Mountain landscape - Europe

Tour Ronde and Mont Blanc

Mountaineers traversing a crevassed Glacier du Géant beneath Tour Ronde, a 3,792 metre-high snow and ice-covered mountain on the French / Italian border beneath Mont Blanc / Monte Bianco.

Left of centre in this photograph is Tour Ronde’s 400m-high north face, home to a classic mixed climb put up by Francesco Gonella and Alexis Berthod in 1886, nineteen years after the mountain’s first ascent. The route today I understand is still classed as a good test piece for climbers and mountaineers wishing to attempt harder routes in the Mont Blanc massif, with a common approach to the route being from Rifugio Torino, an alpine hut located near Pointe Helbronner above Courmayeur in Italy.

The pinnacled ridge directly above the mountaineers is L'arête de la Brenva. Up until 2022, this ridge was also home to an alpine hut - a tiny mountain refuge called Bivouac de la Fourche. This adventurous bivouac sadly totally collapsed in a landslide. If you’d like to see what it was like, episode three in a Red Bull series showcasing the behind the scenes of Jon Griffiths ‘Soloist VR’ film illustrates Jon, Alex Honnold, Renan Ozturk and Nicolas Hojac bivvying overnight in the hut. The whole series is well worth a watch.