Our team reached the summit of Mont Blanc early in the morning of July 3, 2025 climbing by the Pope Route. The team started early and ascended the Glacier du Dôme, Aiguilles Grises, Pitons des Italiens, and Dôme du Goûter to link into the Normal Route at 4,300m. They descended by the Trois Monts Route.
IFMGA Mountain Guide Zeb Blais Summarizes the Trip:
A wonderful hike into the Gonella Hut via the Glacier du Miâge set the tone for our climb. We met some climbers at the parking lot, but after leap frogging with them a few times, we set ahead and didn't cross another person on the approach. The hike had a wild feel to it - a massive glacially carved valley with steep walls, waterfalls and couloirs hedged in the rock covered glacier. Talus covering the ice of the Glacier du Miâge made it seem like we were on terra firma for most of the hike in, despite it resting on a slowly moving glacial river.
At the head of the valley, we left the glacier and traversed up and across the buttress of the Aiguille Gris. This section varied from a well-kept trail to wildly exposed via ferrata (fixed cables, ladders and steel rungs added to the rock to make climbing more secure).
This section was exciting and fun, but we were feeling a bit rushed as the clouds converged and it began raining on us. We moved quickly to get out of the rain, but without my climber being fully acclimatized to 10,000'/3,000m it was tough to move at a sprint and maintain security in the rain. We took our time and focused on moving well, thinking dry thoughts.
It was a relief to pull into the beautiful and recently renovated Rigugio Gonella. The hut is well laid out, comfortable and provided excellent views of the Glacier du Dôme and Miâge Glacier we had just ascended. A nice pasta lunch with Limonata soda was a good treat after a 5.5 hour hike in.
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After a quick nap and an enjoyable dinner with some Austrian climbers and guides, we prepped our bags and laid down for a few hours. I'm not going to say we went to sleep, because that would be too generous. Getting horizontal at 8:00 and waking at 11:40 to beat the other climbers to the start, we managed to squeek out a few hours of rest before starting in the pitch black night.
The warm weather of the last week stuck with us and we woke to mild temperatures without wind. We started in just our base layers and made our way across the Aiguille Gris buttress onto the Dôme Glacier. The glacier was quite broken with soft snow bridges, weakened by multiple days above freezing. We took a couple of crevasses wide, but the snow bridges held everywhere we crossed.
Eventually, we ran out of glacier to climb and we ascended the Aiguille Grises, just above the Col des Aiguilles Grises. This section was interesting with loose rock and ridge scrambling that led to a wild knife edge snow ridge. At this point we were high enough that the snow had once again frozen and the knife edge was in quite good condition. Unfortunately, it was still too dark to take any pictures!
We gained the Piton des Italiens then crossed a bergschrund on the Dôme du Goûter that put us back on the Normal Route of Mont Blanc at the Col du Dôme. We were now approaching the coldest part of the night, just before dawn and the wind was bitterly cold. We quickly added some layers, before continuing up toward the Valot shelter. We stopped again at the Vallot to take advantage of the wind break, grab a snack and put on our remaining layers left in our packs. I walked out wearing everything I had, including Gore-Tex pants over my climbing pants and Gore-Tex top over a fleece and heavy synthetic puffy.
We moved as fast as acclimatization would allow to generate as much heat as we could. We knew the temperatures would rise quickly with the sun, but also saw moisture beginning to collect near the summit. A cloud cap was building, and I wanted to minimize our time in that. Pushing the team as hard as I could, we made the summit in a complete whiteout. A quick selfie on top was proof we had made it and was the extent of the time we wanted to spend there.
We descended the Trois Monts Route. This was smooth sailing, and we followed recent climbers tracks through the dense whiteout. The clouds sunk with us as we descended, threatening to lift several times, but ultimately shrouding us the entire time we descended on the steep, exposed face of Mont Maudit.
On Mont Maudit, the first major challenge of the descent, the perfect track I had climbed and descended just a few days prior was gone. Filled in by snows and mangled by wet loose avalanche debris, all that remained were intermittent boot tracks by the teams that has descended the previous day. The limited visibility made navigating this abused track slow going and I made sure to prioritize security on the steep face as we descended. We painstakingly traversed to the end of the bergshrund where I belayed a downclimb over the steep snow bridge. The face below was also devoid of a kicked in track and our progress was slow but steady.
I came to the fixed line that had helped teams cross the low bergschrund, a gaping hole that posed our last major hurdle to getting safely off the face. The anchor was exposed, melted out after days of hot weather. An almost comical sight, a plank of wood rigged with a rope tied through two holes in it, rested on the surface of the glacier. I lowered my client, then down climbed with two tools over the steep crevasse lip.
After getting below the 'schrund, we made great time getting across the Col Maudit and the North face of Tacul. The final march up to the Aiguille du Midi was a slog after the long day, but we were happy to have completed the climb in good style!
Climb Mont Blanc with Blackbird Mountain Guides
Our IFMGA guides know all about the best approaches to climbing Mont Blanc and Gran Paradiso and our office team will sort out all of the logistics for you! From trains, cable cars and buses to hut bookings, start times and hazards on the route, our team will make sure everything runs as smoothly as it can on the mountain.
The best way prepare for Mont Blanc is to do a few days of Private Climbing with us or climb Gran Paradiso with us prior to summit attempt. This will help you acclimatize to the altitude and ensure that your skills are sharp before we rope up together and climb the highest peak in Western Europe!
Aim to book book at least 9-12 months ahead - Huts sell out extremely quickly and our guide team has limited availability! The best chance of success is to book a full year in advance to get the optimal times for hut reservations in the prime climbing season.
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About the Author
Zeb Blais is an IFMGA Mountain Guide based in Truckee, California. He loves all the disciplines of mountain guiding - ski, rock and alpine climbing - and tries to spend as much time as he can in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps. He has summitted and skied Mont Blanc 11 times via 4 routes and loves showing his clients the splendor of Western Europe's highest peak.