Route Selection

Text and pictures © 1990-2008 Guillaume Dargaud
Last updated on 2008/04/14

"If you want the big rewards, you gotta tackle the hard problems. If not, well, I hear there's a good climbing game you can play on your computer."    — Lord Slime.

Here's a selection of the best routes we've climbed, those I've featured on my site, super classics, routes that scared me enough that I want to warn others, good memories, hard summits, bailed climbs I have yet to finish, firsts ascents... Click on the first row to sort the table by various methods. The grades are expressed in whatever system is used locally:

• the Yosemite 5.something system for the US,
• the UIAA roman numerals for Italy,
• the arabic numerals for French sport scale,
• the F/PD/AD/D/TD/ED French system for overall difficulty,
• the Canadian combined ice grading
• ...

Those grading systems should be familiar to most climbers. As for the Alaska scale or the NZ scale, who knows...? A few of the grades I gave from memory, so they might not be too accurate, others are purposefully different from the guidebooks (particularly for ice).

Personally I think there aren't any 'boring' routes. Either something is dangerous and no one should go on it, or it's as good as a good day of climbing can be. So I gave a personal opinion on those routes, in the form:

***

better than a night with a top model,

**

worth leaving early in the morning while the family ain't watching,

*

better than a day at work or watching TV,

0

there be daemons.

There are a few other abbreviations in this list:

FA

First ascent

SA

Solo ascent

FSA

First solo ascent...

Pass the mouse above the route descriptions to see a picture (if available). Just reload the page if you want to hide all the pictures. Click on the images to view the content of the corresponding CD of images.