GET YOUR ROCKS OFF
ALF ALDERSON ATTEMPTS TO GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP HALF WAY UP A ROCKFACE ABOVE LAKE ANNECY IN THE FRENCH ALPS
S
o, I’m several hundred metres above Lake Annecy in the French Alps, and just about to settle down for the night, and I should emphasise that when I say I’m ‘above’ the lake I mean that quite literally. I’m perched on a ‘portaledge’, a device used by mountaineers to get a good night’s sleep when ascending huge rock walls on multi-day climbs; in effect, it’s a lightweight canvas and aluminium platform with adjustable suspension straps that is suspended from bolts driven into the rock face.
‘Un Nuite Insolite en Paroi’, aka as ‘An Unusual Night on a Wall’ is a night out with a difference that’s offered to adventurous punters by French guiding company Inax Aventure; their guides have spent many a night, unusual or otherwise, on the great mountain faces of the world, and for a bit of hard-earned they will readily escort mere mortals such as me to the best ‘room’ with a view in France, although said room has just one wall, that your portaledge is bolted firmly on to.
The first portaledges were used in Yosemite in the 1980s. Prior to this, climbers had used hammocks if they needed to sleep on the rock face they were climbing. These early portaledges were heavy, metal framed, non collapsable cots ‘borrowed’ from a campsite in the Yosemite Valley, which were sometimes tossed off the summit after the climb for retrieval when the climber got back down (well, it’s a lot less hassle than carrying it down…).
This rudimentary system was eventually replaced by purpose built sleeping platforms made from lightweight aluminium and highly weatherproof fabrics and engineered to be structurally stable and strong in order to withstand the extreme weather conditions in remote areas such as the Himalayas and the Karakorum; they allowed remarkable climbs such as the first ascent of The Grand Voyage on the Great Trango Tower in the Karakorum 1992, which at 1350 metres is the longest vertical big wall in the world.
72 | SPRING 2017 | ONBOARD
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