Mont Blanc. The Bossons Glacier Route.

                                             ALL PHOTOS CLICK FULL SCREEN.
After our two weeks in the Vanoise region of France, which we enjoyed but experienced mainly poor conditions for high level exploration four of us, John, Brian, another John and myself decided to take the train round to the town of  Chamonix, under Mont Blanc, to see if this would change our luck.
 ( we had five Johns in the club at one time and several other shared names, something I decided to change in my book Autohighography, as telling a story with five Johns in it was always going to be a big ask for any reader to follow)
 A view of the Mont Blanc area here viewed from the Aiguilles Rouges, a lower mountain range on the other side of the valley. Unlike the higher Mont Blanc group, permanently plastered in serious ice and snow the Aiguilles Rouges range, in mid July, presented a different outlook, resembling the high desert states of the USA in some ways, similar to parts of Monument Valley Utah or Arizona.

Less snow, most of it melting fast, to be replaced by an arid high plateau ringed by a long line of red vertical cliffs. Once you get up to this height, via a cable car, it's mostly flat walking with several potential backpacking or day hike trails and well worth a visit. Spectacular in itself this area also has jaw dropping views of the main Alpine chain running along the French Italian border.

This was not our first view of Mont Blanc however. Years earlier we had visited it from the Italian side but a lack of ropes, experience, and severe winds whipping spin-drift off the summit meant we were under no illusion it was possible to climb it that time.

Instead we messed around on the lower slopes in sub zero temperatures and savage winds and even that was testing. What makes Mont Blanc so dangerous, killing over 100 climbers per season, (11 dead in 3 days one week), is its accessibility. The Aiguille du Midi telepheirique  lifts you up the mountain effortlessly then dumps you within striking distance of the summit. In most other large serious  mountains worldwide it takes planning, ability, experience, and total commitment to reach them. Here, the largest mountain in western Europe, is a cable car ride away, meaning anyone can do it, without much planning, thought, or research of the dangers involved.

Yet the Mont Blanc Range is a serious undertaking, transporting you immediately into a hostile, arctic environment. Even moving 20 paces from the Aiguille du Midi cable car station places you in real danger as we went through a short tunnel to confront a knife edged ice ridge dropping thousands of feet as soon as we emerged. One step onto it without ice axe or crampons might well be your last step.

Observation deck on the Italian side.

Even if you make the summit all it takes is a sudden change in the weather, poor visibility, altitude sickness, or bad judgement and you may well become a statistic yourself. It's fair to say, like a lot of innocent trusting people lured up by the ease of access, we did not really appreciate just how dangerous a mountain it could be when we made our own summit bid.

The next day promised good weather so we decided to go for it. Now or never. After reading the guide book we decided that the Bossons Glacier route looked the most interesting and might avoid the crowds slogging up the main ridge. The Bossons, seen here lower down with an ice climbing school on it, is one of the fastest glaciers in the Alps due to its steep nature, heavily fractured terrain, and location. In bad French we booked four places in the Grands Mulets Hut (large mules, for hauling up hut supplies in the early days of the hut) which is located on a steep spur of rock at 10,000 feet, surrounded by the wonderland jumble of the Bossons Glacier at its finest. It's sad to read here that this hut may well be closed now as due to climate change and increasing dangers from stonefall, collapsing seracs etc this route up Mont Blanc is no longer viable. So this account is for historical interest only. ( Shit! I am already a relic of the past- Mr Living Fossil me!)  This short link is well worth reading. The end of an era.
https://www.chamonix.net/english/news/grands-mulets-refuge-closes-end-july-2019

We took the cable car up to the lower station of the plan then set off to reach the hut over the fractured, surreal landscape of the Bossons Glacier. I loved every minute of it. One of the best, most unusual days of my life, probably for my companions as well. I could never afford the fat wallet tours to Greenland, The Arctic, The Himalayas, or any climbing area outside cheap package trips but I didn't need to. On the slopes of Mont Blanc I found my own icy Eden to play on

There is a faint path through the Bossons Glacier, or was then, but it weaves continuously through dips and cracks in the ice, which collapse or change every season presumably.

It's a great adventure.... if you survive it.

For a photographer I was in my element and I've certainly never taken similar photographs on any other alpine trip.

Quite steep in places but we had ropes, ice axes, crampons, and full climbing gear with us. On these icy slopes it was possible to get badly sunburnt yet have frozen fingers and toes at the same time.

After four hours of crossing, weaving, and ascending the glacier by late afternoon the Grands Mulets hut loomed into view looking like an alpine version of the Potala Palace in Tibet. We had already experienced a fantastic climbing day yet we were only halfway up the route. That night in the hut, where you used the toilet by hanging off a short rope over a hole, any waste matter dropping down into a large crevasse, straight into the glacier below I seem to recall. 1960s version of eco friendly recycling- ie none.
Elated with our journey so far we splashed out on drink at the hut and were the last to go to bed. People at the hut bar left remarkably early by Scottish drinking standards. Even in bed I couldn't sleep- alpine huts are always stuffy, warm, crowded places with at least one snorer- usually a competing duo and I had a bad cold, sore throat, and chest infection- which I happily managed to give to my companions as well within the confinement of the hut sleeping quarters. I'd had it for a while, convinced I'd caught it on the plane journey over, always a potential hazard on any holiday, even before covid 19, but it was getting worse each day. Come to think of it I've rarely been on any European trip without getting some minor ailment yet I,m usually healthy here. Either through eating different foods, drinking the summer water in streams, (always mixed with purification tablets) or catching a virus on public transport. If I get through a holiday without any added issues, like the runs, it's a bonus. I,m always a moderate drinker by the way in case you assume that's the cause. It's not and with half pints of beer/lager served routinely in most huts you would need to spend a lot of cash to get really inebriated.
I eventually dropped off to sleep around midnight .... only to be jolted awake one or two hours later by what sounded like a large school bell going off. At first in my semi drunken state, ( three pints have that effect at 10,000 feet) I thought it was a fire alarm but none of the hut residents jumped up quickly. Instead a few soft groans and shuffling movements in the dark, the clicking open of rucksacks, and the slow dressing of tired bodies around me hinted at the awful truth. After two hours fitful sleep and still half drunk it was time to get up and climb our mountain. Damn! Still 5,774 feet of ascent left to go.

The first hour or so saw us get up, rope up, then carefully work our way down steep ledges in the dark from the hut, using head torches to see where we were going. This hut sits on a near vertical rock wall for some reason so even getting up to it is a mild scramble- descending it in pitch darkness, half pissed and ill, requires care. A weird and incredibly surreal feeling hit us at that moment as we could look down, almost vertically down, a long,long way in the dark, and see tiny ant sized humans coming out of night clubs in the town of Chamonix or some other alpine community far below, held like amber in a tiny illuminated bubble of neon and heat while we froze on the shadowed slopes above. The town of Chamonix sits at an elevation of around 3,500feet while Mont Blanc summit is 4,808 metres or 15,774 feet- a 12,000 foot overnight or day climb difference that few other mountain ranges worldwide can match even in the Himalayas where you acclimatize slowly trekking into a base camp then climb to that level gradually in set stages each day. The night before this ascent we had sat in a Chamonix bar in the dark with streetlights on everywhere yet could still look up and see the sun setting on the Mont Blanc summit for what seemed to be an hour later before it finally disappeared.

Luckily, the cold temperatures softened our hangovers and we made good time up the rest of the mountain. Lucky again that the landscape underfoot was white as we did most of this ascent in the dark with head torches so you could at least make out each crevasse and avoid it. Most of the photographs here happened during our descent when it was light enough to use a camera.

Still a wonderland of ice awaited us with the deeper crevasses bridged in ad hoc fashion with a plank of wood thrown across them. As some of these were really deep and crampons bite into wood as well as ice it was always an adventure stepping across them, like walking across a tar smeared bouncing floor and wondering halfway across if you'll make it to the other end. Disconcertingly sticky at times. Some of these photos might be mixed up, taken before or after the hut and out of sequence, as all these years later it's not so clear where on the Bossons it is. You can see a wooden plank here across a hole.

Brian and John in the middle of a serac field. When the morning sun hits these towers of ice and they start to melt it's not unknown for them to fall over without warning and several climbers have been killed that way, probably every year. One potential reason, along with glacial shrinkage, and increased stone fall off the surrounding cliffs that can flatten people like bugs under an unconcerned foot why this route is so little used nowadays and not recommended. Given the numbers going up Mont Blanc and the pressure on huts there must be a very good reason why it's so underused these days and might be shut.

One final photo in warm shelter before we hit the ridge line. After this point it turned serious. Despite a clear blue dawn day, a high wind on this final ridge push dropped us into sub zero temperatures - it was miserable and a real slog. Altitude hit us hard as well and we could only manage 10 paces before we needed to stop and rest. Then it went down to five above 15,000 feet. Technically it was very easy and not exposed at all but with my chest infection I was finding it hard to get enough air into my lungs and not that enjoyable. We reached the broad summit but only stayed five minutes with pounding headaches before heading back down. I did take a few photos up there but they were rubbish. Being the highest peak in Europe everything else looks flat below you, even the Matterhorn. Same with any highest summit in any country. The lower peaks often have the best views.
Anyway it was a memorable trip and we did it. Highest summit in Western Europe. Yippie. It certainly put me off anything higher as I felt like I'd eaten several dodgy sausages most of the way down. Unlike seasickness this queasy feeling soon vanished however 5000 foot lower.  Bossons Glacier route ten out of ten for enjoyment and sheer adventure. Mont Blanc summit ridge three out of ten. You can easily see how it would be desperate in bad weather. We were very lucky to get it under near perfect conditions. The End.

Not a climbing video. Not scary at all. Everyone should love this three minute wonder. From France with love. Please watch it...full screen.... as it's a gem.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5gl9te







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