Leo Billon, Nicolas Jean, Amaury Fouillade, and Enzo Oddo finished 2025 in spectacular fashion with a new line on the legendary North Face of the Grandes Jorasses.
The 1,100m winter route, called Basique, goes directly up to the top of Point Whymper (4,184m) and features difficulties of V+ on rock, A2+ sections of aid climbing, and mixed terrain up to M5. The four French climbers bivouacked once at the base of the face and three more times on the wall. They summited on December 30 at 10 am, according to the French Military High Mountain group.
The elite climbers squeezed in this final 2025 climb after a busy fall season. Nicolas Jean is fresh from the north face of Jannu East; Leo Billon has been climbing in Yosemite; and Fouillade has recently opened the M7+ Inedite route on the north face of Triolet.
How new is ‘new’?
While there is little left to explore in the Alps, unclimbed lines do remain, even on such coveted walls as the North Face of the Grandes Jorasses. The new generation of local alpinists is ingenious enough to find those blank spots and skilled enough to climb them.
Basique, for example, shares the lower, glacial part with the Japanese Couloir, Eldorado, and the Directe de l’Amitie – a route recently free climbed and known as the most difficult of the Grandes Jorasses. It also shares the crux pitch with Billon and team’s new line. After that key pitch, Basique continues on different terrain until the top of Point Whymper, according to PlanetMountain.
