Among Giants

The Dent du Géant, elevation 4013 meters / 13,166 feet.

I first visited Chamonix four years ago. When I first set foot in town and looked up, I quite literally sank to my knees, stunned by the immense size, drama, and beauty of these mountains. I felt what can only be described as awe, and the feeling has not diminished on subsequent visits. Mont Blanc is the heart of the mountain world, the place where climbing was born. I was hooked.

Last summer, I had a work meeting in Paris, and my wife wanted to come. So the whole family spent three days hiking in Chamonix before driving back to Paris. It was all part of my master plan—getting them to fall in love with Chamonix so I could come here more often. And it worked! The lift system enabled relatively easy hiking with jaw-dropping scenery. Town provided ham-and-butter sandwiches, good dinners, and gelato. What could be better? And so we decided to return this summer, for a whole week.

I’ve been climbing quite a bit this last year, mostly with my two favorite local guides—Silas Rossi and Matt Shove. Knowing that Silas would be in Chamonix for part of the summer, I arranged for three days of climbing with him. But this spring Silas emailed, asking if it would be OK if Matt tagged along, as it would be good prep for his alpine guide exam. Needless to say I was psyched to hear that. I never imagined I’d get to climb in the Alps with both of my favorite guides!

Cristopher and I arrived in Geneva on Sunday, and took the van to Chamonix. Wandering around town in a daze, waiting for our hotel room to be ready, I saw a familiar face in front of a bookstore. It was Bill Dixon, a friend from Brattleboro, Vermont! Small world. The first few days of the trip was spent doing some hiking, trying to get over jetlag, and trying to acclimate a bit. On Tuesday night the whole family, along with our friend Andrea, met Silas and Matt for pizza. The pizza was good, and so was the weather forecast. Our objective would be the fabled Dent du Géant.

* * *

We meet in front of the Aiguille du Midi lift at 5:30AM, and drive through the tunnel under Mont Blanc to Italy. The Skyway Monto Bianco lift takes us from 1300 meters elevation to 3466 meters. Beats the heck out of walking!  As we wait for the first departure at 6:30am, Silas and Matt have an espresso at the bar, which I think is a legal obligation for all mountain guides in Italy.

Silas (left) and Matt start the day right. 

Climbing in Chamonix is all about timing. The lifts make access to the high mountains easy, but they also determine how early you can start, and how late you can finish. The goal is always to be on the “first bin,” just as skiers talk about the “first chair.” Except if we miss the last bin of the day, we’re stuck. Good planning got us the first bin, and up we go. The gondola car spins slowly, so everyone gets a chance to see the astonishing scenery, including the epic Peutery Ridge of Mont Blanc, home of the longest climb in Europe. Silas eyes the ridgeline with desire.

 The top of the lift feels like a space station, but Silas knows the way, and we navigate to the outside walkway, descend a few flights of metal-grate stairs, and climb over the fence that divides the world of tourists from the world of mountaineers. The staircase ends abruptly, and we climb down iron bars embedded in the rock down to the ice. A few insecure steps leads to a flat spot, where we put on crampons and rope up.

Matt is psyched. This is his first time in the Alps.

Our destination looms overhead. The Dent du Géant, the giant’s tooth, looks exactly like its name, a six-hundred-foot tall giant’s tooth stuck on top of a ridge, the border between France and Italy, visible from almost everywhere. It’s one of the fabled 4,000 meter peaks in the Alps. I’ve never climbed one. This day will be full of new experiences—the longest, hardest, most committing alpine route so far.

Approaching the Dent du Géant early in the day. Photo by Matt Shove. 

The day begins gently. We walk across the glacier, which is slightly downhill at first. The snow is well-frozen. My ski pole is more useful than my ice ax. The slope keeps getting steeper, very gradually. A few other teams pull ahead. We keep walking up. After an hour or so we reach the base of a steep snow gully, and the climbing begin in earnest. We move fast, with a sense of urgency and intensity that never lets up. Going up the snow slope, stepping up, I’m working as hard as I can. We’re already at 12,000 feet and the air is thin. I pray that I’m still a bit acclimated from being in Colorado a few weeks ago.

Climbing snow. Photo by Silas Rossi. 

At the top of the gully we take a two-minute break to eat and drink. Silas goes ahead, solo, to find the best route as Matt short-ropes me. The terrain is a complex mix of snow and rock, seldom hard but never easy. The very definition of alpine, with solid spikes and loose rock, snow, ice patches. Crampons scratch on the rock. And always moving as quickly as we can, relentless forward progress, again feeling at my limit physically. An hour or so of this, and we reach the Salle à Manger, the dining room, a large flat snowfield at the base of the tooth. Here we leave behind ice axes and crampons, and transform into alpine rock climbers.

Photo by Silas Rossi.

Photo by Silas Rossi.

It’s cold. It’s windy. We’ll be in the shade for most of the climb. I basically put on everything I have—base layer, R1 hoody, windshirt, puffy jacket, and then another shell. We traverse along the base of the rock to a bolt. I tie in to the bolt as Silas starts climbing. Hanging from the bolt, I awkwardly change out of my mountain boots into my rock shoes. Then it’s my turn to climb. I swing around the corner, a fixed rope with a few knots in it providing a bit of a boost. The first few feet feel really hard. My feet feel slippery; I skate off a few holds and barely keep myself on the rock. And it’s really strenuous. And cold. But the climbing eases off.

The start of the tower.

First Steps. Photo by Matt Shove. 

We’ve already passed some people who were gearing up at the Salle a Manger. We’re just behind a British guide and his client. We climb up another pitch, I think, to the base of the famous Burgener Slabs. A sheet of smooth rock, tilted into the sky, rising to the perfect geometric point of the summit. What a setting! And we encounter the most unique feature of our route—giant white fixed ropes, perhaps inches in diamater.

Matt leads the Burgener Slabs. Note the white fixed rope. Photo by Silas Rossi.

The Dent du Géant is huge, very visible, and seemingly impossible. Of course it was irresistible to climbers. It was, in fact, first climbed in 1882, an amazing feat of engineering involving “iron stanchions.” The fixed ropes are a legacy of that spirit, and also make the climb possible for mere mortals. But do you remember climbing a rope in gym class? You couldn’t do that for 600 feet, and the rope is a bit slippery when wearing gloves—remember it’s very cold. It’s much easier to climb the actual rock, and just use the rope when you need an extra hold. And don’t forget we’re in a hurry, moving as fast as we can. No time to try to figure out the moves—just grab the rope and keep going.

After a few pitches of the slab we angle to the right, and climb grooves up the side of the tooth. It’s been really, really cold. I start shivering at belays. My leg shakes. Matt tells me to tell my leg to stop shaking. I tell it, and it works, much to my surprise. Matt has beenleading, and spends a bit of time at an obvious crux. This of course worries me, given our relative skill levels. Eventually I climb up to the bulge. One foot in a loop of the fixed rope, the other foot on an iron bar, a good fist jam for the left hand, and it’s not too bad! I keep moving.

Matt climbs the crux. Photo by Silas Rossi.

And then I run out of rock. I’m on one of the summits, looking across a small gap to the other. There’s no sense of being on a mountain—I am just somehow suspended in space, the world dropping away in every direction just a few feet away. It’s awkward getting to the other summit—there’s a big drop you lower yourself down holding on to a sling, but up the other side isn’t bad, and I’m on the summit!

Steep. Photo by Silas Rossi. 

Joy. Photo by Silas Rossi. 

Looking towards the main summit (Pointe Graham) from the first summit (Pointe Sella).

The first thing I do is kiss the bronze Madonna statue, which so many alpine summits have. Her poor head is a bit pockmarked from being struck by lightning. The scenery is indescribable. We are higher than the Midi, higher than any of the Aiguilles, our only peers the Jorasse, the Verte, and of course the Tres Monts—Mont Blanc du Tacul, Mont Maudit, and Mont Blanc itself, still a half mile higher than us.

From left to right: Matt Shove, Mary, Dave Cramer. Photo by Silas Rossi. 

Summit group selfie. Photo by Silas Rossi. 

The Aiguille du Midi (center) looks tiny from up here!

Silas on the summit. In the background are half the famous climbs in the world. 

The urgency doesn’t stop. We are only halfway, and have to get down. Rapelling has always seemed vaguely unpleasant to me, but no big deal. But I’ve never done anything like this, multiple rappels down an overhanging face, in a serious situation.

Preparing for the descent. Photo by Matt Shove. 

Silas steps into the void. Photo by Matt Shove. 

I get to the bottom in one piece, in good time. In that sense it went well, and all credit goes to Silas and Matt. In every other sense it felt like a failure. Since the trip, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what went wrong. Every discussion of rappelling I’ve seen in books, articles, and forums talks about the mechanics of ropes, anchors, and devices. But literally no one talks about movement, about body position, about routefinding, about transitioning from being on the rope to being on the rock and vice versa. I had trouble feeling the fall line, staying on the plumb line down the face as rock changed. I had particular difficulty when there was a tiny bit of traversing to be done. It felt like my boots just skated off the wall, and I could not make myself go sideways. I would try to push off with my legs and I’d go nowhere. Some of that was timing, being able to go down while pushing over. I also had a lot of trouble at the end of a rappel, going from being suspended on the rope to standing on what loosely might be called the ground, although it’s likely narrow, steep, and irregular. I had a really hard time following verbal instructions. In retrospect I think this was an actual learning disability. I was highly motivated to do exactly what Silas told me, but drew a complete blank in turning his words into movements of my body. It was immensely frustrating, and I cannot imagine how much patience this demanded from Silas.

Our descent route.

But one carries on. The glory and curse of mountaineering is that you choose to put yourself in situations where you have no choice but to do what can be scary, hard, impossible. This is the meaning of commitment. We reunite with our ice axes and crampons, drink some water, and set off down the mountain, down that mix of rock, snow, and ice, and of course it’s harder to go down than up. Alpine Climbing is really mostly walking, but it’s very challenging walking.

Finally we get to the top of the snow gully. Time to face in and go down. It feels like climbing down a ladder where you can’t quite see the rungs. Looking down through your feet, a forty-degree slope feels nearly vertical.  I try to use the existing steps, it feels like they wander around a bit so I occasionally have to move a bit left or right. At least each step feels secure, although this was perhaps the most anxiety-inducing part of the day. Relentless downward progress, that intense focus on every movement, that need for speed… What a relief to be on flatter ground, to once again walk upright and face forward, to reach the home stretch.

Looking back.

Home stretch.

It did feel like a stretch, after that downhill, to walking up the gentle glacier towards the Torino Hut and the lift. I was worried we’d have to climb the ladder from the morning, but we aimed for the hut; it did eventually get closer and then we were on what felt like a road in the snow, and ropes and crampons came off.

We step over that invisible line between the wild and civilization, and step into the Cafe at the hut. We order apple cakes and Cokes as Matt takes a photo of the Barista. Waiting for our food, I cry a bit, from relief, from joy, from fear, from the improbability and absurdity of what we’d just done, from exhaustion, every emotion that took a back seat to the urgencies of the previous eight hours demanding to be expressed.

That apple cake might have been the best-tasting food of my entire life.

After.

For the rest of the trip, I’d see the Dent du Géant from so many other places, always with delight and disbelieve. I climbed that! I was there! No, that’s not possible. My fifth trip to Chamonix, and I still don’t truly believe these mountains are possible.

The Dent du Géant.