Mont Blanc

After summiting Kilimanjaro, I flew to Europe to spend part of the summer based around Chamonix, climbing mountains, paragliding and making the most of being in the Alps.

Mont Blanc was an obvious objective.

I was travelling by myself, and when I'm solo I often like joining a guided group. It's a good way to meet other climbers and adds a little extra safety without taking away from the experience.

We would climb the Goûter Route, spending the night at Tête Rousse Refuge at 3,167 metres before making a fast summit push the following morning.

Weather was expected to arrive around 9 a.m., so there wasn't much room for hanging around.

At 07:48 on July 20, 2025, I reached the summit of Mont Blanc.

Not long afterwards, the mountain disappeared into cloud

The first objective was simple: get ourselves into position for the summit push.

We made our way up the Goûter Route to Tête Rousse Refuge at 3,167 metres, where we'd spend the night.

The weather forecast was already shaping the plan. Conditions were expected to deteriorate the following morning, with weather moving onto Mont Blanc at around 9 a.m.

That meant an early start and a fast summit push.

We ate, prepared our gear and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

The alarm went off at midnight.

At 1 a.m. we left the refuge and started climbing by the light of my Petzl Actik Core, heading toward the Grand Couloir.

At 1 a.m., we left Tête Rousse and started climbing in the dark.

One of the first major sections was the Grand Couloir, the notorious section of the Goûter Route known for rockfall.

Once through the couloir, we continued climbing toward Refuge du Goûter.

We stopped at Refuge du Goûter for around 20–30 minutes. This was where I put on my Petzl crampons, added the extra layers I would need higher up, and we roped together before continuing toward the summit.

This was where the climb really changed.

I was climbing in my La Sportiva G-Techs and carrying my Petzl Sum'Tec, with everything packed into my Hyperlite Prism 40L. We were travelling extremely light, I had almost nothing in the pack beyond the essentials and around half a litre of water in a Nalgene.

Then we stepped back outside and continued upward into the cold.

The forecast was sitting in the back of everyone's mind.

Weather was expected to move onto the mountain at around 9 a.m., so the goal was simple:

Move fast.

Two climbers from our group eventually dropped out, but the rest of us continued higher.

It was cold, but conditions were manageable. I had my Smartwool merino base layers underneath, with my Arc'teryx Beta shell, Arc'teryx down jacket and HIMALI hoodie providing the layers I needed higher on the mountain.

My Petzl Actik Core had been lighting the route since leaving the refuge, while my Petzl Sum'Tec axe stayed in hand as we moved roped together toward the summit.

Eventually we reached the Vallot Hut at 4,362 metres.

We stopped for only five or ten minutes, just enough time to have a drink, get out of the cold for a moment and warm up.

Then it was straight back outside.

The summit wasn't far away.

Neither was the weather.

At 07:48 on July 20, 2025, I reached the summit of Mont Blanc.

At 4,808 metres, I was standing on the highest mountain in the Alps and another country high point was complete.

We'd made good time.

And that turned out to matter.

Not long after leaving the summit and beginning our descent, the weather started moving in earlier than expected.

Clouds quickly engulfed the mountain.

The clear views disappeared and we found ourselves descending through a completely different world from the one we'd just summited in.

From there, it became a very long day.

We retraced the route all the way down the mountain until eventually reaching the lift that would carry us back toward Chamonix.

But Mont Blanc wasn't the end of my summer in the Alps.

I still had more climbing, including Gran Paradiso and Dom ,mixed in with plenty of paragliding around Chamonix.

Then Europe would be over.

The next stop was Central Asia.

Pik Lenin.