Provence, and the Rockfax guidebook we had detailed very few routes in it, but somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain I recalled knowing it was supposed to be somewhere pretty decent… As we drove up towards Puyloubier, I was totally blown away by the sight ahead, a 600m rock face stretching a few miles, rising above a beautiful forest. I knew we’d come to the right place!
Only a small part of Mount Sainte Victoire
Mini epic on our first day Climbing at Sainte Victoire…
We only had a few days here and we were definitely due a rest day (but needed a rest week!), but got straight on the rock.. A mistake in hindsight! We went to one of the areas where there were some easier mutli-pitch routes, hoping to get a couple of the classics done. Route number 1 brought a quick learning curve to the state of much of the bolting on Sainte Victoire…
Climbing at Sainte Victoire, my last bolt was about 10 meters below me here…
Sparse to say the least! Fortunately the route was straight forward, but the last pitch didn’t appear to be bolted at all! Up I quested, fortunately with a couple of slings I could thread, but the ground was easy so I wasn’t too bothered, there was however, no bolted belay station (as we had become accustomed to seeing), so Putting in a natural belay, I brought Sophie up. We realised we were much higher than the top of the route should be, so I traversed across to a solitary bush in the hope we could abb off it… After getting plenty of scratches from the aggressive bush I was happy that we could abb off it, and I knew we’d reach one of the abb points we had passed below, as we could get down 60meters in one go. Once down on a thankfully decent bolted abb station, our damned ropes wouldn’t pull through! So up I went, back to the aggressive bush 60 meters above. Now the top section was a roof, and the ropes were for some reason wide apart from each other, making it impossible to get up them, fortunately there was a scramble round to the right that led to the bush, it however meant I had to come off the rope and solo, a very long way off the ground indeed. But I like that sort of thing so I wasn’t too bothered. I adjusted the ropes so the know connecting them together was way down below the roof, and surely of no issue to pulling the ropes, it meant I had to pass the knot on the abseil but that isn’t a problem if you know how…
So back down with Sop, I went to triumphantly pull the ropes and continue our decent – dam. Still stuck! Up again, another 60 meter of ascending the rope, another solo around the top, change of plan. I decided to go off a different part of the bush, giving a slightly cleaner pull line, but I really couldn’t see why it wouldn’t pull before, but I had spied way off to the side another belay station, and saw if I could get to that it would definitely work out. I opted to abb on one rope, as I could see it was less than 30 meters way. In the process of sorting the ropes a massive block was dislodged, off it trundled as I yelled below at the top of my voice. It bounced and echoed down, smashing the ledge only a couple of meters away from Sophie, thankfully no-one was at the bottom of the crag, it would have been terrible…
So after an “interesting” diagonal abseil (when I use the word interesting, that usually mean pretty difficult and maybe a little dangerous…!) I was at a decent belay and could get down to Sophie (who was totally unperturbed by the events of the last hour) no problem rand then down to the ground in a further 2 long abseils. Mini epic over…
Abseiling going right at Sainte Victoire!
Not to want the day to end on that note we did another multi-pitch “sport” route. Now this was a really good route, but my arms were shot after all the rope trickery and ascending on the last route, so I didn’t climb it in the finest style! The last pitch again proved to be “un-sporting” with 10 meter run outs above the bolts on mildly technical ground. A good adventure! And an uneventful decent of a few abseils, no stuck ropes and no loose blocks!
An aching body forced a rest day for the next 2 days, and with visits to Aix and Decathlon we had a lovely relaxing time. We really wanted to finish the trip on a high so we decided to have a go at “The Grande Parcours”, a 17 pitch route all the way up the cliff. Wanting to scope the decent out to avoid any epics after what would be a long day, we scrambled “The Trace Noir” to familiarise ourselves with the route. A great way up the mountain in its own right, and to a lovely summit, of Mount Sainte Victoire…
Scrambling the Trace Noire on Sainte Victoire
Alas, after an excited evening packing, the day dawned with winds strong enough to stop you walking, let alone climb 600 meters. So taking the sensible decision, we spent the morning climbing some of the nice (and well bolted!) easy routes at the base of the cliff. I was gutted we didn’t get a chance to attempt the most famous route in this amazing area, but now we’ve sussed out the place, we’ll hit the ground running on any future visit and I’ll be back for sure! No matter how well prepared you are, sometimes things just don’t go the way you want!
Well bolted perfect rock, Climbing at Sainte Victoire