Mont Blanc Preparation
Months ago, my brother surprised me by proposing that we climb Mont Blanc together. Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in Western Europe, or rather, the highest mountain in Europe not including the Caucasus, which contains several mountains which reach a higher elevation. At just over 4,800 meters, Mont Blanc reaches above Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States, by almost 400 meters. I have good experience in hiking, but mountain climbing normally involves a different set of skills. While I may be at ease walking for days on end, if I were to do Mont Blanc, I would be exerting the maximum level of energy expended during a hike, continuously for atleast two days.
Naturally, I was happy to take on the proposed challenge. Right away, I dived into the research phase, which I believe is the most important phase of any adventure. I was happy to find that I could be of use for this sort of work, as I sifted through material only available in French, though there is also an abundant amount of information available in English. My brother had mentioned the Tour de Mont Blanc, but I quickly found that though that trail is very popular, it doesn’t go anywhere near the summit of the mountain.
I quickly fell upon the Goûter Route, which is the most popular and definitely the easiest route to the summit. The best part of the route may be that there are established shelters (refuges in French) along the route, the closest to the summit being the Refuge du Goûter. Naturally, I started looking into booking a couple of spots at this shelter, and found immediately that it would not be so easy. It turns out that there are other people looking to summit Mont Blanc, and though the refuge is big considering its location, there simply aren’t enough spots for everyone.
The reservation system is divided between spots saved for guides, and the general public. For the public, on certain dates and times, a limited number of spots open up. Thankfully, it’s not a complete free-for-all at those times, as the FFCAM (Fédération française des clubs alpins et de montagne) has put in place a waiting queue for those times. Unfortunately, the way in which this waiting queue works was not sufficiently clear to those of us who have never used the system, and my brother and I failed to get a spot on our first try. Thankfully, I was able to get a couple spots at Refuge du Goûter on the second and final reservation date, though the dates we got were not our first choice.
In any case, the hardest and most important task in the preparation phase is complete. Since then, I have got all the train tickets and hotel rooms reserved, and the schedule is set. Now, I’m researching the difficulty of the route itself in order to prepare for eventual difficulties. I’ve seen some good videos which encapsulate the hike from Refuge Nid d’Aigle, at the end of the Mont Blanc Tramway, up to Refuge du Goûter. Clearly the most dangerous part of this portion of the climb is the Grand Couloir, where falling and tumbling rocks are impossible to predict, and could be fatal.
From Refuge du Goûter, we’ll be putting on crampons and climb through the snow and ice, being careful to avoid crevasses in the ice. The key is to stay on the established path at all times, leave early, and go slowly and carefully but without stopping. The weather conditions at the summit can be quite foggy with little or no visibility, which is a major hazard when the path is on a knife’s edge, both sides of which are steep ice slopes, on which a fall could be fatal.
Though there are certainly dangers, the summit of a mountain as high as Mont Blanc is relatively easy, and can be done by those of us who are not technical experts in mountain climbing. Perhaps the best news for us is that there will be many other people on the mountain with us, the route is well-established, and we will be following directly in the footsteps of many other people. For now, I am concentrating on getting in good physical shape overall, to make sure that there are no issues on the summit day.