Caire de Cougourde

Peaks: Caire de Cougourde (2921m/9583ft)
Area: Maritime Alps, France
Routes: SE Ridge/Voie Normale (uI+)
Alongside Maledie, this was another obvious gap in my Mercantour CV and another very striking rock peak. Indeed, it is such a compelling objective from the Cougourde hut that I felt obliged to do it before breakfast, even though the original intention had just been to rest after yesterday's 'vertical kilometre' run. A peaceful night saw all the mist melt away to leave a starlit early morning. I managed to sneak away from the hut without waking the children but then had real difficulty following the path to Lac des Sagnes. I've done this before, when going up Cime de l'Agnel, but it is rather tenuous in the dark with no headtorch! I picked my way from cairn to cairn, then the light improved as I reached the crucial turn-off towards the Combe du Cougourde. This goes very steeply east, rapidly gaining height below the stunning west face (indeed, as with Maledie, it was a shame to just be soloing the normal route rather than enjoying the obviously superb rock climbing it had to offer). The path is, by Mercantour standards, easy to follow and well cairned. It leads quite quickly to a 20m slabby wall taken on good holds which gives access to the upper cwm. This heads up towards Cime des Gaisses initially before veering north to take a broad spur towards a good traverse path below the hidden east face. The cwm up here is just a deep bowl of shattered scree, surrounded by vertical rock, and is quite an intimidating place alone at 6.15am. That said, after almost 20 years exploring the Maritime Alps on my own, these situations are quite familiar: I can count on one hand the other people I've seen on the 30+ peaks I've climbed in the area. Rough scree, followed by 30m of more solid slabby scrambling, then led up to the Baisse du Cougourde, the onward route still looking utterly unfeasible at this point. It seems so unlikely that a simple voie normale exists, but, sure enough, on emerging at the Baisse all is revealed as a simple broad ridge line leads up to the summit. Before starting up the ridge, I spent a few minutes gaping at the awesome view as the sun rose over the shoulder of Gelas. Again, a cloud inversion on the Italian side meant superb views of the nearby peaks. These got better as I ascended the simple slopes to the right of the SE ridge. This gradually became steeper near the summit as the route snaked left and became more exposed with a few easy rocky steps. The views from the small top were predictably electrifying. The ridge from here, Peak 1 of the Cougourde (the high point), over to Peak 4, looked superb but sadly unfeasible solo. The descent via the same route was surprisingly simple and very quick, and I got to the hut before 8am with the breakfast coffee still warm! After a short rest in the sunshine, we all began the descent which was absolutely delightful in the morning sunshine. We all really enjoyed it, I think, and a second breakfast in the lovely woodland near the Pont Peirastreche prolonged our time in the valley before washing in the river, heading to see the wolves in Boreon, and driving to Nice airport later on.