Le Mont Blanc

Who has never heard talk of Mont Blanc? Internationally known, it is probably because of its height of 4 808 meters, it sits in the French Alps by winning the first place among the summits of Western Europe. And it occupies the fifth place on the continental front.Climbing Mont Blanc is still synonymous with sports performance today. It is necessary to prepare oneself there physically, and also to be able to recognize the symptoms of MAM (acute mountain sickness), which can affect anyone, at random, and which requires an immediate descent.Despite these difficulties and the risks inherent to mountaineering (falls, avalanches, crevasses), the summit nowadays welcomes nearly 20,000 mountaineers each year. The most frequented route, called "the normal way" is relatively long, but ultimately not very technical for a trained mountaineer.It is this high traffic that explains the large number of incidents compared to other Alpine peaks. Each year, the ascent of Mont Blanc makes 5 to 7 victims and more than 120 interventions were carried out in 2006 by the gendarmerie platoon of high mountain (PGHM): the reasons were largely a exhaustion due to inexpertise climbers or lack of preparation and acclimatization. The success rate of the climb is of the order of 33% only without the help of a guide (and 50% with).ClimbingMont Blanc is not for everyone!If you do not climb it, you will always be able to admire it from almost every village around Chamonix. Sometimes you have to leave everyone in their place, and not try to get the giants right ...