UKH

Hey all - looking for some advice. My friend and I were planning on heading off to Courmayeur and doing some big rock routes, but a bad tendonitis injury has meant that climbing hard on rock is looking unlikely - so we have to replan a bit.

I'm looking for suggestions for quiet and remote Alpine areas, preferably with the opportunity to link peaks over multiple days in some sort of high-level link-up. We're not idiots and are pretty safe, but we're also not super experienced mountaineers - so probably looking for routes in the PD - AD category of this sort. Not fussed about 4000m peaks or any of that stuff - but really keen on avoiding the crowds as much as possible. Cheap camping or the opportunity to cheekily (but respectfully) wild camp in the valley is preferable.

Logistically - Italy would work better for us as my friend speaks Italian so it just makes life a bit easier. 

Psyched to hear your suggestions!

There´s a fantastic high level trail called the Sentiero Roma which traverses the S side of the main Bregaglia ridge at an average height of about 2500m. It´s served by 3 huts and 2 bivouac shelters (each sleeping 6), and from it you can take in the Piz Badile and Piz Cengalo (the normal routes from the S), Cima di Castello and plenty of other peaks in between. There´s also the traverse of Monte Disgrazia (3678m) via Monte Pioda if you´re feeling more ambitious.

You can obviously do it in both directions; we started in Maloja via the Forno hut on the N side before crossing over to the Italian side and continuing W before returning over a high pass to the Sasc Furä hut in Switzerland.

https://www.summitpost.org/sentiero-roma/160894

If you've not already climbed Mont Blanc and fancy avoiding the masses and not seeing a soul, embark upon the Tournette Spur. It gets little more than a few of ascents a year, but takes you through some desolate terrain, on a multiday journey, stopping at the historic, picturesque and newly refurbished Bivacco Quintino Sella, though has to be done early season (June).

It used to be the defacto route up Mont Blanc until the 50's, starting from the valley in Val Veny, however the advent of cable cars up the Midi and Torino meant people could now miss out half the mountain and still tick the summit!

Be warned it's a serious tick at AD+, as it's around 1,200m of mostly unprotectable front-pointing up endless snowfields and couloirs. It's not difficult, just remote and requires considerable endurance.

The Bivacco Quintino Sella has the names of endless famous mountaineers of old engraved across the walls, now protected by transparent sheets of perspex.

Note, the reason for going early season, is the short 'Y' shaped couloir from the Gonella Refuge up to the Quintino Sella melts away and becomes a couloir of choss!

You'll enjoy the solitude, until you hit the Bosses Ridge towards the summit and encounter the masses. We took the Pope Route back down.

Another classic AD Alpine route that barely sees a soul is the Courtes Traverse. In both Rebuffat and Batoux's Top 100. It's similar to the Tournette Spur for offering a remote, wild, picturesque journey. It's multiday, as the Couvercle Hut is one of the furthest to get to within the MB range, so you'll need two nights there.

I fear nowadays people want quick hits; off the Midi cable car, run up Rebuffat-Baquet (along with thirty other parties) and home for dinner, or jump onto the Plan and run up Papillions Arete (queuing behind six guided parties to get started), miss the lift, but home for midnight. Or worse still; the human centipedes of Cosmiques Arete, the Entreves Traverse, the Dent du Geant voie normale, etc.

The Courtes Traverse is a classic that's faded in popularity. It's looooong (we were wading along the ridge in fresh snow), so demands endurance and the descent late in the day on soft snow can be serious, but offers commanding views of the Argentiere Glacier, Talfre Glacier, Triolet, Mont Dolent, the Verte, Droites, Grand Jorasses, etc.

The Forno hut is great too, one of the nicest places in the entire European Alps. Plus you can always throw in a quick ascent up Monte del Forno (very easy!) and/or a traverse of Monte Rosso (best E-W) when you're there. 

You could also go to the Italian side of the Alpes Maritimes - accessible from Terme di Valdieri to the west of Cuneo. There' some really nice peaks just over 3000m, with the opportunity to link stuff up over multiple days. It's not glacial - might be some snowfields early summer, but nothing major.

The area is pretty quiet, but is also well served with huts both on the French and Italian sides. High camping is not a problem (i.e. at roadhead and above level). Access on the French side to the roadheads has been very hit and miss due to the major flood damage over the past few years around the Vesubie valley, so an Italian based trip really works.

You might think about a loop including Traversée du chaînon des guides (AD+ 4c) on the Corno Stella,  Arête Sud (Sigismondi) (AD) - classic easy rock route on the Argentera, then over to France and climb something on the Cougourde - maybe  the SW Arete (AD+), then over to the Madone de Fenestres to do the West Ridge (AD) on the Cime Saint Robert (easy but airy and brilliant), and traverse over the Cime Gelas. You could then maybe finish with a route on the Maledie, and head back into Italy, or continue down the Merveilles valley (amazing pictographs) to pick up the train back to Cuneo.

Shhh, don’t let the secret out! In all seriousness though, as much as I love the area very much (I get ridiculed for this by friends, albeit mostly those that have never been!), I doubt it is what the OP is picturing when requesting “classic mountaineering” if alpinism involving snow in summer is what is wanted.

However, the OP could go a bit earlier (May/June) and then there would be plenty to do that would be both very quiet and incorporate snowy stuff, such as the Lourousa couloir from the Varrone biv which could then be tied nicely into anything from the Remondino and so on, making quite a nice loop. Of course, it will impede travel on rock and make some of your suggestions impracticable (Guides Chain/Corno Stella mainly?). As elsewhere in the southern alps, there has been a looot of snow high up this year, but not that much low down.

If on consideration, absence of snowy routes isn’t an issue then maybe Viso/Queyras should also be considered as somewhere where a multi-day round trip taking in Viso plus a load of other scrambly summits would be worthwhile.

That post is spot on. 

Yes! We stayed there a night, and Monte del Forno was my first 3000er, we were back at the hut for breakfast

Intriguing title; worthy of what? That’s not a niggle, I like the title! So I’m presuming it means “worthy of being cherished for the rest of your life”, or something like that. 

I must have climbed hundreds of hills and mountains in the UK, but two are very special to me, for greatly differing reasons. Ben Lui was my first ever proper mountain, climbed alone in wellies on a blazing summer day from Dalmally on Loch Awe when I was about 15. I’ll never forget those last few metres, where with every step the view from the top started to explode and the steepness on the other side suddenly fell away beneath me. That was the first time I realized that this was a thing I wanted to carry on doing for the rest of my life, and I’m still doing it!

The other hill is small in comparison: Fin Cop above Monsal Dale in the Peak. It must have been photographed millions of times from the dale, but my route snuck up around the back from Ashford (I grew up in Bakewell), leaving the footpath and crossing the fields to get to the true summit, where the experience was always similar to that on Ben Lui, with the Earth suddenly falling away on three sides of you into the depths of the Dale. I’ve been there dozens of times; at sunrise in Summer, or in March when the hares were fighting all over the fields, and even once in a blizzard which forced me to turn back since the only way forward would have been to crawl (which I would have done, but my usually hard as nails big black dog George just lay down when we hit the full blast and whimpered imploringly at me). It’s a magical place, with Iron Age relics and an atmosphere of prehistorical wildness.

Highly personal reasons, yes; but aren’t they all?

Good luck with your project!

Thank you so much for your suggestions all - been looking through them all and they all look brill! Just need to work out how to do them by bus and pick one now! Cheers folks. 

Oops, sorry Oscar, my previous answer was intended for another thread, please ignore!

The S ridge of the Aiguille Savoie is a good quiet option in the Courmayeur part of the world. 
 

There is nice mid grade rock climbing around the Dalmazzi Hut too.

Arolla, Valpelline, Vanoise near Pralognan, most of the Ecrins outside of Ailefroide.

Monte Rosa massif from Gressoney/Alagna

Realise that a lot aren't in Italy but lots of options for alpinism at PD-AD and possible link ups.