Great shot! Looks like a terrific peak... Just need to buy one of them a red jacket!

Yellow would be quite nice!

Great shot Tim, Next time I will wear yellow, or red!

Super shot - I did the South Face many years ago ( 50 ?) but do not remember such a dramatic summit. Thanks for reminding me.

Thanks all. It was a great day out and fantastic peak that we were lucky enough to have all to ourselves. If you fancy reading a bit more about it you can check out a little blog I wrote here: http://timoliver.me/2015/08/29/the-giants-tooth/
I imagine it would have been a very different experience doing the south face 50 years ago!!!

Stunning, always wanted to climb this, next year maybe !

Cracker!!

Didn't there used to be a Madonna statue on the summit (not the singer) pockmarked by lightning strikes? I can't see it in the photo.

Yep, it's still there, sitting just behind me. Joel and Ali are actually on the south summit which is a few metres shorter than the true summit (which is where I'm perched)

Red jackets are bit of cliche. I like the way the climbers blend in rather than stand out.

All to yourself? There were more than 20 people on the main pitch when I did it which made it memorable but scary. I am Jealous! Awesome pic that makes me want to go back and do it again.

Just out of interest, how long did it take you to walk from A de Midi lift to the base of Dent de G? How come you didn't use the Helbroner lift for the ascent?
I was in Chamonix for my first alpine climbing this summer and was practising skills on the lower peaks around D de G.
Looking up at that pillar of rock was awe inspiring and I couldn't believe it was climbable!
Well done to you and your friends!

Hi Nesa,
Thanks. It's a great climb and really quite achievable with a bit of alpine experience. The climbing itself isn't that hard (just 4c, and you can pull on the ropes if you want). I guess the crux for many people is getting comfortable scrambling up over rock and snow to the base of the route, which just requires a bit of getting used to on easier alpine peaks.
We didn't actually walk over from the Aiguille du Midi lift. Though we got the Midi up, we took the Panoramique lift from the Midi to the Helbronner lift in Italy (Joel, Ali and I all live in Cham, have annual lift passes and so this is free and easy!).
From the Helbronner it took us bang on 2 hours to the base of the Dent itself, of which about 1 hour was to the schrund and 1 hour of walking/scrambling after the schrund. This seems a pretty standard guidebook time, but you could easily bleed a lot more time if you started placing gear after the bergschrund (I think we placed one cam on the whole ascent up to the base of the route).

Just out of interest, how long did it take you to walk from A de Midi lift to the base of Dent de G? How come you didn't use the Helbroner lift for the ascent?
I was in Chamonix for my first alpine climbing this summer and was practising skills on the lower peaks around D de G.
Looking up at that pillar of rock was awe inspiring and I couldn't believe it was climbable!
Well done to you and your friends!

Thanks for the info, the guide my friend & I were climbing with assured us it was achievable and not as hard as it looked. Maybe next summer!
You might know our guide, Ben Bradford? He's a into epic mountain marathons too

How did you take this picture when both of u were climbing ?