Is the roof of Europe really within everyone’s reach? This is music against which the Haute-Savoie high mountain guides have been fighting for many years. The news has turned out to be dramatic, the last weeks in the Mont-Blanc massif, between the six people who died (including two guides) after an avalanche on the Armancette glacier on April 9, an unsupervised German couple fatally hit by a serac fall near the Grands Mulets refuge ten days later, then another mountaineer died on skis on Thursday after having unscrewed for more than 500 m in the Couturier corridor, descending from the Aiguille Verte. Two weeks ago, two other adventurers were saved by the Peloton of the High Mountain Gendarmerie (PGHM), after suffering a 200 m fall in the fog, at the level of the Cosmiques ridge.
“We want to reach the roof of Europe out of season, without a guide, without a refuge and without taking the ski lifts”, announced one of the two miraculous on social networks. “These were amateur profiles dreaming of the mountains, but with a lack of knowledge of the difficulties around Mont-Blanc, confides in this regard Bertrand Host, commander of the PGHM of Chamonix. The race was not suited to their technical level. Are such episodes, between recklessness and unconsciousness, increasing with the democratization of the ascent of Mont-Blanc?
“Less crazy things than twenty years ago”
“No, I don’t see any relationship between the number of accidents in the high mountains and the presence of amateur climbers launching themselves without a guide, believes Olivier Greber, president of the Compagnie des guides de Chamonix. There has always been a small proportion of mountaineers who overestimate and under-equip themselves. The PGHM of Chamonix, which identified 2,000 interventions in 2022, half of which in the Mont-Blanc massif, also considers that these unsupervised amateurs and taking substantial risks are “rare”, including among the 20,000 ascents of Mont -White taking place each year by the normal route.
“Amateurs who are not sufficiently prepared / equipped remain marginal profiles, assures Lieutenant-Colonel Bertrand Host. The goal, when that happens, is to make them think about the reasons for their failure, which could have been fatal. The family often puts a second layer on them after us. President of the National Union of Mountain Guides (SNGM), Dorian Labaeye also has the feeling that mountaineering is going in the right direction, far from certain received ideas.
We see far fewer delusional things than twenty years ago. I no longer meet groups of eight people who are badly roped together, with huge backpacks and sneakers on their feet surrounded by plastic bags like you could see at the time. Contrary to what one might imagine, the population in the high mountains is better equipped and prepared. There is awareness and education work in the mountain environment which is bearing fruit. »
“Not a very technical mountaineering race”
In this sense, guide companies now offer one-week acclimatization courses and no longer steep climbs to Mont-Blanc. Similarly, a Mont-Blanc protection order intended to regulate the use of the summit of the Alps and to curb incivility and eccentric initiatives was signed three years ago by the prefect of Haute-Savoie. Professional mountaineer and mountain guide residing in Talloires, Charles Dubouloz remarks: “Mont-Blanc remains very particular and not very representative of mountaineering. It’s a climb mainly targeted by amateurs who want to tick a box in their lives, and we see that we make it accessible to as many people as possible”. The “normal” route is thus well known to everyone, from the Nid d’Aigle railway station (2,372 m) to the summit of Mont-Blanc (4,810 m).
“It’s not a very technical mountaineering race so lots of sporty people are able to reach the top,” notes Nils Martin, deputy director of the French Federation of Alpine and Mountain Clubs (FFCAM). Ten years ago, Mont-Blanc was generally accessed in two days. Today, the same route is mostly done in three days in order to spend the morning in the Goûter corridor, which is increasingly subject to rockfall with global warming. Since 2019, the FFCAM has revealed stable attendance figures in the essential refuges of Tête rousse (3,167 m) and Goûter (3,835 m) for which it is responsible, with around 40% of amateur mountaineers not belonging to a framed group.
The delicate Christophe Profit affair
These are sometimes “warned by the guards in the event of requests for information beside the plate”. But in no case they must justify a certain level or experience to be able to challenge the mountain. “Mountaineering must remain a space of freedom, insists Nils Martin. Each person decides in his soul and conscience if he can go or not on a route. It’s part of the culture of mountaineering to defend that and the responsibility of the host stops after the door of the refuge. »
Another strong news accompanies the Haute-Savoie spring, with the trial of high mountain guide Christophe Profit. Judged on April 20 for “the theft” in June 2022 of two mooring piles on the normal access route to Mont-Blanc, this emblematic figure of the Alps will discover the verdict on June 5, while the public prosecutor has requested 4,000 euro fine. “I removed these stakes so that amateurs do not take unnecessary risks”, repeated the 62-year-old mountaineer, aware that his “militant act” has sparked a heated debate on the question of equipment at high altitude. .
“A media frenzy”
“It’s a delicate subject involving someone who knows the high mountains extremely well, explains the mayor of Chamonix Eric Fournier. He acted with the will to uphold practitioners’ safety. For Dorian Labaeye, “there has always been regulation between practitioners, but this has never been found in public debate until now”. “It wouldn’t be on Mont-Blanc, no one would have talked about it,” continues the president of SNGM. But there was a media frenzy…”
An episode that will be mentioned at the next international mountain and mountaineering meeting, scheduled for May 30 and 31 in Chamonix. Many French, Italian and Swiss mountain players, who contributed to registering mountaineering in UNESCO’s intangible heritage in December 2019, will meet to discuss in favor of “concerted regulation”. An essential point to which Eric Fournier is also attached: “We cannot standardize the practice of mountaineering. We are in a natural environment and it is both the difficulty and the beauty of the high mountains. It is up to the mountain environment to determine the necessary equipment and not to the public authorities”. After a summer of 2022 truncated by the long suspension of the ascent of Mont-Blanc by the guide companies on the royal route, due to the heat wave, the mountaineers intend to find lasting summits and freedom.