Mont Blanc guides want safer trips

AFTER A week that saw 11 deaths on Mont Blanc and six climbers rescued after being stuck for two days on the Dôme du Goûter, local Alpine guides are starting to take a hard line with visitors who want a "quickie" trip up and down the mountain.

They are trying to steer clients away from just "ticking the mountain off their list" and making them realise the dangers - and difficulties - of Europe's highest peak.

Guides are starting to turn away the "Mont Blanc secs" who want to just rush up the mountain and do not appreciate the risks involved.

Lieutenant Emmanuel Vegas, of the Mountain Gendarmerie, told Le Monde: "Up there, zero risk does not exist. There were nine victims in the July 12 avalanche but there were 38 people on that path; and all had set off even although the conditions were classic."

At Saint-Gervais, guides' president Pierre Curral told Le Monde Mont Blanc had become a "consumer product just like the New York marathon".

Chamonix tourist office says that around 25,000 people try for the summit each year: an average of 250 a day.

Now guides are asking clients to look at a three or five-day stage acclimatisation course where they learn to cross ice, learn to use crampons, spend a night in a refuge mountain hut and climb one or two more modest peaks.

This will give them a better understanding of the risks - and a better chance of succeeding.
Photo: Matthieu Riegler