August 2002 

Day 2, Part 1: Refuge Gonella to Mt. Blanc Summit - 1,734m (5,688 ft.) Ascent

The second day started off with a midnight wake up call from the proprietors of the Refuge Gonella.  After consuming a quick breakfast, we started up the mountain, harnesses cinched, ice axes in hand and head lamps on.  After a few hundred meters, we reached the ice and strapped on our crampons and Sebastien and I roped up.  This was the first time I had ever used a rope and harness to climb, and it took some getting used to.

The Glacier du Dome proved to be one of the more challenging climbs I had ever done.  Extremely deep crevasses criss-crossed the surface of the glacier and we were forced to make our way along thin ice bridges, constantly wondering when one might break.  Then at around 2am, my headlamp decided to give out!  We tried everything, including switching out batteries from every piece of electronic equipment in our possession (hence the lack of pictures for this portion of the climb).  We even asked some of the other climbers, but none of them had a spare headlamp bulb.  We were stuck on the side of the glacier and could not even head back to the Refuge since there was no way we could make our way through the the crevasse field in either direction with only one lamp.  Luckily, I had a small pen-sized Maglight in my pack.  Since I needed both hands for climbing, I stuck the Maglight in my mouth and Sebastien and I continued climbing, albeit uncomfortably (you try breathing at altitude with hunk of metal in your mouth).

We reached the Piton des Italiens at top of the glacier at 4,002m (13,127ft.) just before the sun started to rise.  From here we climbed along the ridge that doubles as the French-Italian border.  The view from the ridge was incredible, even in the dark, since the lights of Les Houches and Chamonix were easily visible.  With the rising of the sun, I could finally put away my flashlight, but it also brought stronger winds.  The ridge was very exposed and we soon decided to stop to eat something and, more importantly, to drink some hot soup out of the Thermos Sebastien had wisely thought to bring.  After we had warmed up, we continued on to the Dome du Gouter, at which point, I finally remembered to put some batteries back into the camera.

	Dome du Gouter.  At 4,304m (14,117 ft.), the Dome du Gouter is itself an impressive peak (roughly the same height as Mt. Shasta in California).
	Approaching the Summit Ridge.  From the Dome du Gouter, we continued our way up the ridge toward Mt. Blanc, passing the Radio Balise at 4,362m (14,307 ft.).  By this point, both the altitude and fatigue were starting to have an effect.  We started to feel colder and we slowed down considerably as we also fought occasional dizzy spells and nausea.   Eventually we reached Les Bosses which marks the beginning of the summit ridge to the top of Mt. Blanc.  Here we rested to gather our strength and snapped some pics.
	Sebastien at Les Bosses.  Note the line of climbers already winding up to the summit.  We had chosen the perfect day to climb and many others were also taking advantage.
	Summit Ridge.  As we climbed the summit ridge, we were a little too preoccupied to take pics, but here is a photo taken by QT Luong (used with permission from terragalleria.com) which shows the final ridge to the summit.  As we approached this ridge, Sebastien told me that if he were to fall down one side, I was supposed to jump down the other side!  Luckily, I was too busy trying to take my next breath to really think about this too much.
	Mt. Blanc Summit.  Finally, at around 10am, we reached the summit at 4,808m (15,770 ft.).  There were about a dozen other climbers at the top with us, the most incredible of which was a French gentleman who was in the middle of putting together a paraglider.  While we would have loved to have watched this madman jump off the side of the mountain, the altitude was a little too much for us and, after snapping some more pics (seen below), we started down the mountain.

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