Alpine Ascent's Mont Blanc:  Sunrise below Mont Blanc

July 30:

Hello, and greetings from Chamonix, France. Today thundershowers across the Alps have kept us from making a summit attempt on Mont Blanc. We had heavy rain overnight to about 3000 meters and above that we had mixed snow and rain, and hail. And we’re back in Chamonix and we’re going to do some, maybe some ice climbing out on the Mer de Glace and some skills today as we finish up and enjoy a nice dinner here in town.

We’ll continue our cybercasts for the Mont Blanc trips in August, when we continue with trip 3 and trip 4. Thank you very much for following. Bye.



Hello, and greetings from Chamonix, France, today is July 28th. Yesterday we hiked up to the Tete Rousse Hut under clear skies. Hoping today we would climb, we woke up this morning to heavy rain, snow mix at the hut, with thunderstorms quite frequently this morning. Currently we are just waiting here at the hut to see what happens with the weather and for an updated forecast. Hopefully the weather will break and maybe tomorrow, July 29th, we will get another summit attempt.
Thanks for following, bye!

 

July 28:

Sorry for the delay in cybercasts. We were having too much fun playing and traveling throughout the Alps. Here is a recap from the last couple days.
July 25th: We woke up from our lovely hut and rode up the very famous Aig du Midi tramway to 3808m. After taking several pictures and enjoying the sights we walked out of the Aig du Midi and down the Arete de Poulet Merde. Then traversed the Valle Blanche (largest glacier in the Alps) over to Italy. It took us just over 4hrs to reach the Italian boarder, where we spent the night at the Torino Hut (3410m).
Yesterday, July 26th, we attempted to climb Aig du Toule (3800m) on the Italian/French boarder. However we turned around near the summit due to loose rock. When we descend down from Aig du Toule, where we found the Helbronner Cable Car (which connects Italy to Chamonix) was closed for Alpinists. We opted for “Plan B”, and descended into the amazing mountain town of Courmayeur, Italy (1008m). We had a traditional Italian lunch with some red wine.
The Alps are amazingly connected by trains, trams, and roadways. To get back to Chamonix we hired a taxi to take us through the Mont Blanc Tunnel, a 16km tunnel that is underneath the Mont Blanc Massif. And 30 minutes later we arrived in Chamonix!
Today we are getting ready to start to make our ascent on Mont Blanc. The forecast is calling for sunny skies for the next couple days.
Thanks for following and I’ll give you another update soon!

Jonathon
 

July 26:

Hello, this is Jonathon Spitzer with the Mont Blanc trip. This is our second trip for the season so far. Today John, Victor, and myself rode up the Montenvers train and then descended down to the Mer de Glace, which is the Sea of Ice. We practiced some cramponing, and some steep ice climbing skills on the Mer de Glace, for a couple hours, then we traversed on over (about at the 8,000 foot level) to the Midi-Plan Refuge, where we’re going to sit down for dinner here in a little bit. This hut overlooks Chamonix directly down, with a beautiful sunset here and what not. Tomorrow our plan is to ride up the Aiguille du Midi, to about 12,000 feet, and then traverse the Vallee Blanche, to the Torino Hut which is in Italy. Then we’ll be over there enjoying the coffee of Italy for the next day. We’ll be in touch tomorrow and thanks for following our cybercasts. Hope everybody is doing well back in the United States. Thanks!

 

July 22:

Today we descended down from the Gouter Hut (3800m) back to Chamonix. Our summit climb yesterday (July 21st) was very amazing. We found ourselves to be very fortunate the weather opened up allowing us to summit Mont Blanc (4808m). Only a few other teams were on the upper mountain yesterday creating a unique experience in the French Alps.

Thanks for following the Cybercasts!

Au Revoir

Jonathon
 

Earlier:

Hello this is Jonathon Spitzer with the Mont Blanc trip. Today Kay and I woke up at the Tete Rousse Hut to kind of some cloudy weather and misty and snowy conditions, but we decided we wanted to give it a shot, and climbed up the Grand Couloir in pretty adverse conditions, but ended up climbing up and above the clouds today, and we were able to get to the summit of Mont Blanc. We hit the summit at around 1:30 this afternoon and then descended back down to the Gouter Hut where we are spending the night. Tonight we are up here, most of the clouds have now dropped below us and should have an amazing sunset. We will be descending down to Chamonix tomorrow and I’ll try and post some pictures in the next day or two. You know Kay did a fabulous job with the conditions that we had, were pretty difficult climbing and definitely applaud here for keeping going with the conditions that we had. Thanks for following bye.

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