Aiguilles d'Arves - A real special Alpine Highline Adventure for SlackInov’ founder Florent Berthet
Some weekends ago, a genius team of 6 ultra-motivated guys went to les Aiguilles d'Arves during really cold and snowy winter conditions (-20°C, strong winds etc. …).
The idea was to open up a new highline on the top and thanks to the amazing energy and motivation of Camille Le Guellaut, the organizer of the project and athlete’s team member of Slackinov’, we were all full of stoke and power to make it happen - however this time we didn’t get the chance to finish this very specific highline mission: Too strong winds combined with hard snowfall during those last few days created some unstable wind labs, so we were unable to reach the top.
More info about this most recent attempt and pictures:
THE PROJECT FROM JULY 2020
So, as I don't have so much more to report about this last attempt, let me present to you the main project, that we rigged on the 18th of July 2020.
First of all, I have to admit that like almost every highliner who ever saw these mountains, I was dreaming of this line for a while… But it almost stayed only a dream, something that we were considering as an unreachable fantasy. But then, one nice autumn day, Camille calle me to ask if I was able to sell him a splitted setup for a 500m Alp-line. Of course I could, but as I am curious, I asked him what he was planning to rig exactly… And my fantasy dream became suddenly really close to reality!
Meanwhile, Camille and I became good friends and we got to experience some real good Icefall climbs together during the following winter. My time to learn more about him. Camille's strength is his ability to create links between people. Always joyful and passionate, he is able to federate people and to push them towards the best of themselves in order to have the best team for the best projects. Luckily he met Antoine at some point, a highliner who was simultaneously already dreaming and also organizing the same project on his own.
So both of them quickly combined their forces and together with the local mountain guide Philippe, they became the heart of this Aiguilles d’Arves project.
The complete our team we were:
- 2 professional drone pilots from DRONENGEL, with their professional strong drones to create our connection under potentially tricky conditions
- 1 professional mountain guide
- 1 professional photographer (Ben) and one professional videographer (Antoine)
- 15 motivated alpinists and slack- and highliners to carry all of the gear, help rigging and organize a base camp
This project was not a one shot project, like us alpinists use to call it "alpine style": optimizing, in order to have the lightest backpacks possible and leaving the valley the same day to directly go up to the top and all that as fast as possible. Considering that all happening quite quick, it allows you to reduce the number of days of your mission and therefore the weight of food rations and gear needed.
For this project, the alpine style was kind of nonsense, because of the huge weight of highline gear itself, and because we wanted to be able to leave the line as long as possible in order to give all highliners on the team a chance to ride it.
So we decided for the "himalayan style": heavy backpacks, full of food, comfortable tents, mattresses, warm sleeping bags… But, on the other hand, that required climbing the mountain indeed slowly. We even had to go up and down several times, every time carrying a bit more gear up to the final basecamp, and then all the way up to the summit.
Only for this project, and before the line got officially rigged, Camille did climb already 5 times the first summit ( Aiguille Centrale) and around 3 times the second one (Aiguille Méridionale). Funny fact is that he drilled the anchor hole on the Aiguille Centrale one year before we connected a line to it. From what I remember, also Antoine did climb the Aiguilles needles 3 times and I personally climbed 2 times the Méridionale (one time to bolt and carry up some gear, the second one on the D-Day) and once the centrale (to bring the big drone up to the summit).
For sure, we had a lot of suspense during the days before the attempt. For example two days before the attempt I climbed the aiguille méridionale with Camille to drill the anchors. He had already brought up his big drill few days ago, but broke the bit so we were supposed to carry only bits and batteries. When we arrived we discovered that the drill was out of use, broken… hit by lightning. So we didn’t have a choice but drilling with only the bits and a hammer we brought up. We had to do it like we’d do it with a hand drill, but hammering directly onto the bit! It took a very long time, but hell it worked! After that all was done, the day of the attempt the weather was very unstable, lots of clouds and the expected winds, but finally everything went well anyways and this wonderful highline was a big success!
To share with you my experience once on the line, I do have to say that I was at that time not really experienced with lines longer than 100m. But, as I was a part of the Meridionale summit team and the basecamp was on the other side of the line, I didn't really had much of a choice other than to get there by crossing it!
Thanks to Damian, who did the whole line crossing with his Rollex, and who took my heavy backpack (big thanks to him), I was meant to walk it!
It was a truly wonderful experience, even if I spent almost all of the crossing inside the clouds. Sometimes I was riding with a tiny spectre on my side. Sometimes the fog was so dense that I wasn't able to see the line and water was running down my body. Then, there was this one special moment when climbing up the leash. I had lost orientation completely and no idea of what direction to take not to go back to the starting anchor! But later the cloud disappeared for a few seconds, just enough to see the sun and my friends closer than before on the summit in front of me…what a relieving feeling, I had chosen the right direction!
But when the clouds were moving so much that I only for this project, and before the line got officially rigged, Camille did climb already 5 times the first summit ( Aiguille Centrale) and around 3 times the second one (Aiguille Méridionale).
Funny fact is that he drilled the anchor hole on the Aiguille Centrale one year before we connected a line to it. From what I remember, also Antoine did climb the Aiguilles needles 3 times and I personally climbed 2 times the Méridionale (one time to bolt and carry up some gear, the second one on the D-Day) and once the centrale (to bring the big drone up to the summit). For sure, we had a lot of suspense during the days before the attempt. For example two days before the attempt I climbed the aiguille méridionale with Camille to drill the anchors. He had already brought up his big drill few days ago, but broke the bit so we were supposed to carry only bits and batteries. When we arrived we discovered that the drill was out of use, broken… hit by lightning.
So we didn’t have a choice but drilling with only the bits and a hammer we brought up. We had to do it like we’d do it with a hand drill, but hammering directly onto the bit! It took a very long time, but hell it worked!
After that all was done, the day of the attempt the weather was very unstable, lots of clouds and the expected winds, but finally everything went well anyways and this wonderful highline was a big success! was feeling vertigo and got dizzy, the only way I found not to fall was to close my eyes. I’m still really grateful for all of this, the wonderful team that made this impossible mission happen.
I am truly hoping that this project can inspire some of you, to go beyond and even further.
Watch the official project film here: https://www.reelhouse.org/espritsoutdoor/arves-en-ciel
The story about this adventure by Antoine: https://www.montagnes-magazine.com/actus-une-highline-entre-les-deux-aiguilles-arves-recit-une-premiere
The future project of an entire crossing of the Aiguilles d’Arves (3 highlines in total) here:
https://www.skyexpe.com/projets
- Florent Berthet,
Founder and Engineer of SlackInov’