Valee Blanche

After a long journey from our native Macedonia, together with my wife Vesna, we reached the French town of Chamonix. We really felt at home in this most beautiful town; everything in the town breathes with the breath of the mountains: climbing (people moving down-town with backpacks and harnesses on with equipment and still roped up together), mountain-biking (we had few times very close encounter with bikers dressed up like robocops – passing by on a narrow trail with lightning speed), hiking, paragliding… On some houses there were paintings with climbing motifs on, even in the cinema there were two movies about climbing. It was amazing.

   

- In Chamonix

Not having much time however, we decided to go to the mountains the very next day. In the morning we sorted out our gear, calculating what route we would do and how much we should take in our backpacks without overloading them, before heading towards the Aiguille du Midi Teleferique Station. After a fascinating ride which took in a view towards the north face of this needlelike mountain where we could see all the fine details of it, we arrived at the tunnels on the top with a big group of tourists that wanted to have a closer look towards Mont Blanc…

Here in the tunnels, there is an exit that leads down towards Valee Blanche. This exit is marked with all those 'Danger' red and yellow fluorescent signs and fences that warn 'other' people not to go there without a guide or proper equipment. As we were putting on the crampons and preparing the ice-axes under the close scrutiny of the tourists, I felt like this exit was like a door of a plane and we were getting ready to jump out of it with our parachutes on – the light that enters into these dark tunnels from outside is very bright and it really feels like going into the unknown from that point on… Anyway – we put on our helmets and glasses and we stepped out. I felt much better here…

There was a very distinct path going down into the valley; there were surprisingly few people on it. I thought that this was probably because of the warning that was posted in the information office of Chamonix saying that because of the bad weather (too warm) there were many new big crevasses opened up in the mountains that made even the normal routes a little complicated to pass… This is a popular place where many guides from all around Europe go with their clients and probably they decided that it was not safe for the time being to take someone inexperienced. We came down and put our tent in the “big white” and there were about 10 more tents there scattered around…

There was a really nice view here – we could see the summits of du Midi, du Tacul, Jorasses in the distance... But the sun was really warming up the place and all of a sudden the silence was interpreted with the crash of a stonefall down the North Face Triangle of du Tacul. We turned our heads immediately when we heard the sound and we could see the big rocks falling down towards the foot of the face followed by a cloud of dust. Everyone who was at their tents or climbing on the South East Pillar of du Midi was watching this sight; after a few seconds we all continued whatever we were doing, but it was a warning…

   

- Mont Blanc du Tacul, Mont Maudit and the Cosmiques Ridge of Aiguille du Midi

That night we decided to go towards Mont Blanc (4848m) over du Tacul and Mont Maudit (4465m). We didn’t have any acclimatization, but we didn’t feel any problems at all going over du Tacul and climbing
towards Mont Maudit. But we had a late start and the weather was getting warmer and warmer… We came to a point on Maudit where there was a 70meters high almost vertical piece of climbing to get on the ridge of this mountain after which some easy hiking of 2-3 hours was left to gain Mont Blanc. On the way up we met few parties returning from the top and when we came to this point, we waited for another 2 parties to rappel down since it was a narrow path leading to a safe belay stance on a piece of rock… Climbing towards it was really scary. By that time I was almost climbing in shorts and was over 4000m altitude in the Alps which at least for me was surprising… But when I started climbing the real problem showed up. Under the very fragile vertical ice I could hear water running down the vertical slope… The ice could break at any moment, my intuition was telling me that we should go back and I shouted out to Vesna that I was climbing down so that she could belay me properly. When I came back on safer ground we sat down, had something to eat and drink and decided to have a try the next day.

The next day we actually decided to relax and go on the SSW “Cosmiques” Ridge of Aiguille du Midi. The route was first done by the Finch party on 29 August 1911. It is c260m long and it took us about 2 hours climbing. The overall grade is PD+ with a crux on the final rock pitches of IV. Although it is recommended as an “introduction to Alpine mixed climbing” (in the book “Mont Blanc Massif – Selected climbs”) on the whole way up because of the very warm weather we climbed on snow only for about ten meters on the traverse where the short rock wall starts before we got on the viewing platforms… It was easy climbing with nice views towards Chamonix on one side and Valee Blanche on the other.

Arriving on the platform is done over a stair that ends right on the middle of the platform where most of the tourists are. Getting on the platform roped up together with our equipment hanging from our harnesses was really hard for us. To the tourists on the platform, it was like we had fallen from another planet, everyone was turning on their cameras to take a picture… We wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and be back safe down in the valley. Just when we arrived at the exit for the valley and thought we are safe a small group of Japanese tourists surrounded us excited about the opportunity to have a picture with us… They were really happy exclaiming all the time “...you are brave men…” When I was out in the snow away from all that noise I felt very happy about it.

   
- Moving through the du Tacul crevasses

During the night we were awakened a few times with a roaring noise like the mountain was falling apart. It was thunder; I had a quick look out of the tent towards the sky but the sky looked clear somehow… At around 2 o’clock am we started getting ready again and this time we could see only about 10 people ahead of us. The weather was the reason for this since the skies now looked dark. After some time, just when we were crossing the last crevasse, a climber came alone and asked if he can join our rope. He was a good Spanish fellow who had a problem of waking up his partner so he started out alone but felt unsafe at the crevasse barrier… We accepted him and continued. It was totally different from 2 days previously. When we gained the highest point of the ridge of du Tacul we were not able to see anything from that point on.

- Taking it easy

It was like gray curtain… Everyone was making a short 30minutes walk toward the summit of this mountain and going down. We did the same and about that time the weather started to get much worse. It was snowing heavily and going down the steep track was tricky. We were roped all together - Vesna going as first, I was in the middle and our Spanish friend (I have trouble remembering names) was last. Suddenly I heard a strange noise and out of the corner of my eye I saw him sliding down the steep slope; I instantly screamed to Vesna to get down and drive her ice axe as fast as she could into the snow as I did the same; after two or three seconds there was a small jerk on the rope but it stopped at that point. It all happened so quickly but luckily the slope was not so steep and the ice was not that frozen so the fall was stopped without any bigger consequences. Needless to say, after this incident he was most grateful to us for accepting him in the party! The weather was getting worse and worse and when we came down in the valley we felt a very strong wind that almost ripped off our tent… With great difficulty we packed the tent, packed everything in our backpacks and headed towards the telepherique. There were no tourists there now - only us and a few other climbers. As we arrived in Chamonix the weather was partly cloudy and it looked like there was a storm approaching from the surrounding mountains. We decided to stay here one more day and after that departed towards Alagna, Italy…