If there is one summit that exacerbates passions, it is Mont Blanc. No doubt also because of the number of aspirants – twenty thousand people – who want to climb the Roof of Europe every year. The problem is that Mont Blanc is becoming steeper and steeper. A large crevasse has opened up on the Bosses ridge. To get around it, you have to take a diversion to the left, or more directly, to the right. The guides of St-Gervais had decided to equip this passage with anchors, iron stakes, but this idea was not to the liking of the most famous guide of Chamonix, Christophe Profit, who removed two of the four anchors.
Mont Blanc is changing, like other mountains. The glaciers are opening up. The (short) ski touring season has seen skiers pass along the north face of Mont Blanc, skirting the crevasse before climbing the Bosses ridge on a steeper slope than the old normal route.
Given the exposure of this passage, the local guides, primarily those of Saint Gervais, wanted to secure a direct passage, let’s call it the right-hand passage, by means of iron stakes. Four anchors, to be precise. It is therefore a question, in a way, of adding belays on the normal route – without fixed ropes, let us specify. Not everyone likes this. A few days after the installation of these four belaying posts by two guides from St-Gervais, one of their colleagues from Chamonix, and not just any guide,