Perfect Storm is Big New Alpine Route on Mont Blanc

Simon Richardson and Michael Rinn spent eight days climbing a new 700-metre alpine route up the northwest Pointe Louis Amede on the Miage Face of Mont Blanc.

This is the first new route up the Pointe from the Italian side in decades. They spent two days approaching and figuring out the best line.

They started climbing on Aug. 12 up a pillar between Himalamiage and the Fanta Couloir. They climbed nine pitches next to a big gully to where the pillar steepened.

Fearing it would be too difficult, they managed to get up three 5.10 pitches to where the solid granite turns to schist.

They continued up a spur for another six pitches and bivied on a flat tower. From there, they had to rappel to avoid a blank tower and climbed an overhanging corner.

“By now it had started to snow, and we climbed the Brouillard Ridge in a storm (the predicted bad weather came in 12 hours early),” said Richardson in a report on Planetmountain.com.

“Conditions on top of Mont Blanc were extreme, and we descended to the Vallot Bivouac Hut on a compass bearing just as it was becoming dark in a whiteout with slopes avalanching around us.”

In 2017, Richardson and Rinn visited Canada and climbed a monster new alpine route on Monarch Mountain in B.C., visit here for more.