The Top of Mont blanc

Finally I reached the top of Mont Blanc. It took 11 years after I saw Mont Blanc and 2 years after I failed to summit the Mont Blanc and had to stay one night at vallot hut in 2009. This time, I prepared better than before. I was able to get used to the altitude while I was staying at Zermatt where I tried to go climbing to Matterhorn. I took the morning train to go to Nid d’Aigle at July 30.

From this last station, I hiked up for 5 hours to go to Gouter hut where I was planning to stay one night. Actually I was going to go a little high up to snow area and stay one night with only my sleeping bag. But the weather was not good. (I tried to go up and waited a little for snow to stop. But it did not happen. So I came back down.) And I decided to stay inside Gouter hut and laying myself on the chair to get some sleep hopefully two or three hours at least. Around 10 pm, the weather became clear and beautiful.

View from Gouter hut after stop snowing

Then I woke up around 1:30 am (Actually I was not able to sleep at all!) and started to go for summit of Mont Blanc. It was dark and I was alone when I walked through the ridge. Around 2 am, when I turned back I saw the line of head lamps which is pretty long. After going through steep slope and sharp Bosses Ridge and 6 hours fighting alone made me standing on the top of Alps, Mont Blanc.  It was cold and hard to breathe so I just took some photos and headed down as fast as I can.

Summit Mont Blanc at 6:30 am in 2011 July 31

Sunrise from the Top of Mont Blanc

But I was so exhausted. It was already around 10:30 am when I got back to Gouter hut where I got one bowl of soup. It took almost 8 hours to go back down to Nid d’Aigle station. I don’t think I will do this alone again.