Grand Capucin: the Swiss Route with an O Sole Mio finish

Machine-translated from the German original. The German version is the one I actually wrote.

Our Chamonix trip was due one more solid finish. With Maxi along to lead as well, the choice in the end fell on the Grand Capucin. The Schweizerführe (the Swiss Route) is nominally the easiest line on the south face. Topos and blogs disagree on the exact grade, but somewhere around 6b+ you’ll be climbing regardless. We decided to break off into ‘O Sole Mio’ in the upper section — we weren’t exactly thrilled about the aid-hauling higher up on the Swiss Route, and this link-up lets you sidestep that nicely. Going by the Rockfax comments, that also seems to be the generally preferred variation these days.

The Swiss Route used to start via a straightforward couloir on the left. These days that’s probably — thanks to climate change — only possible deep in winter or very early in the season, and instead you start in the middle of the wall with a traverse. That traverse shouldn’t trouble anyone (max. 5b/c), but it adds roughly six more pitches to the outing. That makes the whole thing too long as a lift-to-lift day trip for most parties, including us — especially since on a good day you can definitely expect a queue in the route.

So it is that Franzi, Maxi and I shoulder our packs in Courmayeur on Wednesday afternoon, in a heat that feels like 38 degrees, and catch one of the last lifts up to Pointe Helbronner. At the Rifugio Torino we put on the glacier gear as usual and wander over to the bivy in a T-shirt, nice and easy, about 50 min away. Neither the path nor the bivy spot is hard to find — you follow the worn-in trail toward the Aiguilles d’Entrèves, then branch off toward the Grand Capucin, visible from a long way off. From a distance we could already count something like ±12 tents, and could already picture ourselves pulling a queue ticket at the base tomorrow, so we agreed to get up even earlier than planned, just to be ahead of the first parties out of the Torino hut.

Setting up the tent at the bivy, the Grand Capucin behind us.

Pitching the tent we’re still sweating properly, but the moment the sun disappeared behind the Grand Capucin it turned cold fast, and we crawled into our sleeping bags. The thundering rockfall off the slowly disintegrating Tour Ronde opposite kept us company as we fell asleep.

The alarm went off at 5:00 sharp. Dark and freezing cold, but there’s nothing for it. We peeled ourselves out of our sleeping bags and, after a balanced, healthy breakfast (two half-frozen chocolate rolls), marched off toward the start. I had no idea, at that temperature, how we were supposed to hold onto anything, but again — nothing for it. After 20 min we were at the base, getting ready. The bergschrund in the middle of the wall was no problem, and there’s even a small ledge with fixed ropes where you can gear up and stash your axe and crampons. Just as we started, a second party — Austrian — joined us, and more parties slowly trickled in, making the start on the plateau a bit more hectic. In the end it turned out nobody else wanted the Swiss Route, and we more or less had it to ourselves along with the Austrians — lucky us!

The south face from the base — green marks roughly the route, blue the original approach, orange the old start of the route, and red the rappel line.

As Maxi started up the first pitch, the sun crept over the horizon and it got properly warm right away. That didn’t change for the rest of the day, and the jacket only came out again as sun protection.

Our topo suggests climbing the first pitch straight up over a spike and then downclimbing a little (5a), but Maxi skips that cleanly and takes the direct variation through a traversing crack instead. That’s also perfectly doable, but at around 6a it’s a proper cold start.

Pitch 2 — an easy traverse in the morning light.

A short traverse follows before things ease off noticeably. Climbing left the whole way, you traverse past an overhang. Belays keep coming, and as a party of three we do stop to belay, though in principle you could easily simul-climb here too. The Austrians do exactly that, and we let them past for now. Past the overhang on the left, it’s three more pitches of unremarkable, straightforward climbing straight up.

Now you’re at the actual start of the route, and the climbing steepens noticeably and gets a lot more interesting. There’s a choice between two crack variations here. The direct one goes at 6b, the leftward one at 6a — both end on a small ledge. We go for the, subjectively, nicer direct line, up a perfectly straight crack. You can feel the altitude taking its toll, but otherwise the pitch gives us no real trouble.

Maxi on the direct variation of pitch 7. You can also break left as an alternative.

After that it eases off again and we follow the obvious line of the corner system. Here we even managed to link the next two pitches, which just about works with 60 m ropes.

Pitch 8, in the corner system.

Just before the end of the corner there’s a belay, plus another one for ‘O Sole Mio’ on a ledge around the corner to the left. That one is noticeably roomier and gives room to swap leads — from here I take over up front. No pack, but hung with cams like a Christmas tree, I climb back up from the comfortable belay into the corner. A bit of clever rope management is worth doing here, ideally placing gear only toward the end of the corner. Naturally I didn’t, so my first lead pitch comes with proper rope drag right from the start. You stay right on the arête here and resist the temptation to break left after about 20 m to the good ‘O Sole Mio’ belay. Instead you carry on another 15–20 m until a hanging belay appears around the corner to the right.

Next comes a perfect but properly punishing hand crack — harder, in my opinion, than the 6b crack lower down, and my arms are properly pumped. The Swiss Route now bends right into the roof, where the aid-hauling starts. I break left instead and traverse easy ground over to the ‘O Sole Mio’ belay. The sun hasn’t swung round yet, so it turns properly cold right away.

Once I’ve brought up Maxi and Franzi, we head into the last few pitches with ice-cold hands. First you traverse gently right onto a bolted slab and follow the crack to a belay tucked into a niche. A really nice pitch, but with cold fingers it felt harder than the given 6a+.

Looking back down pitch 12.

From there it goes back left onto a slab (bolted), followed straight up to a ledge. Don’t — as I did — traverse left into easy ground here; keep following the slab instead. One last committing move is protected by a final bolt before the belay on a big ledge. Two easy pitches follow (4a/c), which I managed to link comfortably. The final belay sits on the south side, right at the start of the summit ridge.

At 12:30 on the dot we’re sitting completely alone on the summit of the Grand Capucin — what a route, what a day!

12:30 on the dot, completely alone on the summit of the Grand Capucin.

But what goes up has to come back down, and in this case that means a seriously long, steep rappel. The topo shows one rappel line, though in principle the whole south face is bolted with belays and there are presumably various ways down. The belays aren’t always easy to spot, though, so we probably came up short on rope more than once, and being a party of three always makes everything take longer. In the end it took us a lot longer than expected (> 2 h), and at the last stations we were wondering whether our plan of catching the last lift down to Courmayeur would still work out.

The long, steep rappel line back to the bivy.

Once we were finally down, we sprinted to the tents and packed up as fast as humanly possible. Franzi then hauled us back across the glacier in record time (45 min) and we arrived at the lift station completely wrecked, just before 16:30.

Turns out the last lift actually goes at 17:30, so the sprint was more or less pointless …

All in all, though, an absolute dream day — great route, weather, conditions and, of course, team.