Petzl Crew's blog

21 hours and 11 minutes.
That's how long it took to Lionel Bonnel and Stéphane Brosse from the Club Alpin Français, to ski the 8600 m of vertical gain that separate Chamonix and Zermatt.

           Lionel Bonnel and Stéphane Brosse at Zermatt. Photo courtesy of Dan Ferrer.

By foot but mostly by ski and without any technical assistance (they carried all their own equipment: skis, boots, rope, etc.), both athletes left the Chamonix church on Friday, May 2nd at  01:00 a.m. and arrived at Zermatt church the same day at 10:11 p.m.

Three aid stations were planned in A Neuve, Bourg St Pierre and the Valsorey hut.
The two alpinists set a new record for this emblematic itinerary, which is usually done in 6 or 7 days. 

Lionel BONNEL => CAF Excellence Group, alpine tour race and adventure race athlete.
Stéphane BROSSE => CAF, alpine tour race athlete (three-time world champion, three-time winner of the Pierra Menta, two-time winner of the Patrouille des Glaciers and winner of the Trofeo Mezzalama, record holder of skiing Mt Blanc: Chamonix - Mt Blanc - Chamonix in 5h15mn).

The itinerary:

Chamonix
Argentière
Col du Chardonnet
Col de la Grande Lui
A Neuve
Le Basset
Bourg St Pierre
Col du Sonadon
Col du Petit Mt Colon
Col de l'Evêque
Col du Mt Brulé
Col de Valpeline
Zermatt




To see more of ski mountaineering in the Haute-Route :
Watch the movie "Patrouille des Glaciers", featuring Stéphane Brosse & Patrick Blanc. [17mn30 - flash player needed]






                                                                               **********
Version française :

21h11 min c'est le temps qui aura fallu au deux skieurs alpinistes du Club Alpin Français, Lionel Bonnel et Stéphane Brosse, pour parcourir les 8600 m de dénivelé positif qui sépare Chamonix à Zermatt.

Uniquement a pieds et principalement en ski de randonnée, sans assistance technique (en transportant l'intégralité de leur matériel : ski, chaussures, corde, ...) les 2 athlètes sont partis de l'église de Chamonix ce vendredi 02 mai à 1h du matin pour rejoindre l'Eglise de Zermatt le même jour à 22h11
3 ravitaillement en boisons et nourritures étaient prévu a l'A Neuve, Bourg St Pierre et a la cabane de Valsorey.
Etablissant ainsi un nouveau temps de référence sur cet itinéraire emblématique, habituellement parcouru en 6 ou 7 jours.

Lionel BONNEL => CAF groupe Excellence, compétiteur de ski alpinisme et habitué des raids aventure
Stéphane BROSSE => CAF, compétiteur de ski alpinisme (3 fois champion du monde, 3 fois vainqueur de la Pierra Menta, 2 fois vainqueur de la PDG et vainqueur du Trofeo Mezzalama, record du Mt Blanc à ski Chamonix - Mt Blanc - Chamonix en 5h15).

                                                                               **********

Aymeric Clouet, Mathieu Maynadier, Julien Dusserre and Frederic Degoulet went to Nepal and did the first ascent of "the Gorillaz Peak" (6741m), in the Ganesh.5 mountain.

Aymeric explains us the story of the film :
"Once again, a gang of young french mountaineers, headed to Nepal to satisfy their desire of adventures and friendship. But during the first night in Kathmandu, Juju lost its hair, victim of a sort from GANESH (the God with an elephant's head...).
Searching for an explanation, the team crossed a part of Nepal by foot, and then used their skills of mountaineers to reach the summit of Ganesh 5, looking for the Nepal Medecine..."

A film by Team les Collets

Download the poster of the film

The story of the expedition

December 2006

We know that we want to leave for an expedition next year, we're sure to go somewhere but the 'where' is yet to be decided.
We have a lot of ideas: Alaska, Pakistan, India, but nothing more specific yet.

In fact, the most complicated part of an expedition is to find the right project; a mountain that all of us feel passionate enough about to drive us through a year's planning and organising. So, during the ice-climbing gathering in La Grave, we bump into "Clouclou" (Aymeric Clouet) who had just arrived back from Nepal. We catch up, drink a little wine and he tells us that he saw a stunning mountain that looked particularly interesting, in the Ganesh region of the Himalayas.

That Monday, we head to L'ENSA to check it out.

The mountain is the Ganesh 5 and it had been climbed only twice before; once by the Japanese and once by the Slovenians (Thomas Humar amongst others) over ten year ago.
We decide to go !

Next come the preparations and all the painful procedures of organising a project over the course of a year.
In the end, it all goes pretty well; we find sponsors, get some funding, enough support so as not to have to sell the car in order to go!
Out there, the Trinetra agency would organise the rest.

End of August 2007:

Clouclou gives us a call; his expedition with clients has been cancelled and he's looking for a project.
We think it over and it's decided; we'll leave as a team of four.

October 2008 :

Arrival at Katmandu. There's the paperwork for the permit, payment for the agency and bags for 15 days trekking and 30 days at base camp to be organised. Most importantly: there are the ‘Kathmandu' film scenes to set up and it's a pretty big job.
All that in 24 hours !
Finally, we leave Kathmandu and all its activity to set out for 15 days of trekking to acclimatise.

We follow the road of lake Gusaikund, a popular pilgrimage route that for the next few days leads us towards les Ganesh, though the peaks remain out of sight. At long last we arrive at the lake with a view of the mountains.

We feel welcome at the lodge. We're alone with a family and their three children who hanker with our IPOD and other gadgets.
We feel so at home that we end up spending four days here, walking around the lake to acclimatise and playing cards with the children as we wait for our Dal Bat dinner each evening.
The time we spent with the family brought us a little closer to the Nepalese people, even if the language barrier made it tricky as only the eldest son spoke a little English.

They tell us about their family history. As Tibetan immigrants they arrived with nothing and survived by sharing the running of a Lodge (of a similar sort to that which the CAF leave in the charge of guardians).
They talk about the frustrations of comparing their own situation with the young generations of the western world.
As of recently, television and the Internet have allowed them to see quite how different their own existence is from that of the West.
We tell them that it's no doubt they who have the better rhythm. I think they appreciated the sentiment but find it hard to believe with the IPOD, cameras, satellite telephone and all the electrical goods that we wouldn't be without even for a trek in the mountains.




After the few days we have to tear ourselves away from the lodge to go on to Tatopani, where the porters will meet us to head up to the base camp.
Once we find the porters, we begin a two-day hike towards the base camp, where hard work awaits us.


For financial reasons, we haven't taken on a Sirdar (the person who would usually organise the team of Nepalese porters). As a result, we're left to manage the group of 18 porters ourselves and it's not so easy.
We were, all the same, impressed by the porters resilience and above all by the quality of the work done by Rai and Kamals, our two cooks with whom we spent the month at base camp and who took such good care of us.



Eventually we make it to the base camp, though the final stretch was tough and painful for some of the porters.

We settle the payment and share a meal of Dal Bat and traditional cakes together before those that are not to stay on, leave to head back in the dark, unable to stand the temperatures at base camp.




Life begins at base camp as we sort out our equipment, and stake out the Eastern ridge of the Ganesh.



After two days of preparations, we set out to transfer our equipment to the ridge and set up a second base camp 550 meters up; the start of the trickier climb.


The climb allows us to complete our acclimatisation and scope out the next stages of the route.
Back to base camp tired but pleased, we know the route we'll take and the conditions look good; fine weather ahead. 

After a day's rest to sleep and re-organise our packs, we head off, intending to continue along the ridge, pass the first rocky section and leave the tents and equipment at the top.



This time around, we begin to realise the true difficulties of the climb and the scale of the mountain that towers above us.
The ridge is awesome, precipitous and it's difficult to secure ourselves along the steep slope where the snow ledges give way to a drop of over 2000 meters.
Despite everything, we reach the rocky terrain on the second day where we spend two nights.



We're pleased with the progress we've made but don't necessarily feel all that reassured for what's to come; it seems long and the route, complex.
Furthermore, from this point on, there'll be no question of any more back-and-forths along the ridge; we'll leave from here to climb continuously until we reach the summit.

We head down to base camp one last time, exhausted but confident all the same. It's a beautiful day.
This time we rest for two days and having recharged our batteries we awake to an unpleasant surprise; it's snowing and even if only lightly at base camp, we're not to know what things are like 2000 meters higher up.




The tension rises amongst the team. We speak very little (after thirty-five days together, there isn't much left to say) and everybody thinks about the days ahead, those that we've been building up to for the past year…

The third day; the weather forecast isn't too good but we only have eight days before the porters have to head back. It's now or never.
With our sacs packed with 7 days of food supplies, we're all feeling pretty on edge…
Within two days we reach the tents that we left at 6000 meters. The weather forecast still looks only average and it's starting to get very cold at night.



At this point, we're hoping to reach the summit in 5 days time and then head back down to the second base camp where we've left the food supplies.
The first day is chaotic. The weather's bad and the pitches of rock face that should have been easy to climb transform into an uncertain mixed climb.


Night falls and we still don't know where to sleep. Finally, at eight in the evening we find an incline of snow and we dig out a couple of holes to sleep.
The next day, the weather is beautiful and to wake up in the snow at 50 degrees is unforgettable: beneath our feet, 2500 meters of mountain face!!!



We set off again but the altitude soon takes effect and we advance slowly.  In addition, each time the fog descends, we're forced to stop so as not to lose ourselves in the snow.

Finally, around six in the evening, we arrive at the foot of the last rock face and the summit is within reach.
We abandon the idea of reaching the summit of Ganesh 5 to fight our way up a different virgin rock face of 350 meters that we baptise Gorillaz peak.



Michel announces beautiful weather for the following day, followed by violent winds in the evening time.
We need to reach the summit and get a move on.
We sleep, exhausted, and a bit tense having eaten very little over the past two days.

The next day is like a dream. It's a beautiful day and there's no wind; the ideal conditions to reach the summit.

The first pitches of mixed climbing are quickly completed and we arrive at the rock face of 6500 meters.


Above us stretch 200 meters of granite. To savour the unforgettable pitches of rock climbing, we climb without gloves as far as 6700 meters, to reach, at long last, the summit at four in the afternoon.



After a few victory photos we start to head down, for the first time in 6 days.
We arrive at the tents around eight in the evening, utterly exhausted but so delighted with the achievement that even our frozen sleeping bags seem soft and inviting.
Around midnight the wind, as predicted, starts to pick up and the rest of the night is long as we wait inside the tent as the wind roars outside.
In the morning we get up quickly. It's cold and the wind is hard to bear: we're out of here!



After an interminable descent, we arrive at the base camp where Rai and Kamal wake to prepare a meal.

Those were the most precious moments we shared with them, even if they didn't necessarily grasp the joy of our conquest, they were delighted for us and we shared beers, wine, foie gras and other various things…

We were on top of the world.

We wake the next day, euphoric. We stitch up our nicks and cuts, get the equipment in order and make the most of our last time at base camp; our home for the past month.



The next day, the porters arrive and we return to Kathmandu.

Our departure from base camp wasn't without emotion. Along the road back, we pass the local Nepalese at work and it's at that moment that we decide to celebrate our victory in Tonsai, Thailand. That, however, is another adventure…




© Photos
Aymeric Clouet
Julien Dusserre
Frédéric Degoulet

Text : Mathieu Maynadier
Traduction : Katie

Ueli Steck is in Nepal top open a route in the Khumbu valley, on the Kang Tengpoche summit. Here are some news from him :

Namche Bazar, March 30, 2008

Yesterday we arrived in Namche Bazar. Finally. The flight to Lukla was planned for today. But Simon and I didn’t feel like staying in Kathmandu for another three days. “No possible” was the answer from Sherpa Dendi, when we asked him, if he could change the flight. In the end it worked out, somehow. As usual, you have to be at Kathmandu airport very early, 6 am, even if the flight is scheduled only at 9 pm. I told Simon to prepare himself to a long time of waiting. But suddenly an unusual hectic came up and we found ourselves in the plane to Lukla at 7.45 pm. Not even one hour has passed, since we woke up...

The equipment had been flown to Lukla a few days ago and most of the porters are on the way to the basecamp, without us. Four porters are waiting for us with the equipment we need for the trek. We stow away our sleeping bags and necessary items in our backbacks and we start our way up to Namche Bazar. We try to use these treks, to get as well acclimatized as possible. After 5 hours of walking we reach Namche Bazar. Perferctly on time for lunch at the “German Bakery”. The village is situated at 3440 meter. We will stay here also today, to get used to the altitude. Tomorrow we plan to go straight up to the basecamp at 4250 meters. The basecamp is located about an hour behind the village Tengbo.

If everything is going on so smoothly as up to now, nothing can go wrong in this expedition. We look at it as a good omen.

See you soon,
Ueli

Just a few words to introduce the MedeO’z movie, made for the Outdoorgames at Chamonix.
Please visit their website to learn more about this wonderful and very creative event...
The idea is (as we presented in a latest post) : Seven teams of professional film production companies had to create three differents projects in only five days!

• A 5 minute short film
• A photo gallery
• A 1 minute making-of short film

Our idea was to combine all the projects in one, instead of doing three separate projects.
We approached this contest like a global concept, relating the film, the photo and the making-of.
That’s what you will understand here below :

• 1/ THE FILM :
A 5-minute short film movie featuring 5 different sports: mountaineering, skiing, snowboarding, paragliding and base jumping. All the footage and editing had to be done in five days, from Monday to Friday and had to be shot in the Mount Blanc range.
The movie had to be understandable for the international jury, so we made the voice-over in English. A French version is coming soon!
But for those who don’t really understand English: the idea was to tell the story of our photographer, who wanted to take the 5 sports in one picture, instead of taking one picture of each sport. This picture took us a lot of work and energy!!

DOWNLOAD the movie in high resolution format (Quicktime - H264 codec - 193 Mo).

• 2/ THE PHOTO CONTEST :
Photographers of each team had to take 20 pictures, with at least one picture of each sport.
As I said above, the ‘project’ of our photographer was to shoot the 5 sports, but in one picture.
Please visit the photo gallery to see the 20 pictures of our ‘very special’ photographer :
Mr Tony Lamiche.

• 3/ THE MAKING - OF :
Then check out the “Making-of” short, the logical conclusion to this first film.
The rules of the making-of competition were to create a 1 minute short film, including footage of the movie creation, the backstage of the film and the Nissan car loaned to use for the week. As you can see, everything is connected, and that’s what we wanted to do.

• BACKSTAGE :
Download the story-board of the film, (.PDF) , which had been made three months before the event !!
As you can see, we did exactly what we drew, every shot was planned...
It's crazy to see how the film is so similar to the storyboard...

Some pics, from the 'Making-of' movie, in order to show you the setup of the film...

A lot of video equipment !!

Thanks again to the crew, who got really involved in the project, even late into night!
Thanks to MedeO, the video company who really managed the creation of the film.
A huge thanks to Liv, who really got into the moment, ice and alpine climbing with both a photographer and a filmmaker. Not an easy task!!!!
Thanks to Tony, the spirit and star of the film. His hard work helped bring the film together.
It’s sometimes easier to be an elite athlete than to be a great actor!!

See also all the posts of the Petzl Team about the Outdoorgames.
Watch the videos of the 7 teams for the video contest !

Hi there !!

As you may know, we gave our Film on Friday 15th of February, (18h00) to the organization...

It's fine, but not really as we wanted to do...
So we are making the director's cut : the very final version with all the details we liked to have (perfect sound design, a bit more of pure footages etc...)

Unfortunatly, it takes more time to make it happen, so the Final Cut of the film will be available on the Petzl Team website, around the first week of March... So stay tuned for the final version !!!!
Otherwise, if you want to watch the others films of the competition : go to the Outdoorgames website.

Every team made a great job in only 5 days, everybody tried to make a real movie with synopsis, instead of only put sound on footages to make a video clip... The team "Ride the planets" (who won the 1st price) made a very good job with animated draws... Big Time ! They also shot Christophe Dumarest & Aymeric Clouet in the "Eperon frendo", a 1200m mixed route, on the North Face of the "Aiguille du Midi".

I really would like, (as a director) to thank to ALL the TEAM who really got involved in the project...
It's sometimes harder to be an actor than to be an elite athlete !!...
But they stayed very motivated and interrested all this week, so that was a very unique experience for me to follow this guys and try to make them go where I wanted they go....


A quick presentation of the MedeO Team (from left to right and up to bottom)
> Liv Sansoz : Our "Mountain Girl", 2 times Sport Climbing World Champion, who made some mountaineering shot during the week.
> Vivien Doti : Snowboard freerider, who played in the "Nuit de la Glisse" movie...
> Matt Gerdes : Ozone Paragliding pilot test, who BASE jumped for the team.
> Guillaume Broust : Directing from the red T-shirt...
> Erwan Lelann : Our Moutain Guide who also filmed some good shots as a cameraman.
> Tony Lamiche : Our main character, thanks to him for his motivation !
> Denis Steinberg : From the MedeO video production company, they brought a LOT of professional video equipment... That really helped us a lot, to make it happen whitout I.T bugs !! (The worst thing you can imagine in such a tiny timing...)
> Antoine Boisselier : The speedrider dude, who is also 2 times Hanggliding France Champion.
> Guillaume Chatain : Our tandem paragliding guy, who launched Matt Gerdes a couple of time. Also very strong in speedriding & acro paragliding.
> Martial Dumas : The moutain guide who belayed Liv Sansoz. Martial played on the Azazel and Baffin movies. He also opened a new route in "the DRUS" last year. It's called "La Voie des Papas".
> Mati Imbert : The Freestyler/rider skier, who left the wenesday night for Nepal... It's too bad we could not make more footages of him, but a huge tkanks to him for beeing part of the team...
> Sebastien Balme : My personnal editor, who make a really big work in only 3 days to edit this movie... I guess he is still tired about this 3 last days!!...
We had 3 people more who were on the project :
> Bertrand Delapierre, our moutain cameraman,
> Chris Denizot, our sound designer.
> Felix Rodriguez, our special acro paragliding guest....




Thanks to this team, we did a very big job in only 5 days, and if you didn't watch our movie yet, I advice you to wait till beginning of March to have the final cut of the film....



You can still watch the photo selection of Tony, the 20 photos he had to make in only 5 days...
The hardtime for him was to following us and trying to shoot the pictures while we shot the film. It's always very complicated to match the video shoot and the photo shoot in a same time.
But I guess he will present you his project when we will upload the final version of the movie....





So stay tuned on the Petzl Team to see our 5 days' project !!
All the best
Guillaume.

Follow the french guys at the Red River Gorge, Kentucky - USA.

Daniel Dulac linking his new route "El Encuentro" (8a - 5.13b).
Mickaël Fuselier sending the first ascent of "50 words for pump" (8c+ - 5.14c), and Gérome Pouvreau finally linking "Thanatopsis" (8b+ - 5.14a)...
Climbing, climbing and more climbing !

TIP : If you have low connection, press one time on the "PLAY" button, and press a second time on the "PAUSE" button, in order to launch the buffer. Then, wait until at least 50% of the movie is loaded after watching it. You can also click on the "ZOOM" button to watch fullscreen.

A video by Erwan Lelann & Guillaume Broust.

Music by eKoman featuring Paty Thioune.
Vocals by Laurence Gullon.

Organizing an electronic music party is not an easy thing here in Kentucky... Even though I had sent a full technical file with the list of necessary equipment, a few issues appeared when I decided to check all on Thursday evening. According to Morgan, getting your hands on a couple of Technic’s MK2 turntable is already a victory, as I come along Guillaume shows me what has been mistaken for a mixer: an effect machine! For you guy who know nothing about this kind of stuff, the mixer is the device that allows you to get the sound of the two record players together, mix it up and playing it out loud to the crowd. Without it you do nothin’... Here a call, there a call, watch my call... I still have no mixer in sight... Other issue, Said was not able to travel with his instruments, so we have to either borrow, rent or invent something.

On Friday we decide to go ourselves to Lexington to find all of that we need. We get directions, phone numbers and diverse beta and off we go. Thanks to Marietta and Martina’s sense of orientation we easily find the music store... with a great Mixer and diverses perc, drums and symbal for rent... Yessss. Aieee, everything gonna be alright until:
Do you guys have a Kentucky State Driving License ?
Wot man we have several passports from France, Sweden, Germany, Slovenia, UK but nothin like that!
Well then I can’t rent you that stuff.

C’mon I want to talk to the manager, No sir we ain’t rentin you nothin without a Kentucky State drivers licence... Gee feeling close to deep depression, I call back Morgan who luckily finds a buddy from Lexington to show up at the store with the magic pass... Thank you Patrick for showing up.

But we’re still missing a Didjeridoo for Said, so we find a hardware store, and make one out of toilet pipes! And there goes our happy bunch back to the Red, it seems that here in Kentucky it’s easier to buy a gun than to rent a mixer and a couple of drums...

Friday after the movies we do a little rehersal with Said, excellent, this guy rocks on percs... The turntables are a little sketchy, the stage wobbles a bit  but i guess I’ll have to live with that...

Southern Beats and Deep Fried Drum and Bass

Here we are Saturday night setting up our stage after a great Blue Grass Band (Big up for those guys that played super early and performed well), a bunch of gear raffles, more money for the rrgcc and the usual O’neil roast, followed by  Odub rappin the place with his daughter on stage, GOOOd Job guys. I allways feel that same knotted stomach as we dim the lights to start the show.....and fry the place with great performance with Said and Timmy on the drums, Guillaume on live visuals and several unexpected guests and stage Slammers.

Special Big Up for Morgan Burton and his crew for the stage, sound, lights and cool spirit. Matt and Amy Tackett of Red River Outdoors for accepting such a loud party on their field and all the congratulations to  Bentley Brackett and Morgain Sprague for their global organization of this Roc Trip at RoctoberFest 07...

Photos J. Evans

After several tries during two days, Mickael Fuselier made the first ascent of "Fifty words for pumped" in Red River Gorge, for the Petzl RocTrip.

TIP : Press two times on the "PLAY" button to launch the buffer. Then, wait until more than 50% of the movie is loaded. You can also click on the "ZOOM" button to watch fullscreen.

A video by Erwan Lelann.
Music by Captain Kverne.

Dani Andrada and Tony Lamiche worked hard yesterday to find a new beta that let them clip the fourth quickdraw in Fifty words for pumped.

Dany:

Despues de Mikey Fuselier encadena la via de RocTrip, yo investigo mucho tiempo porqe por el paso original el talon no va bien.

Y insisto en encontrar un metodo mejor para mi, y finalmente entre Tonio y yo lo encontramos y es possible hacerla, ya que finalmente todo el mundo intentara con ese metodo, aunke la diferencia es que por ese camino sera 8c, pero bonito...

Mickey Fuselier in the first crux during a try on thirsday - Photo Boris Stephan

While many of the athletes rested to get ready for Saturday’s flash rally at the Motherlode, Michael Fuselier took advantage of the short lines at Bob Marley to polish off the first of the men’s Ultimate Routes. Fifty Words for Pump, a route nearing a decade without an ascent, might have stumped many with its awkward and bouldery lower crux, but Fuselier skimmed through it and made a clean run for the anchors. Though he claims he put in many attempts, the two-day tick was a memorable one for the Red. Calling it 5.14c, this route gained the RRGCC $500 from Petzl to go towards the PMRP mortgage payment.

With a day of climbing wrapped up, and clinics participants filtering back, the crowds herded into the Red River Outdoors fields for the night’s party.  Sponsor tents overran the back half, while the main tent held the screen for night’s viewing of movies. With Timmy O’Niel running MC, and a brief introduction from Petzl American Marketing Director John Evans, and RRGCC Director of Corporate Funding Bentley Brackett, three movies played – Kinglines as the main attraction – while the crowds got psyched up.

What’s to come: the biggest day for the RocTrip/Roctoberfest, Saturday’s flash rally will begin at 10:30 at the Motherlode.  Who will be the ruler of the day? Can McColl repeat his proud Thanatopsis onsight? Will Michael pull out all the stops? Come see the action.