"Why walk to the alpine when you can ride a lift?"
A North American wilderness lover tries climbing mountains in the Alps: Part I: Chamonix

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My cousin Bex has made this extraordinay place her home, and yet somehow I'd never spent time in Chamonix before June 2025.
Upon my arrival,
Bex and (partway) Benji, ...
immediately took me up to 2280m to start my acclimatization process.
When I told my friend and partner in silliness, Bryan, that I would go to Chamonix to acclimatize before our week together in Zermatt, he said "I can come for that too!"
Bryan arrived, and Bex and Andy began to take amazing care of us as house guests.
Our first effort was to sit on the Montenvers train and let it take us up to alpine altitudes, so that all we would need to do was to follow trails around the Aiguille de l'M to the base of the Petits Charmoz, which we hoped to climb. However, this approach meant we needed to wait for open hours and it put us in a long line-up for the train.
Arriving at the base we realized we had no time for the climb, ...
so we contented ourselves with a quick scramble ...
to a nearby local maximum, ...
and then headed back to the Montenvers station
and its enticing views of the Dru (and the Grandes Jorasses, and the ex-Mer-de-Glace).
Of course, if you're not climbing, you can visit pastry shops,
especially if you're relaxing a weird diet which normally forbids carbohydrates.
The next day, after some sport climbing at Les Gaillands in the morning, my acclimatization schedule called for me to mechanically teleport myself to 3800 m and hang out long enough to suffer a bit.
Happily, there's a half-day's worth of tourist sights and exhibits at the Aiguille du Midi, ...
including a glass box which sticks out with over 1km drop beneath it. Of course, the effect is different in a white out.
We had a look at the climbers' exit ridge from the complex,
... as well as the unusual arrival method for people completing the climb we planned in two days' time -- a bit reminiscent of finishing a climb to the Corcovado in Rio.
"Climb high; sleep low" in Chamonix would be "Ride high; sleep low". We descended half way, to stay at the Plan du Midi hut,
with its beautiful upkeep, delicious food, ...
... and a room to ourselves!
After a social evening in French, and managing some work obligations for Bryan, who had brought a laptop, we rode next morning back up into the heavens.
This time, there were high winds and unsettled weather in the forecast. Literally inside the mountain, we underwent a transformation to have pointier appendages.
Exiting the complex for mountaineering takes you out of a tunnel, ...
... sometimes with tourists cheering you on.
We walked down and around the Aiguille du Midi, past our destination for the night, the Cosmiques Hut, to near the Col du Midi.
From there, the Arête à Laurence ascends along the ridge,
on easy but mixed terrain,
...
to the hut.
Tomorrow we would complete the rest of a traverse of the West ridge by walking out the other side of the hut and continuing up the ridge to jump over a fence at the Aiguille du Midi.
Due to the poor weather and early season, the hut was not packed.
We spent time in the afternoon discussing our glacier rig and favourite crevasse rescue tricks, which would be needed in a week in Zermatt.
After a strangely under-par hut dinner and a full night's sleep, poor weather and plenty of fresh snow overnight greeted us in the morning.
We left the hut ...
and broke trail (for the hordes to follow later) up the ridge.
During this trip I was reading a biography of Bruno Pontecorvo, a WWII atomic spy. On 20th August 1950, during Pontecorvo's disappearance (ultimately into the Soviet Union), my grandfather (Pontecorvo's manager) suspected something was amiss and sent a telegram urging Pontecorvo to show up here. Here? Yes, on this climb you pass by the ruins of the Cosmiques laboratory, established in 1943 to study cosmic rays and their applications in nuclear physics. It was powered by high voltage lines from below. There is also amazing history of soldiers' outposts and battles in this area during WWII. The popular climb on which we were embarking is called the Arête des Cosmiques.
While the climbing is easy, the position is famously dramatic.
Intermittent lighting and visibility ...
only add to the drama.
...
The route includes a rappel (I put a directional in for the rap), ...
...
And another one.
My lightweight leather/goretex "magic boots" were underpowered for the wind and cold at this belay, where I worked hard to keep my toes on board. Bryan encouraged me to make the investment of putting my remaining top insulation layer on, which served well for the rest of the climb.
We continued weaving along the ridge, including at one point going through a tunnel!
Eventually, one spies the Midi fortress, but several pitches of climbing remain. So far, we had had the route to ourselves --- a rare privilege --- but the day-trip climbers including innumerable guided groups had now ridden the lifts and were climbing the steps we had kicked in the fresh snow. Alas, at this point I also made the climb much harder by ascending the rock right above where the rope disappears in this image, and then continuing in the narrowing, ice-filled, chockstone-capped chimney above. Instead, an easier route with guide-drilled holes in the rock for crampon points is only a few steps to the right.
Hello, Chamonix! I bet it's warm down there.
Bryan might not love me for this route choice.
Here they come!
While Bryan climbed, ...
... multiple parties flew past on the correct route, ...
... creating a jam that seemed self-perpetuating: arriving guides wanted to step ahead of us, even when we were ready. Only one guide (the first) was polite, complimenting my lead.
In fact, this persisted even after I'd set off. Bryan finally managed to get a group to wait for him to leave --- but that was a (the first?) non-guided group.
Up the corner, ...
we popped out ...
... onto the final traverse ...
to climb over the fence, back to the sanctuary of mechanized mountaineering.
More delightful food and conversation at Bex, Andy, Lilia, and Benji's, with a visit by cousin Ness!, wrapped up our wondrous time in Cham. Next was a conference in Trento, and then back to lift-assisted mountaineering in Zermatt!