The Team Sherpa Blog

    Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, an aristocrat and a physicist from Geneva Switzerland was interested in geology and was a keen alpine traveler in the late 17 hundreds. He had been looking through his scope towards the highest peaks in the Alps and made calculations that a huge white dome and a mountain massive above a valley of Chamouny would have to be the highest one in the Western Europe and in the Alps. De Saussure offered few gold Thalers to the first who would summit the majestic dome of La Dame Blanche. 8^th of August 1786 doctor Michel Paccard and a local chamois hunter Jaques Balmat made the first accent to the summit of Mont Blanc. That was probably the start of a mountaineering as an activity it self and started first form of the mountain climbing tourism.

    Over the centuries and decades thousands have set their foot to the summit of Mont Blanc, many triumphs and incredible stories and legends surround that mountain massive. Especially one endeavor by an Englishman named Albert Richard Smith made the news when he and his companions reached the summit in 1851. On their way to the top of Mont Blanc they consumed ninety-six bottles of wine, champagne and cognac and naturally passed out drunken right to the summit. After surprisingly returning alive, Albert Smith performed in 2000 shows called ‘Mont Blanc’ over six years helping to popularize mountain climbing in mid Victorian Britain.

    Easy access, variety of technically less demanding routes and proximity of big villages and towns, make Mont Blanc tempting target for many tourists and mountaineers. Big scale high mountain environment and dramatic weather changes can make a standard walk in the mountains turn to a struggle for survival. Up to this day over thousand mountaineers have not make it back alive and unfortunately too many of them because of the lack of experience and respect towards the elements of the big mountains.

    We arrived to Chamonix in the Friday afternoon and it was raining. As we roamed across the town looking for a accommodation, we only hoped that it would not dump too much snow up in the high glassier. We ended up renting a studio flat from Chamonix syd, which economy accommodations are quite bearable during the summer, but in wintertime the youths keep the neighborhood awake and alert 24-7. We took the next day also easy and relaxed after the Dent d’ Herenz effort. The weather was also rather miserable, so all we could do was to plan our possible routes to Mont Blanc.

At this time of the season there are basically two options from Chamonix. The Gouter route is quite secure (grossing the Grand Couloir can be dangerous), but the hut climb is long an the Gouter Hut for sure is not kind of the place where you will enjoy yourself staying over night. It is located on the top of the steep rocky section towards Aiguille du Gouter at the height of 3817hm. It is cold, damp, crowded and a filthy place to spend a night in quite high altitude.

    The other option is to start from the Cosmique Hut from the Col du Midi. The summit push is longer, steeper and technically more demanding, but the hut climb is easy half an hour from the Aiguille du Midi cable car. On this route however the snow cover has to be vary stable. Third route called Grand Mulets is not possible at this late in the season.

    The weather forecast said that it would give two clear days starting from Sunday, so we made a plan to go up then. It was impossible to get two punks reserved from the Gouter hut, so we focused ourselves on the Mont Blanc Traverse route over Col du Mont Maudit.

    Monday morning the sky had cleared and we were anxious to get up to the Midi to see how the route would look like after few days of snowfall. We arrived to the top station at noon and the bright sun was reflecting from the virgin snow on the north faces of the Tacul and Maudit. We spend almost an hour at the café watching through my binoculars trying to see, if there would be any trail going up.

    All the bergschrund crevasses seemed to be covered with snow…a good thing.. and a bad at the same time. With new snow there are more bridges, but it is more difficult to judge where it would be safest to gross the crevasses. The other problem with the fresh snow is, that it makes the climb really strenuous if you have to brake the trail all the way.

    Even it did look like there was no climbing party thinking of going up, we decided to walk down to the hut since it was so close. In that way we could give it few more hours to see if the situation would change. The Cosmique Hut is only 30min walk away from the Aiguille du Midi cable car and one can have much better view to the route up the north face of Mont Blanc du Tacul.

    The route up the Tacul face varies from season to season and after every major dump. It is considerably steep at the places and there are two to three bergschrunds to deal with. In 2006 we had a dramatic close call with the face. After summiting the Tacul with a half an hour margin away from the face, a huge serac  from the top of the face fell and launched a massive wet snow avalanche sweeping away and burying some ten climbers from their decent.

    We spend almost two hours at the hut trying to asses the situation, but by four o’clock there still was nobody else at the hut besides us, so we decided to take the last cable car back down to the village to wait for a couple of days for the new snow to settle and possibly some new tracks to form.

    Monday we made a short trip to do a little rock scrambling in la Flegere and on Tuesday it started to rain again. We spend the whole day just chilling in Chamonix hoping that it wouldn’t snow too much higher in the mountains. The forecast promised again two day window with clearer but a bit windier weather starting from Wednesday. That would be our last change on this trip to try to make a try for a summit, so we booked again two places from the Cosmique.

    Again we enjoyed that stupendous view from the balcony of the Cosmique hut. The hut has been built right at the edge of the Col du Midi facing the Mont Blanc range and vast Bosson classier. The route up the face of Tacul didn’t still look the best possible, but now there was a fresh path going up. The only worry to me was, that the trail was a pretty much a direct line underneath some hanging seracs. The face is about 400-450m high and like I commented before rather steep. A direct line climb really means ‘climb’ and the bergschrunds require front pointing.

Wake up call was at 2 am and I probably had only slept about an hour and a half in short periods since there was very crowded in the hut and the anticipation of the climb made my thoughts run wild. We wanted to escape the morning hurly burly and quickly had some tea and crackers and put on our gear and started the approach to the Tacul wall.

    We were the third rope at 3am that morning to start the climb up the Tacul face and towards Mont Maudit and Blanc. Our climbing pace was good and without stopping we gained height very steadily. I was bit anxious since the snow was not to my liking. Even it had been very cold in the night, there only was very thin layer of crust and the snow underneath was like baking powder. The trail was very fresh and after every step you would slide downwards since there was not enough hard snow or ice where the crampons would’ve bitten properly. Also the silhouette of huge leaning seracs against starry night sky right above us did not ease the anxiety. Instead of the pretty much direct line upwards, I would’ve preferred to make a little longer but more switch back route up and so get away from immediate danger of the serac fields above.

    I thought, that at least we have the weather on our side and hopefully the frost and a cold night have made the face more stable. Never the less we made the fastest altitude gain of our climbing when we cleared the north face of the Tacul and almost 500hm in little over an hour. Fortunately we had only a thin under layer of clothing on since otherwise we would have been soaked with sweat. However as we were grossing over a wide crest leading to Mont Blanc du Tacul and starting to decent towards Col Maudit, a freezing wind from the Bosson glassier forced us to stop and adjust our gear.

    While we had a quick snack and put on more layers of clothing, we also had a change to asses the route ahead. If the Tacul face had felt a bit intimidating, the view ahead in a pale light from the moon and the stars for sure was at least breath taking. The scale of the north face of Mont Maudit from down the Col is just incredible. The height is once again close to 500 meters and it is even steeper than the Tacul. The face forms kind of a gigantic amphitheater starting from the Pointe Mieulet to the summit of Maudit and then continuing towards Tacul.

    Our route followed the 4000 meter line underneath the summit and then steeply upwards to the Col du Mont Maudit at 4345m. A fierce really cold wind was howling in our ears and blasting millions of icy crystals into our faces and made them really sore. It was still dark at twenty past five when we reached the start of the fixed ropes that lead to the Col. There are several old ropes partially buried in the snow and ice attached to the face where one can attach himself with a sling loop and thus get a better feel of confidence and security. Even through a darkness I could feel how the face was disappearing into the abyss underneath me. 

    After clearing the ropes and reaching the Col, it was getting just light enough to see the last long part of the climb all the way to the summit of Mont Blanc. At this point we had planned to follow the ridge and make an effort for the summit of Mont Maudit, but the climb so far had been rather strenuous so we had to make a quick discussion about the situation. Because of the uncertain conditions of the Tacul wall, I did not want to decent it in the afternoon and possibly risk a serac fall or a wet snow avalanche. Thus the only option to me was to push to the summit of the Mont Blanc and decent via a longer but much safer Bosses ridge to the Gouter route. The remaining climb to the summit still required over 500hm and the decent would take several hours and some 3000 vertical meters.

    Samu agreed with the new plan, so we continued our climb along an inclined icy and snowy west face of Maudit downwards to Col de la Brenva. Roughly an hour later after starting the fixed ropes, we reached the Brenva Col to witness magnificent sunrise from the Italian side.

 

 

 

    The last 500 height meters to the summit from Col de la Brenva is a monotonous ice plot where you don’t think nor see much. Climbing pace for us in that cold morning is slow but steady and I just keep on moving my feet in front of the other. I don’t know how many steps I’ve taken, but I don’t feel like stopping either. I keep on following the worn out trail along the endless slope upwards passing le Corridor, Mur de la Cote and leaving le Grand Plateau ice field on the west lower and lower. We don’t change any words between us and even two short stops that we make are almost instinctive.

  

  At 9 o’clock we finally reach the summit dome feeling….well, I have to really stop and try to grasp what I’m feeling. Some guidebooks claim that reaching the summit of Mont Blanc is big anticlimax. After a big effort ‘being forced to share’ the mountain with many others you only end up with a diminishing view around since there is nothing above you to look at.

    I scan the scenery around me and try to recognize the landmarks near and far. From the west I can just see the most western 4-thousender in the Alps, Grand Paradiso. Close by is Mont Blanc de Courmayer and then the Aosta valley in the clouds. Turning to East, I can spot the Monte Rosa massive with Matterhorn, Dent d’Herenz, Weisshorn and Grand Combin in the front. To North East and North there are all the familiar summits and peaks around the Vallee Blanche area which I love so much.

    The Aiguille du Midi looks like a tiny spike far, far away and it is amazing to see the distance we’ve climbed from there. The village of Chamonix at the end of le Bosson ice stream looks familiar and alien at the same time.

    It is very cold and the strong gusts make it very difficult to stand still. I am overwhelmed, incredibly happy and content and as we hug with Samu, it feels like we are putting a conclusion to something we’ve started together so many years ago. Walking down the long Bosses ridge watching down south towards Mont Blanc glassier on the Italian side and the more familiar views on the French side makes me feel anything but anticlimax.

    The long Gouter route follows the ridge down to Vallot refuge hut, where we take a short brake. The wind is not so fierce anymore and as we continue down and little up towards Dome de Gouter the power of sun starts to feel and take its toll. Somewhere around one pm we reach the filthy Gouter Hut where we stop to refuel ourselves with cold and horrible vegetable soup and a can of coke.

    The decent from the hut is steep rock scramble to Tete Rousse glassier about 600 meters lower with spectacular view to Aiguille de Bionnassey to the west. Before the glassier, there is the most dangerous part of the decent when you have to gross about 50 meters wide Grand Couloir. After the short glassier grossing we lighten up the gear and take off the ropes, harnesses and crampons.

   

 

Our plan is to take a mountain tram from Nid d’Aigle 2372m down to Bellevue cable car and from there a lift down to the village of Les Houches. The tram station is packed with climbers and scenery tourists and we are told, that there is not a single seat available. We bite our lip and continue to walk down along the railway tracks with sore feet for 560 more meters down to the cable car. At 6pm we lean against the wall at the bar in Chamonix and look up to the White Lady still basking in the sun and have toast with cold beer.

    The next two days we drive back to Milan and hear from the news in the radio that there has been a disaster in Mont Blanc. On Sunday morning at 3am on the same route on the Tacul north face, which we were going up three days before, a large serac fell from above. A big avalanche from that buried 16 climbers and tragically eight climbers lost their lives. 

 

The route and a point where the big serac fell on Sunday morning.

 

 

 

‘Ye crags and peaks, I’m with you once again!

…

Me thinks I hear

A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home

Again!’

S.KNOWELS