Le Tanet - Gazon du Faing

difficulty: IV-V UIAA
altitude: ~1200
month: March
useful link: tanet-topo

The weekend before the climbing tour reported here, me and my friends tried to attempt the summit of Ringlespitz. I have however not succeed and turned very soon at altitude of 2300. Therefore, I have nothing to report about. Nevertheless, Mrkva and Venca ascended higher, see the blog ringel-Mrkva.

Blechta-brothers wanted to spent a funny day in Vogesen (and me as well) - that means physically challenging tour with many technical obstacles.  I planned the tour accordingly. Two walls: Le Tanet's west face and Gazon du Faing. Winter routes at Tanet are described here: tanet-topo. Gazon du Faing is not reported anywhere according to my knowledge, but it offers some winter tours as well.      

blue = walking, red = climbing

the face of Tanet

A car can be parked at the ski-resort Le Tanet. The Tanet's face can be seen in its full beauty from there. This is the wall. This is the Eiger of Vogesen, athough Martinswand is also nice. We intended to climb the route number 2 from the topo mentioned above. But after the first pitch, I found it quite difficult and followed more natural way to the right, see picture bellow.  The second pitch was however very funny and easy at the same time. There was even a part of it covered by ice. The last pitch was Venca on the lead, so he should judge it. Nevertheless, last pitch (especially in Vogesen) are the best part of the route.

Belay

The belay-stations were provided by spruces along the route and many great places for own belay. There is even an anchor at the beginning of the first pitch, which is located reasonably in a section, that is at my opinion V UIAA.

Gazon

I wanted to stay on the summit since the sun was shining. Hanes wanted to relax as well. Venca wanted to climb. "Grave is a great place to relax, not these walls." And as the youngest of us ordered, we walked towards the valley of Gazon du Faing to climb another route.

We could choose a nicer route, but counting the fact that the snow was already melted and overhanging cornices at the top looked not good, we did I think the best choice. I would describe it as a walk with few climbing steps, and again, the steps over the snow cornice is enjoyable. I would however not recommend this route since it doesn't contain too much climbing. Next time, I would try the steep face  located at very right on the picture bellow.  

the route was chosen according to the conditions

step over the cornice

summits of Vogesen

Spitzkopf and Martinswand

We had a very nice summer climbing trip to Vogesen full of nice adventures but rather than talking about them I describe very briefly only the climbing part of that.

The map of the region can be found here:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/48.0328/7.0165&layers=C

there are two challenges which we wanted to achieve:

• Spitzkopf (very nice easy climbing trip)
• Martinswand (paradise for climbers of each level)

Spitzkopf

It is a long tour over the two climbing steps and several boulders. If one checks the map above it starts at the point where "Reidwald" is written and follows the ridge up to Le Hohneck. I have already climbed it once in Winter with Martina when it can turn to real alpine tour, see
Spitzkoepfe

There is no clear way haw to begin. One can basically get to the ridge very easily by the forest from the east side (what we did in Winter). But as it is summer, we wanted to do it little bit more adventurous this time, so we climbed from the south side (first climbing step, two pitched at III-IV level). Then just follow the ridge, very easy climb/walk. One can either use the clear path which always go little bit on the left side in the forest. But then it is just walk and not climbing at all. We tried to follow the ridge really very precisely what means to do some very funny boulders. We got bellow the second climbing second step after few (4-5) hours. The step is last technical part of this route, again climbing at level III-IV, (still doable in trekking shoes).

NOTE: one needs to take his own belay!  Count on 30 meters of easy climb. For me it was some belay every 4 m. The rock is great, you always find something.

Night in the forest bellow Martinswand. Lot of insect. Lot of fun.

Martinswand

it is real classic of Vogesen. I believe that also this wall has a nice history of its first ascents.  I actually haven't found any nice topos of this region. But don't worry and just go there. There is a plenty of climbing routes of each level. Very nice can be very top part, where is a lot of easy one-pitch routes, some of them are quite long. We tried 5a route named with very nasty name I can not publish here.

The highlight of our trip was a route leading over whole Martinswand, roughly 70 m long 5c - nicely belayed two pitches route.

I was already quite happy with that but Venca wanted to climb more and more, so we climbed in the bottom part. Finally, he climbed some rally tough route (6b) and I was just belaying (shame on me, but I wouldn't be able to climb this I think). Suddenly, some German guy appeared. He looked like a kind of wild person with few fingers missing on his hands. We talked a little bit about the area and he told me that Messner visited Spitzkopf as well. Then he climbed with his girlfriend the same route as we did that morning. I saw clearly from his movements that he is more experienced than us.

When we were leaving the area back to the parking place at Gaschney, we followed one older men with pretty bad coordination. Well the path wasn't that easy for person in his shape. He was there with some Alpinveraine which left him alone in this mountains (WTF?) Let me note that I understand and respect him for his passion to go to the nature even in this shape and I hope I will do as well in his age. But any Alpine club shouldn't leave their older members alone in such situation.

Spitzekoepfe, Vogesen (Francie)

I když Vogesen nepatří k nejvyšším horám, jsou pořádně skalnaté s rozsáhlými náhorními holinami a dá se tu pořádně vyblbnout. Zvolili jsme dvoudenní zimní přechod Spitzekoepfe, postraního hřebínku, ostrého jak břitva. Za jeden den by to asi byla magořina vzhledem k tomu, že musíte k tomu hřebínku dojít, a pak z vrchu někde sejít. 

Pekna stena dolu

Hlavně v první části je pár krátkých lezeckých úseků, řekněme tak 3-4 na fr. škále, ale dají se obejít spodem přes les. My jsme se však snažili hřeben co nejvíc kopírovat. V předpovědi počasí jsem se dočetl, že by navečer již mělo být slunné počasí, žádné opalovačky jsem se však nedočkal. Naopak. Trochu přituhlo.

jako doma

Ve spodní části Spitzekoepfe je spousta sedýlek, kde není skála a tak tam prorůstá les. Toho jsme využili k noclehu. Myslel jsem, že dojdem dál, ale díky oblačnosti se setmělo velice rychle. Spaní na sněhu není ničím odlišné od spaní v posteli, jen je třeba mít dobrou karimatku a spacák. Za odměnu je však to ticho, čerstvý vzduch a rum s trochou čaje za intimního zvuku plynové bomby. To všechno a ještě víc za tu kosu fakt stojí.

Probuzení do zimy je krutá záležitost. V lepším případě je vám ve spacáku teplo a nikam se vám nechce, a tak jen tak ležíte, dokud se vně spacáku neoteplí. V horším případě je vám kosa už v tom spacáku, ale to vás aspoň vyžene ven.   

Po snídani jsme pokračovali dál po hřebínku s tím, že zde již bylo méně technických míst, ale více exponovaných míst s pěkným výhledem.