UKH

Gervasutti Pillar (TD 6a)

Does anyone have any info about the red tower at the top of the gervasutti pillar? I've been trying to find a topo and haven't succeeded, any advice?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gervasutti+Mont+Blanc+du+tacul&source...:

This looks quite helpful too:

http://pobega.ro/gervasutti-pillar/

What are you trying to find out? Most ascents bypass the pillar on the left up a snow gully. This was out of condition when we did the route and so we did some really scrappy pitches around the red pillar instead, maybe 5-6 pitches of loose and time consuming VS. Not recommended or enjoyable!

Thanks! Whether there's a recommended route up the red tower, given conditions at the moment the gully on the left probably won't be an option so I just wanted to know the best way to climb the red tower.

Thank you, they will be useful!

We just made it up as we went along, skirting around the left hand side of the red tower in a rising traverse to eventually meet the gap before the snow ridge. There was quite an obvious line avoiding any really hard climbing. You can take the tower face directly but it’s apparently quite tricky and by that point you just want to be motoring onwards.

The gully is very straightforward scrambling and does not rely on snow to be climbable - we did it in rock shoes. No harm in having a plan B though.

Enjoy the route, it’s fantastic.

Yeah it’s a chossy scramble with occasional volleys of microwave sized blocks. 

fair point about stonefall - we didn't see any when we did it (end of August 2007), but we had nobody above us and things may well have changed since then.   

We also experienced no rockfall in 2015, and the gully was dry as a bone. That said, I think we were simply lucky. I've heard several reports of sever rockfall and it was extremely loose - like climbing up a tottering pile of rooftiles. With the way conditions in the alps have deteriorated over the last 5 years I think the OP is right to be wary.

We did it in 2016 and the gully was a total death chute. Glad we were the only team on the route that day.