Gregory Goes There

Did a post a while back on a group of climbers based in Chamonix who Gregory sponsored on a visit this past winter (their summer, if you can call what you’re about to see summer) to the Fitzroy/Cerro Torre area in Patagonia, those being the two most famous peaks in the region.

These guys are members of the Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute-Montagne (PGHM) of Chamonix, the group responsible for mountain search and rescue operations in that area, also supported by the famous Compagnie des Guides (interesting piece a while back in Outside Magazine on that group), the Ecole Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme and the Ecole Militaire de Haute-Montagne.

Here’s the story of how that group got their start, from PisteHors, which blogs about skiing-related news in the EU (good site if you’re interested in that sort of thing).

Anyway, this crew decided the right way to celebrate their mountain rescue units 50th anniversary was to head off Patagonia and bag five pretty challenging summits in one trip, one for each decade of the unit’s existence. Sure, why not? Sounds good to us …

They didn’t get five, but they got four, which is pretty good given Patagonia’s notoriously bad weather. Along with some photos he provided, here’s a note from Sébastien Rougegre, one of the team members who organized the trip, written to our man on the international scene (meaning he oversees Gregory’s international distribution), Dion Goldsworthy, giving him an overview:

We built this project for the 50th birthday of the Mountain Rescue in Chamonix. Five summits in Patagonia, each climb representing 10 years.

The expedition went well, despite the fact that we didn’t do all the climbs planned. We summitted 4 summits out of the 5 planned.

We got 200 meters below the summit of Fitz Roy before we had to go down because of the bad weather.

We summited Aiguille St Exupéry, Aiguille Poincenot, Aiguille Mermoz (-30 meters, because of the ice on the last pitch), Aiguille Guillaumet and did two attempts on Fitz Roy.

We are making a film of the expedition, produced by Bullitwood production. It will be shown for the first time in The Majestic in Chamonix. I will send you an invitation as soon as i know the exact date.

About the gear, we have to say that we absolutely loved the Alpinisto 50, really ergonomic, easy to use and strong considering how badly we treated these in the Patagonian’s cracks!

My best regards, thanks again.