“Amazing Experience” in the Alps

Had enough of the win­ter? Check out the Mont Blanc blog post below from Michelle Vale­rio, a long­time friend and trav­el­er with Moun­tain Mad­ness who joined us last August with MM guide Alan Rousseau. Let her expe­ri­ence inspire you to join us this sum­mer in stun­ning Cha­monix and sum­mit an icon­ic Euro­pean peak. 

The Mont Blanc trip was anoth­er fan­tas­tic trip. Alan and I did not reach the sum­mit, which was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ing. For me it was quite a chal­leng­ing route, but still a great expe­ri­ence. We trekked the Trois Mount route which is a great option going from the Aguille de Midi cable car. The scenery was amazing!

Enjoy­ing the scenery

Glac­i­er climbing

Alan was bril­liant and I was able to improve belayed glac­i­er climb­ing with his guid­ance. He has sol­id tech­ni­cal guid­ing skills and is one of the best teach­ers. If I go back, I would love to climb with him again. The oth­er mem­ber of the team, Kim, was a super fit young man so Alan had two oppo­sites to work with! The dif­fi­cul­ty for me (and it must be age) is speed. How­ev­er, I want to keep push­ing myself, I am now 55 and live to get on cram­pons in the snow! The Alps were stun­ning, but the tem­per­a­ture was very high which pro­vid­ed an inter­est­ing ele­ment of nature to work with. Over­all amaz­ing experience! 

Climb­ing in cram­pons with Alan

Look­ing down the route

~ Words and pho­tos by MM Client Michelle Valerio