High pressure over Mont Blanc

Our plan is to start on Sunday, leave our backyard mountains in the Dolomites and climb in the Western Alps. And if all the weather sites unanimously forecast a week of brilliant sunshine, without any clouds at all, then this really has to be our lucky break: we grasp our chance. A brief stop off at home, down in the Venetian plain in order to get our crampons and ice axes, and then we start our travels, without knowing exactly where they will lead us.

As the sun sets, the headlights point west and seem to seek out our goal. The further we distance ourselves from home, the more we feel the need to decide, define and restrict "the Western Alps". Evidently the playground of our fantasies is far too broad. Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn? We seem like two kids in a candy store; we can choose whatever we want and we look at each other transfixed, unable to decide what to eat first.

Perhaps because it’s the furthest, perhaps because it’s the highest, perhaps merely due to pure chance… whatever the reason, when night comes we turn the engine off at Courmayeur. Our anxiety to catch the cable car at a reasonable hour for mountaineering is abruptly quelled by the endless queue of curious tourists, dressed in either flip flops or fur coats. But perhaps we appear stranger to them than they to us, as we waive our one-way ticket and shoulder two heavy backpacks beneath the scorching midday sun.

We resign ourselves to postponing our climbing ambitions until tomorrow and pay a visit to the botanical garden at the intermediate station: our treat today is decidedly atypical. Following our instinct and a touch of nonconformity, we then pitch our tent at the base of Col Rognon and get to meet the imposing mass of Mont Blanc du Tacul.

It’s here that our feast begins: we traverse the Aiguilles du Diable, climbing quickly between red walls and white crests, and then remember that after such a big bite, we need to at least catch our breath. Next up is the Rebuffat route on the Eperon des Cosmiques: later that afternoon we wash our hands and faces at Aiguille du Midi and feel ready for something new. The next day we’re baked by the sun and ground by the cracks once again as we climb Pilier Gervasutti.

We live in a distant yet parallel world, superior not because it’s better, but because it cannot be reached by negative thoughts and bad news about disasters. They’re too much of a burden to ascend to these heights. We are like small ants, making our way across a white tablecloth, muffled by a blue sky dome, while down below, to the south, the ground trembles, splits and raises dust clouds that darken the sky. We feel barely touched upon, unable to grasp the full scale of the disaster, just enough though to to feel very, very lucky indeed.

Up and down, no clouds in sight: this would be an endless dream, an never-ending carousel, but our battered bodies need fuel in order to burn: after having greedily gobbled the summits, the real food begins to get scarce. We realise that, even if the clouds never form, sooner or later we will have to descend. But there’s still room for a delicious dessert, which we get a foretaste of in the warm light of the sunset from the Rifugio Torino terrace : all the way from Dent du Géant to Pointe Walker, climbing up and down the towers that seem to protect the Grandes Jorasses stronghold.

Dent du Géant, the Giant's Tooth, takes our breath away, a crazy race with countless famished mountaineers, strenuous hauls along the fixed ropes capped by a breathtaking view. All this, however, leaves a strange aftertaste, perhaps. We feel much more at ease when our shadows lengthen lonely along the Rochefort Ridge before touching, just ahead of us, the welcoming Canzio bivouac. No racing upwards, no ropes fixed by others hereabouts.

We walk and climb along the cold and long Grandes Jorasses knife-edge ridge: the rope runs like floss between towers and turrets, all the way to the rounded snowy plateau. The mountain today is sullen and cold, it chews and spits us out, mangled below its mist: the clouds have rolled in, maybe we’ve got indigestion.

The bar at Courmayeur is about to close, I pay for the coffee and turn off my computer. Once again we’ll cook some soup and pitch the tent. Just one day in the valley is all we need for the hunger to reawaken: tomorrow we’re off, the Central Pillar awaits. The high pressure system is over, but the summer isn’t!

by Giovanni Zaccaria

The tour and climbs on Mont Blanc by Giovanni Zaccaria & Alice Lazzaro:
Mont Blanc du Tacul, Arete du Diable
Eperon des Cosmiques, Rebuffat
Mont Blanc du Tacul, Pilier Gervasutti
Dent du Geant, Normal route
Rochefort Ridge and traverse from west to east of the Grandes Jorasses
The Frêney Central Pillar - British route Bonington

TOPO: Dent du Geant - Normal route