When I completed my aspi 3 course in August 2020, I hadn't yet finished my week's training but I'd already committed to supervising a 4-person ascent of Mont Aiguille, with a bivouac at the summit, on behalf of the Mont Aiguille guide bureau. I remember driving along the Valais motorway, returning from our last training course on the south ridge of the Stockhorn, finalising the last details with Bernard, the office manager. Two days later, I was roped up with my first clients at the foot of the route sous la Vierge. It was my first time on this route, my first time on this summit, and little did I know that it would become so symbolic for me.
Out of a need to work, but above all out of an immediate attachment to this route, to the limestone of the Vercors, to this high plateau set off like an islet off the shore, I climbed it a dozen times over the following year. I immediately loved the route, the ingenious path, the spectacular finish, the unique panorama, and the equally improbable and surprising descent. Not forgetting the historic heritage of this summit, the symbol it represents: the first summit in the history of mountaineering, 1492, echoing my first summit as a guide, August 2020. Of course, the final unique ingredient in this recipe is the beauty of the Trièves, a quiet region between Grenoble and Gap, Chichilianne and the fields of La Richardière, a peaceful little paradise at the foot of the limestone colossus, where I like to enjoy a little retreat in my truck when I'm doing one climb after another.
It's this combo that keeps me coming back every year, except unfortunately in 2023, when I couldn't find the opportunity. This is my ritual, this is my tradition: once a year I take a roped party up to the top of this wall, its ledges and chimneys, to admire the few solitary pines on this flowery meadow, only trodden by climbers and the local inhabitants: the ibex, those surprising guests that no difficulty stops on their way to the heights.
This year, I climbed it on 16 July, so 2024 can now come to a peaceful close!
