Mont Blanc du Tacul

Mont Blanc du Tacul (4248m) from Aguille du Midi

When we were planning what to do in the Alps and BG said 'let's get you your first 4000m peak' we planned it to be the Weissmies in Switzerland. It would be a week into the trip by the time we planned to do the Weissmies which meant I would have had a week to acclimatise and get my head around it. And technically it should be an easy first 4000er.

The week of leaving for the Alps BG was reading through guide books and said something along the lines of 'how do you fancy Mont Blanc du Tacul?' Innocent, naive and with a craving for adventure I said 'yeah'.

Around ten days later I found myself putting crampons on in the ice tunnel at Aguille du Midi about to rope up and head down the Aguille du Midi ridge and on to the Col before attempting 4248m of mountain.

This is what happened.

Mer de Glace

The best view in the Alps on the Mer de Glace

Last year in June me and BG went on our first date to the local indoor climbing wall. I admitted there and then that I didn't like heights, that I wasn't a climber but that I did have an idealistic sense of adventure.

Just over one year later I was very glad to get out of a car that we'd been sat in for over 24 hours and into an apartment in Chamonix unaware of what the next two weeks was going to throw at me.

That evening, four bleary eyed experienced mountaineers/climbers and two (including me) novices, also bleary eyed, shared a massive pot of bolognese and some very welcome red wine and agreed a day on the Mer de Glace was the order of the next day. This was to be the start of a trip that became the most rewarding, most challenging two weeks of my life.

Mont Buet

Sunrise over the Mont Blanc massif from 2700m

This summer we went to the Alps for two weeks and while climbing Mont Buet was not the first thing we did it has been one of the things I have been looking forward to writing about the most.

Earlier on in the year when researching what to do in Chamonix that didn't involve crevasse crossing, serac passing or activities that had a high risk of potential death I came across a blog (I can no longer find it) that a couple had written about Mont Buet. They had climbed it and wild camped near the summit. Various other websites claimed it was one of the best things to see around Chamonix. It therefore became the one thing I had wanted to do while we were staying in Chamonix.