Episode 12 of Bill and Dom’s Excellent Adventures touched down at Bilbao Airport (you might recall that our 2022 Utah adventure was inadvertently christened Episode 13, owing to a counting error, so there’s some catching up to do!) Picking up our tiny hire car we set out on the four-hours drive west for the Pyrenees. If that seems like poor geography, or logistics, it does make sense in the context of an agenda to try to tick some of the outstanding routes described in Parois de Légende in both The Pyrenees and Picos de Europa in just over a week’s flying visit.

First stop, after a bit of a shop and a frustrating hunt for a gas canister, was a kilometer on the French side of the Col du Pourtalet. We parked up amidst magnificent mountain scenery and deafening audio accompaniment of cow-bells for the 60min walk to the Refuge Pombie, our base for our first objective – Sud-Est Direct, on the Pic du Midi d’Ossau. You only get a hint of this impressive peak from the road,

but it looms formidable as you crest the hill.

The Refuge occupies a stunning location above a small lake at the foot of Pic, and on a Friday evening in the middle of the French holiday season it was rammed with day-trippers, walkers and climbers.

I checked in just after another Brit climber had received short shrift from her best “Google-assisted” efforts to ask to borrow a guidebook. The young guide / guardian gave me the same treatment for my efforts to confirm (in French) I’d booked a veggie dinner for Bill, so we ended up conversing in English “it doesn’t matter if you emailed – we don’t read emails” followed by much shrugging. He then enquired about our itinerary for the next day. I said Sud-Est sur Le Pic du Midi. He nodded, condescendingly: “The voie Normal”. I couldn’t remember so I showed him the topo. “Ah, Le Direct!” and in an instant his manner changed. “Do you recommend it?” I asked. “Of course, it is a beautiful route. It isn’t climbed so often. You should know it’s tough, and it’s long.”…”… and dinner is at 7pm!”… No pressure!

With the gauntlet thrown down we settled down to a pleasant evening of beer, decent grub (they even managed to rustle up a veggie option) and banter.

Bill contemplating the sunset.

Same scene, different light, about 8hrs later.

Photo of the South East Face of the Pic du Midi taken later in the day.

The routes on that part of the face are approached around the right hand side of the lake, taking a right diagonal path above the bivvy area, which is the access to the GR, then once within a hundred metres of the face, spot a cairn to angle up left to a start at a fairly distinctive grass-topped lump of rock.

Here’s the start…

Pitch 2 is a pretty brutal affair up a corner crack then hard left under an overhang. 6b+ my arse (tough A1!) The Google translate version of a description I found on Camptocamp advised a belay soon after: “Preferable option to reduce the draft and in case the second sausages in the roof”

Happily Bill didn’t “Sausage”, and we mosied on upwards via a couple of easier pitches to the traverse beneath the giant orange wall that is easily visible from the refuge. Pitch 5 takes the steep corner on the right of this and is equally laughable at 6c, and not even trivial to aid.

The continuation corner eases off a bit to 6a (LOL) and then there’s a pleasant V+ followed by a diagonal down climb to enter a parallel series of corners and chimneys. Good view across to a team on the normal route.

The topo offers the promise of a romp to the top, with four pitches of “only” 6a and 6a+, but they’re each 40 to 45m and all sustained struggles – comfortably worth E2 if not more. We didn’t make it easy for ourselves by missing a jink to the left after the first of these (not obvious on the couple of topos we were working from, but marked by an arrow and a “Non!” on a hand-drawn topo we found in a folder in the refuge.) This resulted in a 6b+ “Expo” “bonus pitch” (or mildly terrifying A1+) and then a long downwards, leftwards diversion inducing huge rope-drag and much faff. By the time we emerged from over 500ft of this territory we were delighted to be just a hundred metres or so from the top, and about to join the much more mellow regular route.

This includes a fun and airy stride across to the finishing pinnacle…

… and a final traverse to a rap point.

Looking back to a team following us up the regular route just topping out.

The descent is involved but fairly efficient, taking the Voie de Vires / Ledges Route. After numerous benightments and helicopter rescues, the local guides equipped this with an assortment of pegs and threads, and more importantly produced a detailed topo to accompany it. “In the interests of time” (a much used phrase in the Bill and Dom’s Excellent Adventures lexicon) we did this unroped to avoid getting in the way of a couple of parties we overtook, but a more sensible approach would be to move together with a short length of rope. Approach shoes fine.

We were down at the foot of the buttress in an hour and back at the hut in a bit short of another – most importantly arriving with 5mins to spare before the 7pm deadline. Our hosts were mildly surprised we’d made it in time, and gracious with their praise (though because of our uncertain ETA they’d put us on the 2nd dining shift at 8pm). No hardship as it gave time for a celebratory beer and to sort our bivvy spot for the night (we’d managed to book the first night in the hut, but it was already full for the second night).

After another excellent dinner, the guardian ushered us to one side and offered us a nightcap “on the house” and joined us in a toast to our successful day. A sweet moment!

Fab cloud inversion to finish a grand day.

Part 1 of Episode 12 was safely in the bag. Grand Pic du Midi d’Ossau, Direct Southeast Face: ED inf, 540m, 14 pitches up to 6c, 6a obligatory. Take the grades with a pinch of salt, I’d suggest! About 8hrs for the route and 11 hut to hut 🙂

Over breakfast, just to put our day’s work into context, the Guardian mentioned that if we’d seen headtorches heading down late at night, it was a team who’d done the SE Direct as the final part of a trilogy enchaining a route on the north and south faces – now that’s shifting! Well in excess of an El Cap NIAD.

Time for us to head down to drive the hour or so east to Ordesa in Spain for Part 2.