Location: French Alps Map
Height: 12,316 ft (3,754 m)
Ofice du tourisme
Chamonix
Tel. 50 53 22 08
Weather conditions:
Tel. 50 53 03 40
winter 50 53 17 11
Les Drus or Aiguille du Dru is a mountain in the French Alps in the Mont Blanc masiff. Les Drus or Aiguille du Dru consists of two peaks. One Grand Dru (Grande Aiguille) reaches an elevation of 12,316 ft (3,754 m) while smaller Petit Dru or Small Dru (Petite Aiguille) reaches a height of 3,733 m. The first people who reached it summit were Clinton Thomas Dent, James Walker Hartley, Alexander Burgener and Maurer on 12 September 1878. Today thousands of hikers and climbers attempt different routes to make it the peak. The best time of the year to complete this feat is Summer and western routes, although steeper than other routes, usually is preferred due to relative lack of snow. No permits is required for climbing, but you might want to inquire with the local officials about weather forecast and avalanche dangers if you decide to come here.
History of ascents
1878: first
ascent of the Grand Dru by Clinton Thomas Dent, James Walker
Hartley, Alexandre Burgener and K. Maurer, September 12
1879:
first ascent of the Petit Dru by Jean Charlet-Straton, Prosper Payot
and Frédéric Folliguet, August 29
1887: François Simond, Émile
Rey and Henri Dunod make the first crossing from the Grand to the
Petit Dru using long ropes held from the top and instead taking the
northern slope, on August 31
1913: September 4, a caravan of
climbers tries to hoist on the Petit Dru a metal statue,
reproduction of the Virgin of Lourdes, in hollow aluminum, measuring
almost a meter high and weighing thirteen kilos. The terrible
weather forced them to place the statue some 3,000 meters away in a
crevice in the rock. It was only after the war, on September 18,
1919, that the statue was finally hoisted to the top
1935: first
ascent of the north face by Pierre Allain and Raymond Leininger, on
August 1
1938: first winter crossing of the Drus by Armand
Charlet and Camille Devouassoux, on February 25
1938: premiere of
the south-east face of the Grand Dru by Laurent Grivel with Mr. and
Mrs. A. Frova, August 16
1952: south pillar of the Grand Dru by
André Contamine and Michel Bastien
1961: first winter of the
Bonatti pillar by Robert Guillaume and Antoine Vieille
1964:
first winter of the north face of Petit Dru by Georges Payot
1967: extremely direct on the north face, in winter, by Yannick
Seigneur, Michel Feuillerade, Jean-Paul Paris and Claude Jager4
1969: first solo on the north face of the Grand Dru by Joël
Coqueugniot
1971: solo ascent of the Hemming-Robbins direct route
by Jean-Claude Droyer
1974: first ascent and first winter of the
northeastern couloir of Drus by Walter Cecchinel and Claude Jager,
from December 28 to 31
1976: first winter ascent of the north
face of the Col des Drus by Walter Cecchinel and D. Stolzenberg
The west face of the Drus
Pierre Allain, during the ascent of
the North face of the Drus, estimated that it would undoubtedly be
impossible to one day climb the West side. However, from 1952, the
challenge was taken up by A. Dagory, Guido Magnone, Lucien Bérardini
and M. Lainé, in two successive assaults (July 1 to 5 then July 17
to 19, 1952). This attempt requires the intensive use of artificial
climbing techniques. From then on, a new episode in the history of
the Drus begins.
From August 17 to 22, 1955, the Italian
Walter Bonatti climbed, alone, the South-West pillar with five
bivouacs in the face. This ascent is considered one of the greatest
achievements in the history of mountaineering. In 2001
Jean-Christophe Lafaille opened a new solo route through the
technique of artificial climbing.
Seven years after Walter
Bonatti, Gary Hemming and Royal Robbins, two climbers from the
United States, inaugurate a very important variant leading directly
from the base of the face to the stuck boulder, in the upper half,
where it joins the route of 1952. Open from July 24 to 26, 1962,
this route is called the American direct and subsequently became a
great classic. This is not the case with the other direct, still
American, drawn right in the center of the face by the same Royal
Robbins, this time accompanied by John Harlin (August 10 to 13,
1965). Extremely difficult, both in the field of artificial climbing
and free climbing, this American rule was relatively little
repeated.
The climber René Desmaison is particularly
illustrated in the history of the West face of the Drus:
fourth ascent of the original route, with Jean Couzy (23-25 July
1955);
first winter ascent, always with Jean Couzy, from March 10
to 14, 1957, one of the first large enterprises attempted in this
season;
first solitary ascent, finally, July 28-29, 1963, still
by the classic route.
The 1970s, and especially the 1980s,
were marked by a different approach: it does not matter whether the
route of the open route is justified by geometric criteria, the
forerunners are now and above all concerned with the intrinsic
quality of the climbing inaugurated.
The strangest is
undoubtedly the “Thomas Gross” way. The climber spends around fifty
days in the west face of the Drus, in several times, in order to
force the passage at all costs. It is said that he took his guitar
with him to amuse himself at the bivouacs. Its route went up the
right part of the face. He opened it from April 20 to May 8, 1975,
after trying it in June and September 1974, and from March 10 to 20,
1975.
Other "lines" are added to these. Thus, the Rémy
brothers (Swiss) won the “folding seats of paradise” (1980), and
Nicolas Schenkel and B. Wietlisbach the “way of the Genevans”
(1981). The following year, a “French directissime” was drawn to the
right of its American version by roped parties from the High
Mountain Military School. Christophe Profit takes part in this
enterprise with Michel Bruel, Hervé Sachetat and Hubert Giot,
opening a remarkable route because at the same time direct and new
on 600 of the 1000 meters of vertical drop of the face (September
1982).
Michel Piola, author of several hundred new routes in
the Alps, and Pierre-Alain Steiner draw in 1984 and 1986 a
remarkable line in the left part of the face, called “cardiac
passage”.
In 1991, Catherine Destivelle entered the history
of mountaineering by tracing alone a route of high difficulty and
which took her name, to the right of the Thomas Gross route. A
little later, two other routes were opened by soloists:
Jean-Christophe Lafaille and Marc Batard.
The landslides have
erased most of these routes, with the exception of those located to
the left of the wall. This ultimately allows a new generation of
tracks. However, mountaineers will have to wait several decades for
the rock to stabilize, even if some daring people like Valery
Babanov and Yuri Koshelenko set out a few months after the 1997
landslide in the critical zone to chart a new path as quickly as
possible and which turned out to be ephemeral (“Léna”, early 1998).
Following the second wave of landslides (2003-2005), a face
again virgin of any route is offered to the openers. This is how
from January 28 to February 4, 2007, Martial Dumas (Chamonix guide)
and Jean-Yves Fredriksen (French high mountain guide) opened a new
path in this compact and vertical face. During the eight days in the
wall they had to make the stones fall in balance and resort to
artificial climbing techniques. They are to date the only ones to
have opened a new way in this face.
Landslides
The west
face of the Drus forms a gigantic triangle over a thousand meters
high, which is affected by intense erosion which results in frequent
massive landslides: nine in total between 1905 and 2011, for a
volume greater than 400,000 m3 of collapsed rocks . This
bottom-to-top erosion probably begins with the end of the Little Ice
Age in the 18th century. The Bonatti pillar, which was 500 m high,
has thus disappeared2. The 2005 landslide represents nearly
three-quarters of the rockfall volume in this century and a half,
the 1950 and 1997 landslides representing less than 30,000 m3 each.
The first landslide of the period was caused by the Chamonix
earthquake of August 13, 1905, with a macroseismic intensity felt by
VI on the MSK5 scale. The 1950 landslide occurred during the period
of very hot summers from 1942 to 1943, climate change possibly being
responsible for the size and frequency of the landslides.
Recently, it experienced significant landslides in 1997, 2003, 2005
and 2011, in which again warming may have played an important role.
These have considerably affected the structure of the mountain and
made many historic routes disappear. That of 2005 is caused by the
combination of a hot summer accompanied by abundant rains, on a wall
already weakened by the scorching summer of 20032. It is the largest
of the period studied: 265,000 m3 on the 29th and 30th. June (the
volume announced takes into account all the purges and collapses
that followed until the end of September). The collapsed rocks cover
an area of 90 to 95,000 m2, with a thickness of 5 to 10 meters, on
the Drus glacier. Lesser landslides, but nevertheless with a total
volume of 10,000 to 12,000 m3, occurred on September 10 and 11,
20117,8 and also one of 60,000 m3 on October 30, 2011.