Where the idea came to be
The week before the Mont Blanc adventure, I went to Dachstein in Austria with a group of Belgians for a beginners course of alpinism. Upon arriving, the guide looked at my old 65l backpack from the army and asked me if I have another backpack. The aluminium rods for the frame of the backpack came through the material of the backpack, being held together with some knots I had improvised. No I don’t have another one… So, someone else provided me with their second little backpack. It was a 35l Simond backpack from Decathlon. This forced me to leave a lot of stuff in the cars so I ended up with the lightest backpack. Lucky me!
Day three of the introductory alpinisim course this random dude on Facebook proposed to me to go for the Mont Blanc. I had been trying to find climbing buddies before that on Facebook but there was always something not exactly right (my climbing grade didn’t match theirs, or the dates, or…). So when this proposal came to me I go really excited. What if… Should I just try…? Is it stupid? I knew what I had to do. Call my dad and see how he reacts. As long as he doesn’t say explicitly that it is a stupid idea, I ‘ll go for it! And he was actually quite enthousiastic about it. Great phone call, thanks dad!
Train ride through a big part of the Alps
The alpinism beginners course ended on Friday and with my buddy Lucas we were planning to leave Chamonix on Monday. So Friday through Saturday was a long train ride. Dachstein, Zürich, Martigny, Chamonix. On the way towards Zurich, a woman on the train kept looking at me. A young guy with a ridiculously old backpack going to Chamonix. What is he up to? Turns out she loves alpinism herself and was not very reassuring when she heard about my plan. It felt weird to tell my plan to someone who knows the mountains. I was afraid of looking ridiculously hubristic. At least my dad had helped me to calculate somewhat if my capabilities would match the magnitude of the task.
Compared to the Swiss conductors the lady was really sweet. When I asked her if she knows about a park in Zürich where I could sleep that night she invited me to sleep at her house. A shower, bed and coffee in the morning were a real treat after last week. And her house had a beautiful view on the lake in Zürich.
Arriving on Sunday in Chamonix I had one day to buy everything I needed for the Mont Blanc. Thank god for Decathlon! They had almost everything I needed, at reasonable prices. Thermos, down jacket, headtorch, … And now I knew exactly which backpack I wanted: Simond 35l!
My dad’s crampons had no anti-bott, so the day before the alpine course he put tape around it. It was DIY style but it kind of worked. The thought of the lack of anti-bott being the thing that stops me from reaching the top motivated me to search for real anti-bott in the shops in Chamonix. Online one can read: ‘having no anti-bott is not accepted anymore, because of safety issues’. Well, what do I know? Let’s find some anti-bott.
When preparing for the alpine course in Belgium, I went to two different climbing shops to get some anti-bott on the crampons. Twice I got a smirking face asking me ‘where I got those from’. ‘They belong in a museum’ said the man behind the counter. They made it clear that for old crampons like those there is no anti-bott available anymore on the market. Luckily, Chamonix is not just another town with a climbing shop. Here they had anti-bott that perfectly fitted these models.
Till then, I was afraid to tell my plan to people, because they would judge or ask my mountaineering experience and I would think they would think something like ‘he's crazy’, or ‘he thinks he ’s superman’ or ‘he‘ll die’. When chatting with an older lady on the streets of Chamonix I realized I’m in the climbing capital when she told me: “oh it's easy, you‘ll be fine!”.
Deadly accident in 'le couloir' to the Gouter hut (3835m)
My buddy and I took the cablecar from les Houches to Bellevue (1800m) and from there the tramway in the direction of Nid d’Aigle. We both didn’t sleep so well at Nid d’Aigle (2372m). I felt the altitude sickness in my legs and woke up gasping for air several times.
Lucas and I approached the couloir early in the morning, hoping that it would be the time with the least amount of rockfall. We chose for common sense (coldest temperatures) over Petzl’s study that showed the best time of crossing would be 9-10 a.m. Approaching the couloir, we sometimes stopped to listen to the huge amounts of rocks falling down. It sounded like it was raining! Till here, everything went smoothly.
We had discussed our different options of how to cross the couloir. Seperately without rope and walking fast, or bound together with the ropes? We decided that we would go together and walk fast, but not run. If one of us got hit by a rock and fell of, the other could stop him from keeping falling all the way down.
“Okay, let’s listen. Nothing. Okay let’s go!” I was going in front and halfway through the traverse Lucas shouts “RUN”! So we started running. Some stones had started to fall and Lucas saw a stone pass between both of us. That was close! After resting and being elated of having crossed the ‘gully of death’ safely, we continued our way up.
The scrambling up was really enjoyable. During another break though we suddenly heard a helicopter approach the couloir and fly away with something hanging on a cable from it. We realized to our horror that it was carrying a person in a bag. Later we read that a 55 year old Israeli had been hit by rocks when crossing the couloir. During the summer of 2022, rockfall had been so bad that the route was totally closed for the public.
We arrived around 11 a.m. at the Gouter hut. Feeling good and eating and drinking proper food. My mate proposed me to keep going. “It is nice weather, we’re feeling energized and it is still early in the day. We could make it back down before dark.” This was not planned but an exciting thought. Why not?! In the 20 minutes while we were getting ready the weather changed drastically though. A guide was coming back with his client because visibility had dropped. Upon seeing us preparing, a worker of the hut asked our roomnumbers, okay: “deux morts de plus” she said irritated. There were no windows in the room where we were getting ready, and stepping outside we realized: you can’t see shit!
(our video of rescue helicopter flying away from the couloir: https://www.facebook.com/ProGrow1/videos/3420484518166551).
(our video of rockfall in the couloir that sounds like rain: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CwCUmvQgHow/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
In the emergency hut (Vallot hut at 4362m)
So we changed our departure to 1 a.m. the next moring. We had met another team of two during the evening and decided to join forces. Lucas and I had started feeling less self-assured. Mostly about the route finding question. It would be dark when we start. What if the weather changes? What if we don’t find the way? So we were happy to team up with the two friends we made during dinner. They warned us ‘we are slow’. ‘We too’ was our response.
We woke up at 12:15. The atmosphere in the changing room was one of excitement with a big ‘unknown’ feeling to it. How is it going to go? The full moon was out, with no clouds, no wind and plenty of stars. Joehoew, c’est parti!
Twenty minutes in and I was irritated about the pace we were walking at. They wanted to have a break already. One of the guys’ water froze. They must be kidding! How can you walk so slowly? I said ‘guys the weather is good now, we have a good chance of making it with these conditions, so let’s give our best and speed up a bit’. ‘Noo, the weather is not going to change’ was the reply. The two who had joined were incredibly slow. I had to take the smallest steps not to be asked to go slower. I’m talking grand-mother-after-surgery-on-slippers-steps. Anyway, the weather turned bad, and we would have been in it even if we were higher up on the mountain at that point.
I should’nt critisize too much though: after 30 minutes of walking, my headtorch started flickering... I hadn’t charged it after purchasing it in Decathlon. So I changed from first to last in the cordée and continued with the red light on.
Around 4 a.m. the two boys, my buddy and me arrive at the emergency hut called ‘Vallot’ at 4362m. We see the lights of the headtorches going that way, and the weather turned bad so we don’t even have to discuss if we go in or not.
The hut is as big as a classroom, with some blankets and a lot of rubbish. In the hut we drink, eat and loosen our shoes. There is one other party in the room and other parties are constantly arriving. Suddenly we hear movement and realize that there are people sleeping in the hut who arrived there the evening before. With our crampons on the metal floor and the door banging from the wind it is no wonder we woke them up.
Some Hungarians arrive, than Romanians, and finally a French father with his daughters. Everyone just arrives and waits. The bad weather came on really sudden. One of the daughters has a headache and keeps on crying. The father lashes out ‘Tete-toi Julie!’
The two French of our team said they will turn back, and than my buddy Lucas decided to go back down as well. Noooo! I’m feeling good and we just arrived. Let’s see what happens? No, he is going back. Turned out I was really lucky the other two had joined, so I could stay. In just a few minutes of conversation I found myself on my own.
Without knowing the ethics or the unspoken rules of alpinism, I decided to ask around and team up with any team that would take me. To my surprise the French father agrees for me to join. So we wait 30 minutes, but than they decide to turn back as well.
My next try is with a group of four Hungarians. Thank god I am Hungarian, it would have been much harder to connect otherwise. I was surprised by how easily I fell asleep while waiting. There was constant noise from metal on metal and the wind howling outside and banging the door. Sadly, the Hungarians had literally and methaphorically cold feet. They decided to turn back as well. Now it was around 6 a.m.
I made myself a little bed as comfortable as possible with some blankets and all my clothes and tried to sleep. Others were doing the same. There were some solo men, another Romanian team and also a team that had been there from the previous evening, because they had summitted the Mont Blanc from another route the day before. While going down they had been caught in snowfall with a lot of wind. I will not forget how cool these guys were. There was a layer of ice around their rope till the next morning that was as thick as my wrist. He had to chop the ice from his rope and jacket.
There was 4g connection in the Vallot hut, but every weather forecast was saying something different as well as sometimes saying that it was sunny while it was defenitely not… I realized that you have to take the forecast with a big grain of salt.
Looking back, these hours in the Vallot hut were the most valuable of the whole trip. I got so much respect for these guys, of which some had soloed their way up on a difficult route, or had withstood very hard conditions. The atmosphere got kind of cosy, with people telling their story of how they got up there, what their plan was, or what their favorite drink was for an alpine ‘single push’ adventure 50cl of Monster for example.
I was feeling bad for the people who plan a whole Mont Blanc adventure and only book one night in the Gouter hut. The hut is often booked fully months before, and if it's bad weather that night, your one chance is ruined. But surely, the people in the Gouter hut won’t send me down to Nid d’Aigle if I want to try again tomorrow? Well, you never know. So at 11 a.m., the wind was still strong, and visibility low, but I had the opportunity to team up with two Romanians. We’re here now, let’s try!
When leaving the hut, we tie ourselves in, but with bad English, bad weather and little attention to detail, the rope got tied in in a non optimal way. There was too much rope around me and while walking I had to be careful not to trip over it with my crampons.
In this very bad weather we made our way up untill the narrower part of the Bosses ridge. This part is really shallow, with on both sides a precipice. Sliding of to one side probably means the end, unless the teammates are fast enough to jump to the other side of the ridge.
The windgusts were so strong that we sometimes just laid down on our belly with the ice axe into the snowy ground to keep us from not being blown away. Passing the ridge with this kind of wind was suicide. Summitting was not to happen that day. So we turned back all the way down to the Gouter hut.
Summit day
Next morning at 1 a.m.: second attempt with the Hungarians. On our way up on the ridge, I was going in front and placing my feet very carefully in a way to show the Hungarian how to do it, because he had almost no climbing experience and I was afraid that he would pull us all down into the precipice. But, we had good weather and made it to the summit with no problems at all!
The Bosses ridge that is visible is the normal route to the top of the Mont Blanc.
When almost reaching the top we could feel the thin air waying on our lungs. One of them said: “one step, one breath”.
On the top …
Afterthought
I think retelling a dream of mine could be a useful warning for other (aspiring) climbers. In the dream, I’m with J. and B. (two friends) walking on the side of a mountain, with J. carrying a messy rope around his shoulders and neck. The atmosphere is one where we are walking carelessly while on the hill of a mountain. I feel the youthful atmosphere from when I got to know these two friends in high school.
Indeed, years later I would be on a dangerous ridge, with rope hanging between my legs making the risk higher to step on it and slip. J. is someone with ADD and an inspiring enthousiasm when thinking about new ideas. So much enthousiasm that his ‘realistic’ or pessimistic side gets ignored. In this context I would characterize B. as an extravert. He smokes a lot of weed, and thus is maybe not the most focused person. I would like to emphasize that I interpret the characters in my dream mostly as an image that my mind shows me about myself, rather than about these particular two friends.
I recall the psychologist Carl Jung writing about the importance of attending to your dreams. His example is particularly interesting for climbers. I quote:
Sometimes, indeed, it is a matter of life and death. Among many instances of this sort, there is one that has remained particularly impressive. It concerns a colleague of mine, a man somewhat older than myself, whom I used to see from time to time and who always teased me about my dream-interpretations. Well, I met him one dat in the street and he called out to me, “How are things going? Still interpreting dreams? By the way, I’ve had another idiotic dream. Does that mean something too?” This is what he had dreamt: I am climbgin a high mountain, over steep snow-covered slopes. I climb higher and higher, and it is marvellous weather. The higher I climb, the better I feel. I think, ‘if only I could go on climbing like this forever!’ When I reach the summit my happiness and elation are so great that I feel I could mount right up into space. And I discover that I can actually do so: I moint upwards on empty air, and aweke in sheer ecstasy.’
After some discussion, I said, ‘My dear fellow, I know you can’t give up mountaineering, but let me implore you not to go alone from now on. When you go, take two guides, and promise on your word of honour to follow them absolutely. He laughed and waved good-bye. I never saw him again. A guide standing below saw him literally step into the air while descending a rockface.
A great lesson that I keep returning to a few times a year is this: in the end, you’re on your own in life. Moments like in the hut give me that feeling. You can ask for help and they can tell you weather forecasts and give advice etc., but in the end when the weather turns bad, it’s you who have to make the choice: returning, waiting or trying to summit. Alpinism fosters a lot of independence.
It is an open question if it was a calculated risk or stupid try to get to the top. But if i had made all these safety requirements, I would not have gotten to the top this year. And who knows what happens next year.
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