The last week has brought warm, clear and stable weather after many weeks of unsettled conditions, clouds and lots of snow on the high mountains, and so the Mt Blanc summiters are out in numbers for a late season ascent!
After several weeks of snow in the mountains the trench up Mt Blanc becomes very noticable, even from the Arve Valley. From our appartment we can clearly see it snaking down from the Dome Du Gouter even with the naked eye, but with a set of binoculars we can easy make out people trudging down from their summit bids towards the Refuge du Gouter perched on the ridge. The last few days we have watch several parties make their way down, and today we could make out several ropes coming down the summit ridge, and onto the Grand Bose.
It’s quite exciting to watch even though I have no idea who they are or even if they have made the summit! Must make a mental note to buy a telescope when I have the money!
I was experimenting with taking photo’s through my binoculars! Not brilliant results as expected but ok. Here are a couple of shots. One of the Summit rifge of Mont Blanc, and one of people descending from the Dome du Gouter.
Mont Blanc Summit Ridge
Descending the Dome Du Gouter
I attempted to summit Mont Blanc on the 07/09/05, but the weather conditions were not sutable and was advised by the met that we should head down, as did the Guardian of the Goutier Hut, which is most unusal. No one summited the Blanc that day. 200 kph on the top with complete a white out, very scary stuff.
Thanks for your comment Samantha - nice to hear from you. Bad luck that you didn’t make the summit - Better luck next time! I still think having a go is all part of Mountaineering, and you learn something new every time - even if you don’t make the summit.
The weather has definitely been very unstable this summer - a pattern of clear weather followed by bad storms seems to have set in, and this does make the mountains fairly dangerous - Fresh snow followed by warm weather brings big avalanche risk, not to mention the high winds, and storms! I think you were advised well!
The only time I managed to get into the mountains this year was in very bad conditions, but we did manage to make the summit of the Dome du Miage, though not by the route we wanted!
http://mountainnomad.co.uk/blog/2005/07/07/live-climb-experiment/
If you were looking at the Piton des Italiens on the 28th August, I was there with my daughter. Delayed at Gonella because of the rain at 1am, we left at 4am and consequently found ourselves on the Summit quite late 15:30. Just the 2 of us with a little plane circling above. Our friends Doug and Graham made it an hour before us and waited for us near the Bosses to come down with us to the Gouter. If you were watching, you must have been wondering why we were so late, but we had a terrific time, much better than in June 1987 when I first climbed via the Gouter route.