Here’s a little conditions update from Chamonix and Mont Blanc, Friday June 7th.

The transition from spring ski mountaineering into summer alpinism has been a slow one this year. The weather has been consistently inconsistant, with short weather windows and top ups of snow at altitude. There are loads of folk out skiing still, with some big impressive lines getting done up high.

We had two of our regular guests make a quick ascent of the Grand Mulets route on skis earlier this week, making good use of the short weather window. Conditions are particularly good on the Grand Mulet route this spring, with the jonction well filled and the north face getting skied regularly.

Rich & Rachel on the summit of Mont Blanc having climbed from the Grand Mulet refuge and the North arete of the Dome du Gouter. June 2024

Conditions on the Trois Monts have been good as well. Our first group trip of the season had a strong attempt this week, but high winds turned us around just past col Maudit. A bit of a shame as the conditions on the route were very good. All bar a couple of teams turned around. We made a little diversion to climb Mont Blanc du Tacul on the way back to the Aiguille du Midi. Still a six and half hour day and 1400m ascent.

Conditions on the normal Gouter route reported to be good as well. The train line is well buried at the moment and it’ll be a while before they fully dig out the track and repair some avalanche damage from the winter. So it’s a long way up from the valley floor at the moment, without the lift running at Les Houches or the train.

Over the next couple of weeks we have some Mont Blanc single push attempts scheduled. So fingers crossed for some settled weather! If the conditions stay like this and we get a weather window it should be pretty perfect 🙂

Finally, our September Mont Blanc trip has a few spaces left if you’re thinking of an autumn climb. And we are scheduling 2025 dates very soon 🙂