This was the route that started everything off in Verdon climbing, the first route to climb from river to rim about 60 years ago. In its own way, almost as significant as The Nose on El Cap.

A dozen pitches of no more than 6a doesn’t really do the climb justice – some of the upper chimney pitches are really wild – insecure bridging and back & footing, with very spaced gear.

With Jim’s expert guidance we made pretty short work of rapping the half dozen 50m abs and subsequent jungle bashing, to arrive at the foot of the route in 1.10 hrs. Route finding was reasonably obvious, and we strung a few pitches together to speed things up – the only close call was missing a fork in the chimneys around pitch 8.

Topped out in 5hrs exactly – more or less on par, and were met by Helen and Jane at the belvedere, with cold beer! Fine end to a very fine day.