Long, high, spectacularly beautiful: the ski descent from the Aiguille du Midi through the Vallée Blanche to Chamonix can sometimes take your breath away – and not just because of the panorama.
Even before the start, one catches one’s breath. The Aiguille du Midi mountain station is at almost 3800 meters above sea level, where the air is noticeably thinner. But it is also due to the view of a ski run that is unique in the world. From the mountain station, which sits on a rocky spur like a space capsule, a spectacular route leads between four-thousanders, crevasses and séracs, huge towers of glacial ice, almost 3,000 meters in altitude and 20 kilometers down to Chamonix. “Attention skiers!!” says the warning sign on the terrace, “Caution skiers, high alpine terrain from here – no markings, no piste controls and no groomed descent.”
Anyone passing the sign should have a harness, helmet, crampons, rope and avalanche safety gear with them. The first 100 vertical meters are steep and exposed on foot downhill to the glacier plateau, only then does the descent begin. Next to the Séracs du Géant you feel tiny but it feels great. The granite walls of the famous four-thousanders Grandes Jorasses and Dent du Géant rise high above the Mer de Glace. If there is enough snow, you can drive as far as Chamonix.
If that’s not possible, metal steps take you up to a gondola that takes you to the Montenvers Cog Railway and back down into the valley. However, if you are unlucky enough to have a foehn storm towards the end of the tour, you have to climb 100 meters up a steel ladder to the station – this is guaranteed to take your breath away.