French Annabelle Bouchardon has just completed the first female solo ascent of the American Direct on the west face of the Drus

A wall of granite visible to all, a stage on which some of the most powerful chapters in solo alpinism have been written. The west face of the Drus has seen the greatest climbers pass through solo: Walter Bonatti, René Desmaison, Christophe Profit, Marc Batard, Jean-Christophe Lafaille, Alain Ghersen, Catherine Destivelle, Alex Honnold, Benjamin Védrines… roughly a dozen landmark solos have been recorded on the west face of the Drus.

Annabelle Bouchardon has now added her own name to that history. She set off on Tuesday, June 23, at 4 a.m. from the base of the face, and reached the summit of the Petit Dru on Thursday, June 25, at 8:10 a.m., after three days of effort and two suspended bivouacs. Her route: the American Direct, one of the major great classics of the west face, 3,600 feet, ED-, 5.11a, climbed as a roped solo. A first female ascent on this itinerary.

What does “roped solo” mean? It means climbing each pitch while self-belaying, fixing the rope, descending again to retrieve the gear, then climbing back up a second time, either free climbing or using jumars, before hauling the bag. Hers weighed about 37 pounds. The route has around 30 pitches. In this style, every meter costs twice as much—sometimes three times as much—in energy and time.

After a first night at the base of the face, Annabelle Bouchardon set off by headlamp. Her first bivouac on the wall took place at the bloc coincé, roughly 2,000 feet up the face. While organizing her gear for the bivouac, a mistake sent her helmet tumbling into the void. It was an incident that upset her—and, frankly, really bothered her—because she considers it unthinkable to keep climbing in the mountains without that protection. As she put it herself, it was “a real beginner’s mistake.”

The rest of the climb, on compact rock with no other party above her, did not worry her too much. But on the rappel descent, with fatigue setting in, the absence of a helmet forced her to be even more cautious.

The second bivouac, just below the summit in the Trou du Canon—a kind of small natural niche at the top of the face—was hardly restful. That evening, last Wednesday, a storm broke late in the day. Not exactly a pleasant moment.

On Thursday morning, she topped out on the Petit Dru, at 12,247 feet. But the climb was not over. Annabelle continued by traversing to the Grand Dru, then began the descent down the south face. Around a dozen rappels were still needed to reach the Charpoua Glacier. She began descending at noon, set foot on the glacier at 3:30 p.m., and reached the hut at 4:30 p.m.

A remarkable success, following her trial run on the Grand Pic de Belledonne in early June, where she soloed La Croix et la Manière, a bolted ED- route.

©Benjamin Vallet / Simond

“I’m happy… and tired. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck! When I look at this face from below, I also feel real pride,” she said on arrival. She describes the achievement as stronger than climbing a difficult rock route. Because here, the summit is the Petit Dru. Because she spent three days alone on this face.

Because during the ascent, she barely had time to look at the landscape, too focused on the route, the decisions, and the rope work.

This success also belongs to a particular history: that of solos on the west face of the Drus. In 1955, Bonatti opened his southwest pillar alone over five days. In 1965, Desmaison climbed the American Direct solo in winter. In 1982, Christophe Profit climbed the same route free solo. In 1991, Catherine Destivelle opened a new route alone over eleven days, still on this same west face.

Before Annabelle Bouchardon, Destivelle was the only woman to have completed a major solo ascent on the west face of the Drus. Her line has since disappeared in the major rockfalls of the 2000s, as did the Bonatti Pillar and part of the routes on the west face, including the Directissimes and the Thomas Gross route, among others.