Jorassique Pâques, big new French climb on the Grandes Jorasses

The adventure I never saw coming. Perhaps the most intense of my life. Six days that pushed our bodies and minds to their absolute limits. Climbing, hauling, thinking, doing, anticipating, managing.

The first words that come to mind for this dream – a dream I never imagined could become reality when I started mountaineering – are simple: passion, friendship, ambition, and a healthy dose of exploration. Since joining the GEAN, I've been incredibly lucky to find climbing partners and friends to share my most unthinkable projects with. And often, when three people start believing in something a little crazy, a spark is bound to ignite.

Kilian Moni: the man who loses his dental implant but keeps climbing without flinching. Hugo Peruzzo: the one who punctures his inflatable portaledge in the snow and still claims to be "on the edge of comfort." Pierre Girot: the king of aid climbing. And me: the spark from a faulty lighter – the very origin of this slightly insane idea. A dream team for a project worthy of our youth, our arrogance, and perhaps also our recklessness.

The idea came gradually, as I got drawn deeper into the game of exploration. I started looking at the mountain differently, dreaming differently, searching elsewhere.

In December, the three of us set off for a first attempt. Unfortunately, a handling error doomed the ascent as early as the second day. Pierre, Jérôme Sullivan, and I had to turn back. Then, in January, at the end of my guide training, I dislocated my shoulder. I watched winter slip by, unable to seize another chance. Everything needed to align again: available partners, high pressure, a healed shoulder, and good conditions. Then, at the end of March, a message from Pierre. Would an early spring window be possible?

Jérôme wasn't available, so we decided almost at the last minute to reform the rope team from our opening the previous summer in the massif, at the foot of the Moine.

An ultralight portaledge bought the day before departure. Gear packed at 11 p.m. And this shared dream – of confronting a virgin zone on the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, the mountain that probably fuelled my most beautiful childhood dreams – was perhaps about to come true.

For the team, this represents a real achievement. We keep our coach's words in mind, even though he wasn't with us on this attempt: "If you have to try again, it's no big deal." For any ambitious project, it's normal to have multiple attempts. He knows this better than anyone, and it's a huge source of inspiration for all of us.

The team is complete. The packs are terribly heavy. And there's always a good friend on the approach to lend a hand – Thibaut in December, Gaëtan this time. The weather looks good, the days are long, and though temperatures start around -20°C the first night, they gradually rise as the window progresses.

After a night at the foot of the face, we set off. I hope with all my heart that this time will be the one. But every time I return here, I have a knot in my stomach. Everything becomes clear once we're in action. From below, beneath the summit, a face watches us for the entire climb – one that bears a striking resemblance to a Moai from Easter Island. Funny thing: next Monday is Easter.

Thanks to plenty of advice from Léo Billon the day before, we put our strategy in place: climb with packs on our backs on the lower part of the face, then haul once it becomes truly vertical. Kilian leads, and we make good progress behind. The day goes without a hitch. We pass back through the sections we climbed in December until we bivouac, suspended on our three portaledges.

The adventure thus returns to where it stopped last December. The night is not pleasant. Low clouds deposit snow, and the 5 a.m. wake-up call turns into a major questioning of the project. Will we last several days with wet sleeping bags? Especially since the night before, the portaledge without its fly might not even have a floor anymore. Kilian has punctured part of the ledge, though we don't yet know how. We've lost a dental implant. And the weather still hasn't cleared. So we delay our departure until 8 a.m., waiting for the sky to open up.

Day 2. Everyone decides the game is worth it. No red card is forcing us to turn back yet, so we set off again. We launch into the unknown, slightly modify the itinerary, and overcome, pitch after pitch, new difficulties. The wall becomes steeper and steeper.

Nowadays, on the Grandes Jorasses, it's not easy to find a line that doesn't cross another route – this mountain continues to fuel the most beautiful projects of alpinists. Our idea came precisely from one of the steepest bastions on the face, between the "Directe de l'amitié" and the "Bonatti-Vaucher," in an area so overhanging that nothing seemed possible at first glance. To open, we had to abandon the idea of a free ascent. Too time-consuming, too demanding in terms of cleaning mediocre rock in places.

Seeing that even alpinists of the highest level and immense experience – including Léo, one of our GEAN coaches – had opened Basique to the left without freeing it, I understood that this would also be unrealistic for us. The day advances, and we fix the next pitch while setting up the bivouac.

Day 3. The night was dry, but I punctured my sleeping mat. I'll do without from now on. After significant route preparation, we had divided the face into five large zones. Now we enter the third: the most overhanging and most terrifying of all. From the bivouac, looking at it, I still wonder where to go.

Pierre, courageous, commits. After two pitches of cleaning the rock to make progress, the terrain becomes increasingly overhanging. I take over, then end up blocked under a six-metre-long plug of snow, also overhanging. Hanging on tiny placements, it takes me thirty minutes to remove the first part. The second finally falls as a single block, so heavy that it almost pulls me off. I set up a belay there, after two and a half hours of aid climbing.

Pierre then tackles the next pitch – likely to remain one of the key points of the ascent. The most overhanging of the entire route. In theory, the line should be free-climbable, but this pitch seriously raises doubts about whether anyone could free it on the Jorasses today. Pierre takes two massive falls before finally forcing the passage. Great art. And we three friends behind are both completely terrified and immensely proud of what just happened. The team works wonderfully, and Pierre shows us the way to the summit.

Day 4. The end of the day and the night were apocalyptic. The weather surprises us with a storm not far away in the Chablais, and nearly 60 cm of snow falls overnight. We are high on the face. There's nothing to do but survive.

Soaked to the bone, I wake up at midnight completely covered in snow, panicked, unable to breathe properly in the small spaces left by my puffy jacket and sleeping bag. Hugo, for his part, punctures his inflatable portaledge. Kilian and I then sit up to share the only sleeping mat left to us.

The morning wake-up is brutal. Hugo hangs like a larva in his punctured G7. Snow is everywhere. It's still falling from the wall, and our ledges act as receptacles. Yet we get back into action. Kilian is motivated, and his morning energy immediately gets me going again. I set off in front with a single idea: we have to get out today. The famous face in the rock is only a few pitches away – we must pass it today. We won't survive another night in the state our bivouac is in.

The wall is still icy and snow-covered, but I have my strategy. A call to Léo the previous evening confirmed the approach to take. A few more pitches, and we'll reach the last anchor of Basique before taking the obvious three-pitch line that leads to the summit of Pointe Whymper via the historic Bonatti-Vaucher route.

Hugo takes the lead again. After four days alone in the world, without warning, friends from the PGHM come to offer moral support on the final climbing pitches by making a quick helicopter pass during their daily training. Hugo cannot hold back his tears. And we all share that strange feeling of living through something unique – and of sharing it for the first time in four days with other enthusiasts. The motivation is there. Kilian speeds ahead. I take the lead again for the last two pitches.

And there we are on the summit. Two nights in the snow. One tooth missing. Ice axes, cams, pegs, gloves: we lost some gear. But no red card – unlike that rope on the previous attempt.

An adventure shared by four young men aged 23, 25, 25, and 28 (Arthur, Hugo, Kilian, and Pierre). We certainly didn't steal this route. For an Easter egg hunt, we got the golden goose egg this Easter Monday on the summit of the north face of the Grandes Jorasses. To our new route: Jorassique Pâques.

- Arthur Poindefert