Quartzite

I thought I hated climbing on quartzite. It’s a hard rock to figure out; the holds are never where you think they are going to be and sometimes it just feels soapy. Depending on the orientation, it also tends to gather a lot of lichen and moss (lichen: ‘I liken it to moss’).

I can now partially revise my hatred with the south facing Aiguille de Pierre-André in Ubaye, France. The east face was just as terrible as I would imagine, and another cliff, the Tête du Sanglier, was pretty, I guess, but kind of boring? Hard=small holds, easy=large holds and….go.

So I don’t know. I think I will still tend to avoid quartzite. It was the only sort of climbable rock in Ubaye, so maybe we’re done there. It was beautiful and wild, and the campground was one of the nicest, most comfortable that I’ve ever been in. But I think we’ve done all the nice climbs at our level. We’ll leave it to the sheep!