In the on-going saga of the Favresse brothers' expedition to Greenland aboard Bob Shepton's 10m yacht Dodo's Delight, the team has put up several more adventurous rock routes in the Cape Farewell region.

After their escapades and fine free ascents of big walls in the Upernavik area of West Greenland, Ben Ditto (USA), Nico and Olivier Favresse, and Sean Villanueva (all from Belgium) sailed with Shepton c1,400km down the coastline to the southern tip of Greenland and the fjords of Cape Farewell.

While sunbathing on the deck of the boat in the waters south east of Pamiagdluk, they spotted attractive rock walls on the island of Quvernit.

These west-facing granite walls rose to peaks on the east side of a small glacier. Notable, was a pear-shaped face c550m high and seamed with vertical crack lines.

Splitting into two teams, Ditto with Nico Favresse and Olivier with Villanueva climbed two parallel lines towards the left side of the face.

Abandoning the idea of taking large nuts or cams, they picked two 'finger cracks', only to find that once on the wall they were presented with 14 pitches of solid off-width climbing.

The memorable sections of the Ditto-Favresse route saw Favresse make a scary mantle onto a detached block, estimated to weigh 200kg, and a 15m fall straight onto the belay.

The four reached the top of the wall towards dusk and shivered out the Greenlandic night. One of these routes has been named Chloe, after the 23-year-old Belgian sport climber Chloe Graftiaux, recently killed in a fall on the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey.

The climbs had landed them on the southern top of a higher peak, so next day they traversed the long crenellated summit ridge, descended north from the higher summit, and then traversed a lower but completely separate peak further north again.

They returned to Dodo's Delight 38 hours after leaving.

The team refer to the face as Close Call Wall, probably unaware that all three summits had been visited once before; in 2004 by a very strong Swiss-German team.

In that year Tom Holzhauser, Caro Morel, the brothers Michi and Jvan Tresch, and Michi Wyser from Switzerland, plus Toni Lamprecht and Wanja Reichel from Germany reached the island after a four-hour boat trip from Nanortalik. Prior to their arrival there was no recorded climbing history on any of the peaks.

They made the first ascent of seven, including climbing the pear-shaped wall via two routes on the right side; West Pillar (700m of climbing: UIAA VIII) and Ghetto Boys (700m of climbing: UIAA IX or 7c).

They named this southerly top Angagoq Tower and later climbed the higher top via the North North West Pillar (620m of climbing: UIAA VIII). Their line appears to lie a little to the right of the descent used by Favresse and co. The summit was named Asiaq.

Holzhauser, Morel and Wyser climbed the most northerly summit via the North West Face at VII, naming the peak Morel Tower.

The team placed no bolts on all of their climbs and saw no trace of any previous passage.

At a different location and just prior to climbing on Quvernit, Ditto, the Favresse brothers and Villanueva had made a lengthy walk inland to a fine peak, which they climbed via two 450m routes on a prow, bivouacked at the top and next morning followed a beautiful ridge traverse to the summit, returning to the boat after 36 hours.

They have christened this peak Shepton Spire, a name inspired by their trusty captain, and the famous Shipton Spire in the Karakoram.

Shepton was then encouraged to don his rock shoes, and with Nico and Sean climbed a fine new route straight out of the sea. The team had picked a line that they thought would prove relatively short and easy. However it turned out to be harder than expected and 500m high. Shepton found it exciting and strenuous but ' far too long for a 75 year-old man'.

The team are now crossing the Atlantic. In common with all their fine routes created during this trip, technical grades have yet to be quoted.

The photograph shows, from left to right, the summits of Morel Tower, Asiaq and Angagoq. The pear-shaped wall on the right, seamed with cracklines, tops out at Angagoq. The Swiss-German team climbed two routes towards the right side of this wall in 2004, while in August this year the American-Belgian team climbed two routes further left and then traversed left along the entire skyline.
 

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