Three climbers in their twenties have freed the ultra-difficult Directe de l’Amitie route on the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses. The feat had defeated some of the most skilled alpinists in the world.
The team credited the lure of a slice of pizza for their success.
Esteban Daligault, 24, Virgile Devin, 25, and Simon Martinet, 34, left Chamonix on foot and approached a wall that they considered “the rock ‘n’ roll legacy of the early climbers…We knew we were in for a wild ride, and it made us smile: The pizza was just beyond the wall. Simple.”
Before the pizza, however, there was a dragon to slay.
The friendship challenge
The Directe de l’Amitie (Friendship Direct) route is a mixed line that goes up the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses to Point Whymper in the Mont Blanc massif. Yannick Seigneur, Louis Audoubert, Michel Feuillarade, and Marc Galy first opened it in January of 1974. They needed 20 days in bitterly cold conditions.
The 1,100m line includes vertical sections and, in winter conditions, its rated difficulty includes VII on rock, mixed sections up to M7, and aid climbing passages of A2, plus one A3 overhanging crux.
Over the years, the very few repetitions created a legend about that route. It earned a reputation as “the most difficult route” of the Grandes Jorasses, itself one of the Alps’ most difficult faces.
Topo of the Direct de l’Amitie route on the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses. Photo: @gmhm.chamonix
It also became a challenge for the most daring climbers of each new generation. To climb it completely would be a triumph, but to free climb it would be historic.
However, it is one thing is to dream and another to achieve. For years, the face defeated the best winter climbers.
Vedrines and Billon try, fail
Even the brightest stars of the current alpine scene, Leo Billon and recent Piolet d’Or winner Benjamin Vedrines, gave it a try as part of their 2022 Trilogy of great alpine North Faces. Together with Seb Ratel, they climbed the route in a three-day push, with two bivouacs on the wall. They freed some previously rated A2 sections that, freed, were assessed as M8.
In fact they managed to free climb the entire route, except for the infamous A3 pitch, which they didn’t even attempt without aid climbing.
“[It’s] an extremely overhanging section, starting on a wide flake that sounds hollow,” Vedrines said at the time. “The rest [of the pitch] is never easy and very uncomfortable, at least 8th grade in free climbing with climbing shoes, if not harder.”
Billon and Vedrines made another impressive speed Alpine Trilogy in 2024, but they then chose different routes.
Last Sunday, November 16, it was the young team’s turn to tackle this legendary route.
On the wall
“We warmed up on 55° slopes, then launched into magnificent mixed pitches, technical and sustained,” Daligault reported.
Eventually, they felt they were slowing down and began to wonder if they’d taken on too much.
That night, they spent their first night on the wall on inflatable portaledges.
“It’s so steep, we [Daligault and Devin] had to explain to Simon [Martinet] how to take a dump while hanging in his harness.”
Collage of the climbers from Esteban Daligault’s Instagram
On the following day, tension mounted as the pitches went by. The hardest pitches, including the A3 one, is on the upper part of the wall. The sandy, rotten rock didn’t help. Still, Devin onsighted the first M8 pitch until the crux. Here is what happened next:
We hesitate: climbing shoes or dry tooling? The rock still has that ‘Sahara dune vibe.’ Virgile [Devin], in a state of pure exhilaration, declares, “I’ll try it straight away.”
He puts on his climbing shoes. Third time’s the charm. He obliterates the pitch with insolent mastery. When he reached the belay, a cry of victory echoed across the North Face. Night had fallen. Perfect timing: Pizza was now a real possibility.
Once freed, the team rated the crux pitch as M9+.
Virgile Devin at the crux pitch, A3 with aid climbing, M9+ after free climbing. Photo: Esteban Daligault
After the second bivouac, the climbers finished the rest of the route, which entailed “a few more overhangs, dihedrals, frozen blocks, and then the summit, in the pitch black, on a narrow ridge.”
Daligault describes the feat as a real stroke of luck, but it was surely something more than luck and the promise of some pizza.
Benjamin Vedrines was the first to congratulate them on social media.
Competition training
Notably, according to wspinanie.pl, one of the key factors in the young team’s success was the intense, specialized training they underwent to prepare for the upcoming Ice Climbing World Cup. Below is Virgile Devin, a member of the French Ice Climbing team and aspiring mountain guide, during a recent session:
