The Dent du Géant is a 4014m summit in the Mont Blanc massif. The route to the top combines a glacier crossing, a snow ramp, a section of loose and unstable rock, and a final 150m granite pillar. Cis and I had done a good deal of alpinism together: the Aiguille du Tour, the Aiguille de l’M, among others. Coline had completed an alpine training course and had climbed rock with us, but the three of us had never roped up together in the mountains. For all of us, it was the kind of summit you aren’t sure you can do until you’ve done it. It was also the trip where we started to understand what we actually wanted from the mountains.
The plan was not to go straight there. We would spend a couple of days at the Refuge du Requin first, acclimatizing and testing our rope of three on easier terrain, and then return to Chamonix to take the cable cars up to the Torino hut for the Dent du Géant.
Day 1: The Mer de Glace
The Montenvers railway has run from Chamonix to the edge of the Mer de Glace glacier since 1909. When it was built, passengers stepped off the train directly onto the ice. But as the ice melted, in 1988, a telecabine had to be added to bring visitors down 200m to reach it. By 2024, that telecabine was being replaced by one that goes even further down still… A sad illustration of climate change.
The effect was even more visible once we were on the ice. The warming and the resulting instability of the valley walls have blanketed the glacier surface with a thin layer of rock debris. As we walked on the Mer de Glace, Coline looked down at the grey rubble underfoot: “where is the glacier?” You’re standing on it, Coline.
On the first section of glacier, guided groups of beginners were learning crampon technique with their instructors. We passed them and were suddenly alone, surrounded on all sides by mythic summits: the Aiguilles de Chamonix, the Aiguille Verte, the Grandes Jorasses, the Dent du Géant. Further along, as the debris thinned and open ice appeared, other things surfaced with it: old skis from the seventies, an even older sardine can, a pair of sunglasses…
At the foot of the cliff below the Refuge du Requin, a series of iron ladders (about a hundred metres of them, bolted vertically into the rock) leads up to the hut. We climbed them and spent the night at the refuge: a beautiful stone-and-wood hut, almost empty, a simple quiet meal for the six of us, a pocket of warmth in a world of ice and stone.
Day 2: Aiguille Pierre Alain
We spent the next day climbing the Aiguille Pierre Alain by its normal route, an accessible trad multipitch starting not far from the hut, to get a feel for how the three of us moved together on technical terrain.
At dinner that evening, there were six of us in the refuge: the guardian, a guide with his client, and us. After the climb, the plan had been to go back down to Chamonix and take the cable cars up to the Torino. The guide found this absurd. “Go back down? The Torino is a two-hour walk from here.” There was no reason to descend at all. He also pressed a spare pair of sunglasses on Cis, who had broken his on the way up. We adjusted our plans.
That evening we stepped out onto the terrace to watch the seracs of the Géant glow in the moonlight.
Day 3: Glacier du Géant
The guardian had gone over the route with us the night before; we would not have dared it without his guidance. The terrain below the Glacier de l’Envers du Plan is serious: ice above, powerful streams melting the snow from below, crevasses sometimes gaping, sometimes hidden. The guide had said two hours; it took us five…
We were entirely alone in the open glacier basin, the peaks of the massif ranged around us on all horizons, the Dent du Géant growing larger as we moved up. We didn’t know it yet, but the Dent du Géant itself, majestic but crowded, would not measure up to the Aiguille Pierre Alain or the Requin-to-Torino traverse, in the ways that matter: isolation, quiet, independence, the sense of sharing all this with just two good friends. That’s not to say it wasn’t a serious climb.
When we finally arrived at the Torino hut, it was a shock: at least 150 people, a bar, deck chairs, so much noise. After two days of isolation, this felt like being dropped into a nightclub.
That night, one of our dormitory companions read by headlamp until 10pm, rustling pages, light filling the room. When someone finally managed to fall asleep despite this and dared to snore, he would wake them up with his lamp to stop the noise. Cis: “You. Shut. Up. And. Sleep. Now.” He did.
Day 4: The Dent du Géant
We left around 5:00am with a procession of climbers headed towards the Dent du Géant, first on the glacier, then on a steep snow ramp. In the cold morning air the snow was firm underfoot. Above the snow ramp, a long section of loose, chossy rock. Then we put on rock shoes for the 150m granite pillar. Fixed ropes are in place because the mountain is so crowded that free-climbing at your own pace would cause a bottleneck. Cis and I climbed free anyway, as a matter of pride, though we were as much part of the procession as anyone.
We reached the summit. The Chamonix valley was far below, the Italian side opened behind us, and the whole arc of the massif stretched in every direction. Looking down, we could trace the whole trajectory: the Mer de Glace far below, the glacier crossing, the snow ramp, and now this. Our first 4000m. We were very proud.
The summit is marked by a Virgin Mary statue, her head pierced by lightning.
The descent
The descent off the pillar goes on three 50m rappels. I had led the entire ascent and was mentally exhausted by the time we reached the summit; I handed the rappels over to Cis. Below the pillar, the snow ramp that had been firm on the way up was now soft and slippery. We took the rock alternative instead, but followed the wrong cairns and ended up stopped by the bergschrund. Two options: cross the snow bridge at the foot of the snow ramp, or climb back up and find the right path. Cis was ready to cross. Coline wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to go back up either. The hut kitchen was about to close. “Coline, you have to make a choice, it’s up or across!”
“What if we put in a belay?” she said.
Staying careful when you’re tired and anxious about missing dinner is harder than it sounds. We built a trad anchor as best we could in the chossy rock. I would go last, secured by the weight of the first two on the other side. We learned afterwards that another climber had been seriously injured falling into that same bergschrund, three days earlier.
We made it back to the Torino just in time for dinner. The barman poured us the cheapest boxed red wine in the hut and described it as “delizioso, meraviglioso.” It barely tasted like wine.
It tasted like success.
