Benjamin Vedrines, Leo Billon, and Nicolas Jean have aborted their summit push on Jannu East because of the health problems of one of them. A pity, since they had finished the most technical part of the climb, a beautiful ice line up the huge north face.
Hurried push
After some hesitation in the wake of the huge snowstorm that hit Nepal two weeks ago, the French team returned to base camp from the village of Kangbachen, where they had sat out the bad weather. Then they patiently waited for the snow to settle. Finally, they launched their only push up the north face of Jannu this past Sunday at 2 am.
They had planned to open a new route to the east point of the massif in pure alpine style, but they had to adopt a Plan B when they had only a three-day weather window instead of the five days they needed. Same alpine style, same wall, just a slightly different line.
“The final route will be technically easier but just as long [as the original] and doable over a short period of time,” said the team before starting. “We will have to go up and down faster before the strong winds [come]. To do this, we have minimized everything: a single rope, a reduced number of cams, [and] a drastic intolerance to grams, to allow us to progress quickly.”
The climb
Vedrines summarized what followed in a series of Instagram stories:
Through the first night and day of climbing, the team gained the snow slopes at the base of Jannu East and began the vertical north face. By 5 pm, they had carved a tiny cave in the ice at 6,300m, where they spent the night.
The vertical bivy on Jannu’s north face. Photo: Thibaut Marot
On the following morning, the team resumed climbing at 6:30 am.
The bivouac, hand-carved into the face. Photo: Thibaut Marot
The climbers said they had found great ice conditions and managed to link a series of long pitches.
The second day of the climb. Photo: Thibaut Marot
“Unfortunately, due to health reasons of one of the team’s members, we had to turn around midway,” Vedrines texted on the post below, with a topo:
The line climbed until they retreated. Photo: Benjamin Vedrines/Instagram
The climbers rappeled down the entire length of their route and managed to reach base camp safely at 8 pm that evening.
Americans still there
This is the end of the attempt for the French trio of young climbers. Vedrines will not be able to add Jannu East to what was otherwise a remarkable climbing year. After some fine early work in the Alps, he summited K2 solo, without oxygen or sherpa support in a mind-blowing 11 hours and then paraglided from the summit back to Base Camp. He even had the steam to return to Camp 2 to retrieve his tent.
