Aiguille de Roc is a peak snuggled in just behind the Grepon in the Chamonix Aiguilles. It rises elegantly from behind the Envers des Aiguilles Refuge, overlooking the massive Mer de Glace and with spectacular views of the Grand Jorasses, Mount Blanc du Tacul et al.

In July 2001 I climbed the fantastic Pyramid route on Aiguille de Roc with Joe Purser. However with time running out, storms brewing over the Jorasses, that crackling feeling in the air and a bit of a silly route finding mistake we decided to descend half way up Fourniers' NE ridge direct so didn't reach the summit. On the absail descent, somewhere on Children of the Moon, one of the ropes got jammed while I was pulling it through, it was starting to rain and we were about a 150m above the glacier, so after trying all the possible ways we thought we could safely retrieve it, we reckoned it would be best to ab on the one rope we had and maybe climb back up the next day for the rope if it was dry. The single rope and some dodgy absails brought us to the glacier, a fun effort to retrieve our boots and then the safety of our bivvy. Ever since that day I've been determined to both climb de Roc to its summit and reclimb the Pyramid route because it was so brilliant.

In July 2002, Donal and Conor O'Shea and myself made a trip around to the Envers with climbing the South Pillar of the Aiguille de Roc in mind. Whereas Pyramid faces you as you approach the hut, Cordiers South Pillar is out of view around the back past the Tour Verte. We find the same bivvy, affectionately remembered by me as the coffin, in which I had stayed previously. My self and Conor headed up and climbed Le Piege on the Tour Verte to make use of the day and get a look at the route we hoped to climb on the Aiguille de Roc the next one.

Lashings of curried chickpeas and lentils with rice, wacky claustrophobic dreams and an overdose of porridge later saw myself and Conor stumble out of our bivvy to make an early start, the rest of the details are taken from my diary and may offend you.

Back to battle with L'Aig de Roc, the auld betsy, this time we stumbled up towards the South Pillar on the SW flank, hardest pitched 5+ apparently but she wasn't to just drop her pants and let us *&%! her that easily. After negotiating the bergshrund and paying our toll, my lovely penknife I had since I was a whippersnapper, one or two bogey pitches later, most definitely off route already, we stash our boots, axes and crampons on a ledge From there we wondered on and off route, up some fabulous and not so fabulous pitches. The fun began about a pitch below 'diarrhoea' belay with both our stomachs angry for overloading them with porridgy jam. We fight it off for that pitch but low and behold there was no stopping a determined movement, I quickly bight on my waist and drop the legs all the time fighting, in laughter and agony to avoid a serious incident, I park myself over the ledge while Conor looks the other way, the sound effects were enough to provide him with a vivid picture, while the shadow about a metre in radius confirmed to me just how explosive it was, what a relief. Not to be outdone it was Conors' turn, he opted not to drop leg loops or move away from anchors so I warn him not to crap on his harness, three minutes later when he can squeeze a word in edge ways against the laughter he giggles 'its not my harness, its Bens'.

I think its a bit like when women live together, their periods can start to synchronize over time, when climbing/camping with someone for a while there is no doubt about it that bowel movements synchronize. You wouldn't imagine some of the dilemmas this can result in.

To make matters worse the escape from scutter ledge was tricky but eventually we out ran the pong. After some of the most beautiful pitches ever (probably on route) and the most bastardly 5+ (wink, wink) pitches we emerge onto the shoulder, roughly where the route ought to finish, with a lovely chimney on the last pitch. Of course we had to leave the prize of the summit for another day and started off on our merry descent. I LOVE ABSAILING. More and more it became apparent that Betsy wore the trousers and right now she had them dropped probing and searching to ram us up the cake hole. Leaving the bags where we had made for an interesting descent and we just made it off before dark, where Donal was waiting to help us with our bags and I think more importantly get the one and only lighter which had kept us company on the route. Boy did I sleep, more wacky dreams, I LOVE WACKY DREAMS. Deep down inside I can tell Betsy wants me, she's just playing hard to get, I'm not a quitter.

The year before she had taken a rope leaving us to escape intact. This time our subtle tactics of going around the back were easily matched with her cunning. All the time leading you up promising paths and dropping you in ditches. We fought through the ditches and exited the route onto the ridge. From the belay we could see the exact point were I had retreated from the previous year, and exactly how stupid our route finding mistake had been. It was late and we had no real choice but to head down or have a very rough night. The descent route is to absail down the ridge as far as a small breche about the height of the ledges at the top of Children of the Moon, then steer right down steep chimneys and reach the slabbier ground below and the start of the route. The steep chimneys giggled as they held onto our rope, we just said bad words. Did they think I had forgotten what had happened the year before, did they think I had ropes coming out my ears. I learnt a lot from my experiences the year before, but so easily the circumstances seemed to be repeating themselves. This time we kept both our ropes and got down a little wiser. I think you have to respect what you love, without that you're in a mess. Aiguille de Roc has my respect for sure, and I'll definetely be back for more of her loving this summer, third time lucky. I'm just a little worried now that we are maybee in the friends zone and I'll never quite make it all the way, but who knows, I live in hope.