“Get out of there fast if rocks start falling,” says Phil in the matter-of-fact tone he reserves for mortal danger. We are standing at the edge of the Grand Couloir, a steep gully halfway up the Aiguille de Goûter, that must be crossed by climbers hoping to ascend Mont Blanc via its north-western ridge. The gully is known for rockfall and has been the scene of over 100 fatalities in the past 30 years. Though that’s a small number set against the thousands who summit every summer season, the unsettling image of a football sized rock hurtling down the slope at head height is hard to shake.
For Phil, one of two guides enlisted in our bid for the summit, this is just another day at the office. He is an IFMGA Mountain Guide, denoting an awe-inspiring level of experience in the high places of the world. Even to begin training for this prestigious qualification requires a vast back-catalogue of successful ice, rock and ski-touring expeditions. Prior to guiding, he was a commando in the Royal Marines, who led a daring escape from rebel militia forces in the jungles of Sierra Leone. Such is the calibre of those drawn to the mountains.
Learning the ropes
Our trip had begun three days before in a cosy lodge nestled in the Chamonix valley. It was late August, generally a good time to tackle the mountain, if you can get space in one of the huts that guard its flanks. I was rooming with an ex-squaddie and triple ironman looking for a new challenge, but I was relieved to find that the other two members of our tour group had more terrestrial fitness levels. None of us had much Alpine experience, but we had been promised three days of training and acclimatisation to equip us with the skills and red blood cells we would need to reach the summit.
Above Chamonix, the steep sides of the valley are thickly forested with pine, giving way to scrubland at around 1,900m. In turn, this rises upward into broken rock, glacial moraine and finally the permafrost of the peaks themselves. Crowning the massif is the elegant dome of Mont Blanc at 4,808m, the zenith of the Alps and Western Europe. To reach it requires crossing what is known as ‘wet glacier’, that is glacier where the compacted ice is covered by snow. This is the most hazardous kind, since the winter snows may conceal deep crevasses, unseen by the Alpinist until the thin crust he is walking over collapses. Crampons are essential, as is roping up to the rest of your party, so they can haul you out in the event of a fall.
There are three principal routes up the mountain. Perhaps the most iconic is the three monts route, which begins with a relaxing ride up to 3,800m in the Aiguille du Midi cable car and allows you to tackle the summit in a single day from the Cosmique Hut. However, it is technically demanding, passing over steep, exposed ground and running the gauntlet of serac fall beneath Mont Maudit. On the Italian side there is the Pope route, pioneered in 1890 by a team including the future Pope Pius XI. This is a long and committing approach to the mountain, which starts from valley level and hence requires over 3,000m of ascent to be tackled on foot. Finally, there is the “easy” Goûter route that I opted for. I was soon to discover that the word easy is used in a strictly relative sense.
We had spent three days learning the art of roped glacier travel, mountain hut living and ice axe technique on the Glacier du Tour, well to the north of the highest peaks. After a night’s rest and an ungodly quantity of carbs in Chamonix, we were now aboard the steep tramway heading for the start of the Goûter route. On our way up, we encountered a series of mud-spattered, hollow-eyed runners participating in the week-long programme of ultra-trail events. Of all the nutcases that Chamonix attracts, these guys are undoubtedly the most masochistic. The headline race consists of four back-to-back marathons over jagged terrain, with a total elevation gain greater than Everest. Most participants have to run through two nights to complete the race. Our little jaunt seemed rather tame by comparison. Relativity has a lot to answer for.
Onwards and upwards
From the tramway exit, the trail winds over rocky terrain for a couple of hours to the Tête Rousse hut. Soon after, it steepens and you face the brooding theatre of the Grand Couloir. Fortunately, our crossing went without a hitch, the only moving stones being gentle trickles of pebbles scurrying past our stiff-soled boots. We had scrambled a couple of hundred metres above the crossing point, the line of the couloir running parallel on our left, when a torrent of boulders came spinning down it at obscene speed. “Rockfall!” shouted Phil urgently, projecting his voice down the gully and out of sight to the gauntlet we had recently run. No screams sounded from beneath and there were multiple parties behind us to raise the alarm had someone been caught in the crossfire. We carried on climbing.
Icy winds buffeted us an hour or so later as we crested the ridge and donned crampons to traverse the short stretch of snow to the Goûter Hut. Our other guide, Dave, who had reservations about the weather window for our summit day, looked doubtfully into the stinging pellets of sleet, but said nothing. The hut clung incongruous and limpet-like to the side of the slope, its squashed spherical aspect and bubble windows giving the impression of an alien spacecraft recently crash-landed. We were delighted to escape the wind, trade our heavy boots for the ever-stylish crocs found in all Alpine huts, and enjoy the radiant warmth within.
Summit morning
Icy winds were buffeting me again and it was the wrong side of 5am. The witching hours had passed fitfully in the dorm room, disturbed by the hypoxic snoring of my companions and racing thoughts of the coming climb. Now we stood in roped formation on the snowy ridge above the hut, head-torches flickering across the dark mounds rising ahead. Take a crampon-spiked step. Jab the haft of your ice axe into the uphill snow. Check the rope isn’t catching. Step, axe, rope. Step, axe, rope. By degrees, the sky suffused with pre-dawn light. We continued our measured, but inexorable progress upward and the continent fell away beneath our feet, leaving us a lone presence in this sacred upper world. Well, almost alone.
Being peak climbing season, the hut had been rammed the night before and a number of other parties were also taking their shot that morning. We had left early, and aside from one group which had passed us, the others remained distant pinpricks of clustered torch beams. Now it was grey dawn and they seemed to be thinning out. “What’s happening down there?” asked Bill, the squaddie. “They’re going back,” replied Dave. It was true, the wind on the ridge was ferocious, seeking out every inch of exposed flesh and threatening to topple us on the precipitous narrow traverses. Evidently, they had decided the conditions were too hostile to continue. “Anyone wants to go back?” asked Phil, flashing a wolf-like smile one imagines he used on his captors in Sierra Leone. We all shook our heads firmly.
Time slipped past and we found ourselves looking up at the Vallot. To call it a hut would be something of an overstatement. Battered by punishing storms at 4,360m, it is a glorified aluminium can, designed to provide shelter for up to 12 people in emergency situations. We entered briefly to restore the circulation to our protesting fingers and eat a little flapjack. The interior stank of urine, and we could dimly make out some rather sorry-looking climbers huddled in sleeping bags, who had taken radical measures to avoid the overnight charge at the Goûter. Smell aside, it was tempting to remain sheltered within, but Dave signalled the time had come to make our final push.
To the top
The final section of the route is not technical, but the height was beginning to tell and I could feel myself becoming light-headed. The early stages of altitude sickness are not always unpleasant; for me they can be rather like tipsiness. Nevertheless, a loss of coordination is not ideal teetering along an arête poised above a 3,000ft ice-slide to the valley floor. Still, I consoled myself, either my roped companions would catch me or they’d be joining me for the ride. By this time, we had entered dense cloud and it was something of an anti-climax when the incline abruptly gave way to the featureless summit.
“This is it,” shouted Dave into the wind. “Take some photos and then we better start down.” Despite the absence of anything resembling a view, I reached for my phone, only to find that the cold had killed the battery stone dead. Fortunately, I had taken more rigorous precautions with the bottle of champagne that I had stuffed into a thick sock to prevent freezing. Dave, who had given us strict instructions to pack only the essentials for the summit, looked on incredulously as I produced it from my rucksack. I was relieved to see that the low air pressure had not caused it to explode. We toasted our famous victory over the elements with a swig or two each and then gathered our wits for the long descent. As a rule, I cannot advocate alcohol at altitude, since it produces the most appalling hangovers. However, if you are determined on bringing a bottle to the roof of the Alps, make it a Blanc de Blanc.
Photo credits
Grand couloir: Anthospace <ahref=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en/”>(license)</a>
Goûter route diagram: Christian <ahref=https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/fr/deed.en>