Mont Blanc Summit trip Day 2

MONT BLANC AUGUST 2009 DAY 2

For this trip Nigel Shepherd, our usual guide, was unavailable, probably swanning off on a ski test with Salomon, so we called up Paolo Perrini.

Paolo is quite a character, one hell of a ski guide, and as it turned out, just the kind of character you need with you when you have 3 tough days ahead of you. I can highly recommend him if you are in the chamonix or courmayeur region and need a good guide.  This is his website http://www.paolopieroni.it/en/

We met Paolo at the bottom of the cable car in Courmayeur after driving through the Mont Blanc tunnel, from here its the Arp cable car up to the top and then onto the Glacier.

On day 1 Paolo decided we would climb to the shoulder of the Aiguille du Geant in time for lunch. We would be getting to around 3900m, the summit being 4,013m.

See description on SummitPost here

This ended up being a cracking climb with crampons needed for the main steep ice section. When attempting to cut a a larger hold in the plastic toe strap I managed to slice my finger down to the bone which held us up an hour whilst doctor Paolo dressed the wound. This was going to play havoc with my ability to hold ropes and ice axes over the next few days not to mention getting dressed and other basic things.

The views during the climb were quite amazing with the mont blanc massif behind us and the monta rosa ski area in front. You can see the glacier snaking down the mountain in the first image above.

We reached the snowy shoulder after about 4 hours and stopped off for lunch. The picture below was taken right on the shoulder and you can see the snow layers clearly on the overhang behind Houghty. If you look closely tracks lead off along the ridge and two figures can just about be seen in the distance.

The last image here shows the Aiguille du Geant itself, the snowy col we climbed to is just to the right of the pinnacle itself.

A great climb, a great day with Paolo and good altitude training. We all felt the altitude and ended up pretty tired at the end. The climb down was equally good fun and challenging and arrived back at the hut ready for a decent feed and good nights sleep. Not before a well earned beer though!