Orvin - Grande Lame

After enjoying the two classic multipitch outings Faces de Plagne and Face de Rondchatel the day before, we moved to the scenic village Orvin to visit once again the sector Grande Lame which offers splendid crack, and face climbing.

Remark: The parking situation has much deteriorated during the Covid years. New signs prohibit parking along the road (makes sense), but the previously common parking (also indicated as such by the guide book) on the green within the big bend has been fenced off. This leaves a very narrow stripe along the bend, which is at least suboptimal, or maybe even prohibited as well. We don't know the history of events that led to this situation, so we can only guess that due to Covid an increased number if people visited the area, and some probably parked in a way that upset the owners. While the number of people might reduce again, the prohibition is likely to stay...

In contrast to earlier years, the sector was pretty deserted (we guess everybody went abroad??), so that we met only one other team today.

For the sake of efficiency, we employed our top-rope strategy, installing fixed ropes for self-belay with the Grigri. This approach is particularly efficient, when routes share the same anchor, or are close otherwise. However, you will probably not make friends with this strategy on a crowded day, and should rather abstain from it in this situation.

Working the crux of Perskindol (7a+) at Grande Lame, Orvin.

Urticaria 6b
Felt more difficult than Nepomouk (6b), and Rallye (6b), technical & pumpy crack climbing, can be quite a cold start.

Eile mit Weile 7a+ (1st go)
Having red-pointed this route last year, I was interested how it would feel now. Having warmed up only moderately, I had to put in a good fight again to make it to the anchor, but eventually did without falling. Brought jammies this time, helped a lot for the hand-jams at the top. Definitely warmed up after this one.

Go and win 6c
Taking it a bit easier, I managed to onsight this one relatively moderately. This route can be a good extended warm-up (pretty homogenous, intuitive moves).

Indigo 7a (two gos)
Psyched by "the win" from before, I jumped on this one, but fell out pretty quickly at the bouldery start. It's pressy on side-pulls, and you gotta get it right, or it gets desperate (at least for me). Could only climb to the overhead-pocket before the anchor (crux?), because the top-rope was fixed at Eile mit Weile, but gave it two successful continuous goes up to that point.

Eile mit Weile 7a+ (2nd go)
Why try yet another time? Because it's one of the best lines in the sector, and makes for great practice (for me) :) And practice you can't enough, it seems: this time I messed up the sequence, and fell already after the fingerlock rest two-thirds up the route...good burn anyway! 

Lunch break with incredible view over the alps.

Urtimezzo 6a (+upper part of Urticaria)
Stiff grading, or was it just the fatigue after lunch? Awkward cracks, good to activate after the break, though.

Aktivferien 6a
Very nice route along the arete, homogenous, intuitive, and not so heavy on cracks. 

Perskindol 7a+ (proj.)
Just setting the up the top-rope was a bit of work (i.e. going full aid mode). In fact, the crux at the top even required a sling to step up...in hindsight, I was already done for the day, my feet hurt badly, as well as my hands from all the slots & cracks. I simply lacked the pain tolerance, which is pretty important for this route. As a consequence, I had to take off my shoes multiple times during this single checkout go...in the end, it was more relief than success to finally reach the anchor...
Beta: Tricky cracks to start with, then move right into the slab (right heel-hook). The crimpy edge is good, but feet are very bad (with much pressure you can spread, though). Better foothold a bit to the far right! Lock-off to good hold (with left hand?), work left foot up to bad smear. Rest. Boulder to get feet on rest hold. Cheeky finger lock sequence, easy though, if you get them right. Short layback to gain sharp slot out to the left (tape left pinky!!). Crux: low percentage dead-point thumbs-down hand-jam into shallow/flared crack to the right (gain momentum from face foothold with left leg!). Rearrange handjam if necessary (sticks quite ok, once settled). Left foot jam to gain "jug" higher up to the right. Rest a bit. Shaky traverse to anchor...the challenge is certainly to arrive at the high crux as fresh as possible, and then stick it...