Sunday, June 21, 2015

Traversing Mont Billiat (1894 m) to Pointe d'Ireuse (1890 m)


Last time I did 3 tops, today a step back as we are doing only two. But... two way more challenging than the previous ones. Now I know I will leave the area in th end of August so I have only a couple of weeks left to hike all the tops that are on my must-see list. Mont Billiat is one of them as it defeated me last year (see this post). I can never stand being defeated by a mountain and I always come back when I can to take my revenge. Just like this time.






We reached Mont Billiat very quickly, the ascent was relatively easy.




From that point true fun began. To reach Pointe d'Ireuse we needed to traverse an exposed ridge of a neighbouring hill. It was a real amusement this route. It was exposed and difficult at places but nothing too serious and we all enjoyed the walk. Sergey even decided to do some yoga (see title photo) - quite an acrobatics to me.








We were seeing this vertical wall at the end of our route and were wondering how on earth would we go past that. It turned out it was equipped with chains but that didn't help me much. My two colleagues both were taller than me and had climbing experience. They managed to climb up but I struggled a lot. At certain point I lifted my leg to reach an edging but didn't manage to raise my body and found myself hanging on the cliff having one hand on the chain and the other in Misha's hand. That was funny. I happen to have a video of this somewhat dramatic moment but I'll keep it to myself. I stayed calm and with Misha's help I managed to find a way out. Maybe it wasn't in line with climbing rules but at least I didn't hang anymore :)


That was one last adrenaline spike of the day. From this point we easily reached Pointe d'Ireuse and back to the car. Lovely day.




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