Grande Sure Portail Du Chorolant

Hiking -> Routes -> Chartreuse -> Grande Sure Portail du Chorolant

Description

From the car park follow a track south-west towards the waterfalls. After about 100m take a right turn onto a small path that climbs up through the forest. The path can be a bit slippery in places and at one point there are some iron stakes hammered in the ground to retain some wooden steps. Take care. At about 680 meters altitude the path forks with the left fork heading to the Pisserotte waterfalls. Take the right option. After some climbing you exit onto a forest road. The left option joins the forest road that leads up from St Laurent du Pont. The better bet is to take the right option which climbs to the Portail du Chorolant (You can reach this via the left fork but it involves some overgrown forestry trails). The path crosses the forest road on a few points before finally heading off to the portail. Not all of the tracks in the woods are evident on the IGN map. At the Chorolant there are a couple of options, we climbed a small wall to the north of the Portail, this is very simple scrambling which leads onto a wide ridge at around 1580m. From here turn southwards (right) climbing through light forest until you exit onto the plateau under the Grand Sure. Follow the path to the south-south-west to climb either of the following couloirs.

Couloir des Aiguillettes

About 700m before the Chalet de Jusson the path starts to descend and turn slightly westwards (right). From here climb the steep slopes to the base of the cliffs. The couloir is about half way between points 1896 and 1857 on the IGN map. There are lots of couloirs that climb through the cliffs. We explored a complex below point 1857 but these do not exit onto the summit ridge without some 30m of serious climbing at the end.

Jusson Chimney

To reach the summit cross of the Grande Sure either traverse to the Chalet de Jusson and then climb an obvious couloir called the Cheminee du Jusson just above a small cross on the rocks. The cross marks the spot of a tragic accident which took the life of the young Irma Moirant.

Trip Reports

27th October 2007

It was an icy morning and the Grande Sure was enveloped in a blanket of thick cloud. I climbed with Michel and we hoped that the cloud would burn off with the sun but it was not to be. Or rather it did, but around 4pm. Above 1000m the trees were covered in rime ice and looked quite wintry. Michel had taken an ice-axe for the steep grassy slopes below the summit ramparts. This can be quite useful when the slopes are slippery due to rain or snow. These east facing slopes don't see the sun until the afternoon in the autumn months and can be quite dangerous in the morning.

We prospected around for the couloir des Aiguillettes (couloir of the small rock needles) but after climbing one likely prospect to a dead end 30m short of the summit ridge opted for the well marked Chiminee du Jussons. At the summit all was enveped in rime and we beat a hasty retrea to the Chalet du Jusson to descend by the combe de la Pierre Taillee.

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