Let's start this New Year with some ice! This could have been the tagline of the 4th stage of the Mountain ACademy which took place from the 4th until the 11th January in L'Argentière la Bessée (Ecrins massif), France, a famous spot for ice climbing.
This 4th stage had a special taste...first stage of the year 2009, 1st stage focused on ice climbing but also the return of Benjamin, our Austrian candidate after several months of recovering and unfortunately absence of Matthias, injured by an avalanche in Trident, several days ago.
From the beginning, we understood: the freezing cold would be with us all the week.
Since most of the candidates were not really used to ice climbing the aim of this week was clear: teach the candidates how to climb on ice in full security, make them" feel" where to place ice crews and how to stand with crampons along the route.
Dry tooling, "candle climbing", ice falls (fortunately nobody was injured), snow falls and freezing days (average temperature: -17°C): all the ingredients were there to make this week really awesome, with, a big smile on the face at the end the day ...The mountain guides, all expert ice climbers were really impressed by the huge improvements of the candidates.
The young team also learnt a lot from Tim Emmett, Neil Grisham and Klemen Premrl , 3 sponsored Mountain Hardwear candidates, who showed them techniques and above all how much you can do when you feel comfortable with ice.
And, as a very special end, Jerome Blanc-Gras, our "Mountain Academy coordinator" and Tim Emmett wanted to repeat "Sous l'Oeil du Choucas", a very hard and sustained route and to finish by an amazing base jump. They managed to reach the summit but unfortunately the darkness obliged them to a late night climb down...
Next stage: 8th-17th April - rock climbing. The secret spot has been revealed: we will leave for Morocco and the fabulous Taghia area...Lots of stories to come!
Athletes : Corne Brower (NL), Ferran Martinez (SP), Patricia Schanne (DE), Jiri Novak (CZ), Tito Arosio (IT), Sana Zulic (Serbia), Benjamin Bickel (Austria).
MHW VIP : Tim Emmet, Neil Grisham, Klemen Premrl
Guides : Seb Foissac, Neil Brody, David Götler, Manu Ibarra, David Marret, Bruno Robert
MHW Staff: Fred Meynent, Anne-Cécile Charreyre, Jérôme Blanc-Gras
Cameraman: Bertrand Delapierre
Photographer: David Ravanel
Press: Vertical
