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Chockstone Forum - Trip Reports

Tells Us About Your Latest Trip!

Author
Mont Blanc the Italian Way!
luket
12-Aug-2015
6:30:07 PM
This was going to be my second trip to Chamonix. 2 years before i had paid for and planned a trip to climb for 3 weeks there with the goal of climbing Mont Blanc. However a couple of weeks before i had the good fortune of breaking some ribs whilst boxing and my climbing partner had a shoulder injury. Whilst feeling a bit deflated we were still quite pumped to go and do a Recce of the valley and area whilst hoping that our injuries would heal. After 3 weeks we had ticked all the tourist boxes, travelled to the south of France and had 2 cragging days in the valley but nothing to write home about except a larger than expect hole in our wallets due the the excess drinking.
Fast forward 2 years and i was back on my way over to the birth place of modern mountaineering. This time with another climbing mate and no new injuries! I arrived a week before Tim arrived as he is more experienced at climbing than myself and i wanted to take a guide to refresh on the skills learnt a few years ago on a NZ TMC course and to get to know the valley from a professional.
These few days with the guide were a great investment! As well as refreshing some old skills and blowing out the cob webs he suggested that we try the Italian route up Mont Blanc as its less congested and he had recently took a client up that route.
Comparing it to the ‘normal’ Gouter route it has an extra 800m of vertical gain on summit day but the positives were the elusion that you were in the Himalayas on the approach and until you reacher the Dome de Gouter it was relatively unpopulated.

The European Alps in the summer season of 2014 were experiencing the wettest summer in nearly 60 years! So summit days were looking pretty slim. After Tim arrived and few practice days out climbing in the valley there looked like to be a 2 day fair weather window so we booked 2 nights in at the Gonella hut on the italian side and caught the bus from Chamonix to Courmayuer. From Courmayuer you take another bus up a valley were you start the 5 hour walk to the Gonella hut. As the guide said it had the feeling of walking up a valley in the himalaya, remote and wild. It was our plan to spend the first night at the Hut being approximately 3000m to acclimatise and to do a route recce the next day. This worked well with a few teams heading out the first night we arrived however the weather was still not the best and they would of had an extremely cold night out!
This was also Tim’s and i’s first experience of European Huts manned by hut keepers, what an experience compared to our favourite ones in NZ…..This one even had wifi until the generator broke and the only communication the keepers had to talk to the mechanics were their phones which needed to be charged by Tim’s portable solar charger( the Aussie’s weren’t so rookie at all ;)

Due to the extra 800m of climbing to gain the summit it was a 12am start for breakfast and on the route by 1230am. The night before we met a German couple who were quite friendly and suggested we rope up for the initial glacier for extra safety and would go our separate ways as they were Bivvying on another Route whilst we continued to MB, this however would turn out quite ‘interesting’ for us Aussie’s later…..
The Germans were leading an did quite a good job of route finding which got us to the top of the ridge where we unroped as a 4 and continued up the ridgeline to our separation point.

The ridge line gets quite exposed and hairy/airy in some places on the accent from here and in reaching a minor summit called Piton des Italiens we passed the Germans who were unroping. This is where we experienced some ‘interesting’ European ways of climbing. The German women was quite scared from the climb up the ridge and didn’t want to continue with her partner along another more exposed route and asked if she could join us and go through to MB whilst her partner continued on his route and would meet up with us later. All of this was going on whilst the guy was getting ready to set off!

Now I’m not quite sure if thats the done thing over there but at 3am on the side of an exposed ridge line we now had a women that was out of her comfort zone attaching herself to our rope……It was an interesting predicament to say the least as she would now be our responsibility! Going against good judgement we put here in the middle and set off for the Dome De Gouter and on to MB leaving behind her partner to tick his selfish box.

The route up to and past Dome De Gouter was quite uneventful and we were making good progress. This is also where we joined the regular route and was amazed to see a staircase of headlamps heeding for the summit from the Gouter hut!

The women had been keeping up quite well until now but started to slow down quite a bit. The final 500M of accent was extremely slow but after some ‘encouraging’ words we summited at 8am!! By this stage we were about an hour behind what we had planned to summit by and the wind had picked up quite a bit but there were no clouds and an amazing view!! We couldn’t spend much time now on the summit due to our unplanned guiding experience and started to descend. We eventually met up with the Women’s partner and this is where we went our separate ways.

The decent was quite uneventful even crossing the infamous Grand couloir AKA death valley. After descending to the train then down to the lift which bought us back down to the valley floor we were back in our hostel in no time reminiscing on our first experience on Mountaineering in the European Alps.

Chamonix is an amazing place and should be on the to do list of an aspiring Mountaineer or outdoor enthusiast!

I’m looking forward to heading back there next season hopefully with a 12 month working Visa and living the ‘Cham’ lifestyle and ticking some more classic routes!










johnk
12-Aug-2015
6:46:17 PM
That's a great trip report - well done also in taking an extra passenger along!

trog
13-Aug-2015
2:11:58 AM
Sounds like a good trip.

Did a similar trip a few years back to finish our time in Cham... the difference between heading up with around 3-4 other teams in sight who also left from the Gonella Hut compared to the highway after hitting Gouter was amazing.

We also picked up a passenger too! Heading down the Col du Maudit I had to teach a guy how to abseil on a munter and send him down our rope. He knew he had to wrap the rope around a biner somehow but looked pretty confused though, especially by the whole 2 strands part... His partner had buggered off and left him to fend for himself - he'd rapped down someone else's rope and taken their rope with him. Meanwhile plenty of people were still heading up the route, a rescue chopper was buzzing the col and there was a lone ice axe planted just down the slope on the western side as if someone had take a long trip :(

Chamonix can be a right circus, but the access is great...
StephanieG
27-Jan-2016
9:23:05 PM
your report is so detailed, thank you, I love reading other's stories.

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