West Face of the Dru

The Drus rise in a single thrust of bare granite which run almost without a single break to their summits. Summits, because there are two: The Petit Dru and the Grand Dru. The West face of the Pitit Dru, the lower summit, is enclosed between the dramatic curves of the North Ridge and the South Ridge. The South Ridge of the Petit Dru is also called the Bonatti Pillar first climbed by Walter Bonatti alone over a period of five days in 1955. The Drus are satellite peaks of the much higher Aiguille Vert.

This small group of peaks command the entrance to the huge, flat glacier, the Mer de Glace, with extended views down to the French town of Chamonix and on down the six kiliometer valley to the village of Le Houches.

On the right the South Ridge continues down in a long series of shattered rock pillars; petrified shapes that almost reach the Mer de Glace. This long ridge is called the "Flames of Stone" - "La Flamme de Pierre". From the base of the same ridge, two long moraines in a huge V shape swell out at their meeting point into a grassy hillock covered with great slabs of rock evidence of past avalanches the - Rognon des Drus.

During the summer, the spectacular Drus come to life each morning in the bursting of the sun which climbs up from behind the two peaks. October comes with its gentle scents and veils of frost. The sky is filled with ghostly shapes in the morning mists. Winter soon arrives and coats the Drus in ice. Now is the season that is full of moaning; the season when the muscles of the granite burst under the terrific pressure; the expansion of ice. Then there is silence - and for a very long time the Drus stand in frozen isolation a magnificant oberlisk admired by the glacier skiers below.

Until 1952, the West Face of the Dru remained unclimbed; unviolated. Its massiveness and the smoothness of its features; its jutting overhangs appeared to offer no hope of a way upwards. It embodied the the dream of many brilliant climbers of the day. Finally the West face was first climbed in between the 1st of July 1952 and the 18th of July 1952. Marcel Laine Adrien Dagory Luien Barardini and Guido Magnone finally climbed the face in two parts; two different attempts.

Reference: The West Face by Guido Magnone, Translated from the French by J. F. Burke Published by Museum Press, London.