Day 3 /4 ....Summit

Day 3

6:45 breakfast at icicle and we were off with our guide for the summit
attempt. We took the cable car then the highest rack and pinion
railway in France to the Nid d'Aigle, which is starting point for the
first part up to the Gouter mountain hut at 3817m above sea level.

We made good time and had our packed lunch in the hut around 1pm. There was a lot of debate among the guides as to whether we would push on to the summit that afternoon of wait till very early next morning. The decent weather window was very narrow with storms and high winds forecast. The decision was made to leave at 2am the next morning with breakfast at 1:30. We dozed in the afternoon in our bunks, got up, had our evening nosh at 7 and went back to bed to try and get some rest. Hanging around at that altitude for 12 hours helped us acclimatize for the next day. At 1am chaos broke loose with 100 or so climbers all kitting up in the dark and trying to grab tables for breakfast. We managed to get a space for our group, the guides got served our fuel for the day which consisted of bowls of really string coffee (or hot chocolate) and some bread and jam type accompaniment.

At 2am exactly, John, Pascal and I were off into the freezing blackness following the river of headtorches snaking up unseen mountainsides ahead of us. Turning to look back on a couple of occasions the sight of the following river of headtorches below was even more amazing than in front since we were relatively close to the front of the procession.

After a few hours of walking in the blackness light began to show on the horizon and the air temperature began to noticeably rise from absolutely bloody freezing to just bloody freezing.

We summited in 3 hours and 50 minutes and to out great surprise and delight Chris and Patrick arrived on the very busy summit only 10 minutes later followed by Matt and Andy. All 6 of the Icicle team stoodd on the summit of Mont Blanc together but we didn't have the presence of mind to get a team photo, which in retrospect was a bit of a missed opportunity.

We didn't wait around too long since walking in freezing wind is ok but standing around is pretty uncomfortable and with John gulping air like a stranded goldfish, obviously feeling the altitude, we needed to drop down quickish.

We descended in 2 hours, with me leading, to a bowl of hot chocolate back at the hut. Again Chris and the rest of the guys weren't far behind and we set off back down to the train station after a quick text and tweet to let everyone know we had
summited.

The climb down was an enjoyable scramble with me leading again and we were soon on the well defined path we had ascended the day before. As we approached the train station we felt relieved that the long descent was over and we could enjoy being ferried back down and back to the flat, but the White mountain wasn't finished with us just yet.

We found out that the train was broken and an extra hours walk and 700m of descent was required to get us back to the cable car. The walk wasn't too bad actually, a lovely high level alpine track in the sunshine with great views back down over the valley and it wasn't too long before we were back at the base station of the cable car.

Pascal reminded us that his car was broken so a bus journey was necessary back into Chamonix. The 3 of us, knackered and stinking boarded the local bus then walked through the sunny centre of town back to the Icicle office and the apartment. We dined out at a really nice Indian restaurant that night, had a few beers then crashed out for one of the best nights sleep in weeks.