I started in Chamonix 10:15 Friday night

There’s a poster over by the Tourist Office of how Jacques Balmat + Michel Paccard climbed the highest summit in the Alps in 1786 starting from here.

le vrai Mont Blanc—the “true” climb of Mont Blanc—there’s a tradition of starting in Chamonix without using any mechanical lift, like Balmat + Paccard. In 2003, Stéphane Brosse + Pierre Gignoux electrified the European ski mountaineering world by climbing it with skis from Chamonix in an amazingly fast time. Last April two ski-rando racers were going to try to break their record.

My idea was just the opposite: Go very slowly, and just hope to get to the top somehow at all.

I start by walking on the streets—nice to see so many people out

past the Aiguille du Midi lift which I’ve used to go up many times—but not tonight + tomorrow

. . . on to the Grepon parking where there’s a sign for the hiking trail—at first alongside the main road, then into the forest, and the uphill begins.

Made it to the entrance of the tunnel (goes underneath the mountain to Italy)

. . . (the big square thing is not the Tunnel itself, but a fancy inspection-sensor for trucks to pass through)

I stashed my camera there—because I love taking pictures so much that if I kept it, I’d lose too much time. So I’ll continue the story with some photos of the same places which I took on other days.

I hiked up the trail (much with snow on it) to Gare de la Para. Put on my skis and climbed on skins in the dark early Saturday morning up to Gare des Glaciers—not so easy with frozen ski descent tracks and avalanche debris around irregular sub-ridges. No moon—looking up to the artificial light at the top of the Aiguille du Midi and hoping that if I just keep heading for that, I’ll maybe eventually run into a good track leading to the refuge and summit. Finally I did reach the main ski track coming from the Plan d’Aiguille (mid-station) . . .

Traversed across to La Jonction, with some moves need to get up + down thru the big crevasses. Up the good track to just below the Refuge des Grands Mulets hut, across the glacier . . .

Surprise: No skin track up the North ridge of the Dome du Gouter. My policy is to never climb up the Grands Mulets glacier—because too much time exposed to (very unpredictable) serac fall from above.

So I broke trail and kicked steps alone up the Dome du Gouter for about 800 vertical meters. I knew it would slow me down and perhaps take my strength from making it to the top, but I wanted to do it the right way. And it felt great to be making up my own route in such an amazing place.

After skinning up partway, sunlight was helping, and I switched to crampons—a little higher than we did last year.

. . . (photos from last April w Craig from Utah)

. . . (Chamonix lights last April below Eric from Utah)

going higher up the north ridge of the Dome du Gouter

But this year the ridge was different: I ran into some brittle ice. So I down-climbed, traversed into the middle of the N face, climbed up some deep-ish fresh snow between big seracs—exciting but hard work. Ran into another small band of ice—this time not brittle—so I made it thru and up to Pointe Bravais, put on skis (ignored the Dom du Gouter summit) and traversed to . . .

Col du Dome, where I met lots of other skiers who had climbed the old normal route up the Grands Mulets glacier. Now I knew I was too tired to ski the North face from the summit, so I left my skis there. Went into the Bivouac Vallot shelter and put on all my clothing. Talked to a French skier in there—he said it was too windy and he was going to just wait here for his partner to return from climbing.

Hiked up the Bosses ridge to the summit, some narrow exposed sections. Would have been a nice climb if I hadn’t felt so tired and a bit nauseous.

... continued ...

Got back down to my skis and was glad to ski down the Grands Mulets glacier. (This is OK with me, because much less time spent exposed to serac fall—and indeed I skied right over serac debris which had come down into the main ski route only yesterday.) Very spectacular with seracs on the glacier and big cliffs and peaks all around - (snow was reported very good a few days before, not so great now for me).

Down lower, I felt I was too tired (and still nauseous) to cross La Jonction and ski bad snow back down to Gare Para—also avy danger in afternoon off Aiguille du Midi. So I stayed the night in the Refuge des Grands Mulets—not crowded, friendly guardian (reached by short very exposed climb on rocks with chains and metal bars).

Next morning Sunday I woke up late, met a pair of skiers from Germany + Switzerland. Surprised to see anyone still there for 8:00 breakfast, asked them what they were going to do. They said:
“We climbed up yesterday to the summit—starting from Chamonix.”

They had started later than me, and were very glad to have found my skin tracks going up from Gare de la Para, but then used the old normal route to the summit because it was easier. Descended later than me, and also decided to sleep at the hut. Now they were going down because they had to drive home to go to work on Monday.

Myself I felt good, saw blue sky, so climbed up the Dome du Gouter (again)

. . . (seen from below last year)

Skied down the North face alone in mostly friendly snow (which I allowed me to ignore the exposure) down to La Jonction, then retraced my route back

thru the glacier around La Jonction

. . . (photos last April w Utah friends)

traverse to Gare des Glaciers

. . . (towers and cable from the ancient ski lift still there) . . .

soon into some snow that had transformed almost to corn—skiing got rather fun lower down toward

Gare de la Para

and the trail on down to the MB tunnel, with . . .

sign for hiking, and Aiguille du Midi above right—with Gare Para just visible in the upper trees a bit below + left from the Midi

A great adventure—glad we finally got multiple days of good weather.

Ken

thanks for posting this ken, an interesting read and good pictures

Something special about long solo days in the mountains.  This is an epic, thanks for sharing it with the board.

A few years back I ski toured Mont Blanc by the trois mont blanc route because of the risk of serac fall on the Grand Mulet route. About three weeks before we made our ascent a serac fall killed a party of 4 or 5 on this route.

Excellent! That’s a totally different experience to climb on foot and skins only. Keep going!

Ken’s very big adventure.

Fantastico to do it the right way and then the mental side of things to climb back up the next day. Not a route to underestimate and interesting to read about your choices.

sinbad - 12 April 2010 09:50 PM

A few years back I ski toured Mont Blanc by the trois mont blanc route because of the risk of serac fall on the Grand Mulet route. About three weeks before we made our ascent a serac fall killed a party of 4 or 5 on this route.

The 3MB route is great. I tried it with an amateur partner, and we had to turn back at the technical crux on Mt Maudit.

Climbing the N ridge of the Dome du Gouter also avoids the serac fall risk (because the seracs fall from the Gouter down onto the Grands Mulets glacier) and it’s less technically difficult and less committing than 3MB.

I was visiting Chamonix this morning and looked up and saw the Grands Mulets glacier and Dome du Gouter—and was struck by how obvious it is to see the giant blocks of ice hanging over the Grands Mulets glacier.

There is a certain English-language ski mountaineering “guidebook” which (unlike most French-language guidebooks) does not even mention the serac-fall risk or suggest that there might be alternatives to avoid it.
And a well-known French 1:25000 topo map shows the line of a ski route on the Grands Mulets glacier without the slightest note that there might be any problem with it, or that summer climbers have largely abandoned it as a route.

Ken