https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/31/heatwaves-put-classic-alpine-...
This seems to be applying to taking guided parties on the routes, but what about unguided parties? Do some counties have the legal right to close routes, and presumably prosecute climbers who ignore the ban?
Common sense might dictate the objective risks from stone fall, glacier and serac collapse etc is becoming too great anyway on many routes (eg the recent tragedy on the Marmolata).
We seem to be entering uncharted territory here but global warming is having an increasing adverse effect on Alpine conditions, and the economic costs on resorts will be devastating where so many rely on tourism coming so close on the Covid.
I may be wrong, but the fact that guides stop guiding a route or mountain doesn't usually prevent non guided parties from climbing. That said, it if an accident occurs you'd probably find that you have no insurance. Let's face it, the guides don't take decisions that mean a huge loss of income lightly, so it does point to very dangerous conditions.
In Chamonix at the moment there's an interesting variation whereby all paths leading to Montenvers have been closed by the municipality following a double fatal accident on a construction site up there. I'm pretty sure you'd be in trouble if you ignored this.
AFAIK no mountains are closed- just local guiding companies have decided to stop guiding them. I don't know of anywhere where there is an actual law/government statement saying they're closed.
As an example, the Zermatt guides aren't going to the Matterhorn, but the hut has been open and people have been climbing. Someone did receive a broken arm from falling rock there recently though...
You can still go, you've just got to decide that you have a higher risk tolerance/ don't mind the potential of getting killed to death by huge falling rocks...
I can't see that your insurance would be affected by any of the above.
> Let's face it, the guides don't take decisions that mean a huge loss of income lightly, so it does point to very dangerous conditions.
I understand that they've stopped guiding clients up the Dent du Geant at the moment. Given the absolutely cavalier attitude to their own and their clients safety I witnessed when I climbed it a few years ago it must be horrendous for them to think it's too dangerous.
Interesting that, in it's title, the Guardian refers to 'Hikes' and then goes on to mention The Matterhorn and Mont Blanc!
It's the approach from leaving the glacier to the breakfast table, it's always been a bit loose at the best of times.
Agreed. I've only read a few articles on the various closures and in one re: Mont Blanc one of the local officials specifically said the mountain is not closed.
Unless something fairly specific is mentioned in the insurance T&C then what some guiding company/ies does would not affect your insurance. If it was possible for the local govt to close the mountain or ban climbing and you ignored that closure then it almost certainly would.
Also Mont Blanc is partly Swiss according to the article. I never knew that.
On Marmolada the entire north side of the mountain is closed down to the reservoir, despite the fact that the serac fall is concentrated in one area and topology means it's unlikely that the other part of the glacier would fail in such a catastrophic way. That said, the south side is open for business, its just that you need to ab the 28 pitch routes or be a proficient base jumper, or be happy to sit it out for a few months until the retract the ban. I mean sure, you could down climb the west ridge Via Ferrata, but technically that is on the North side. And you never know, the glacier might fall upwards.
> Interesting that, in it's title, the Guardian refers to 'Hikes' and then goes on to mention The Matterhorn and Mont Blanc!
Yes they keep doing that, using "hiker", "climber" and "trekker" interchangeably.
nor did anyone else!
> Unless something fairly specific is mentioned in the insurance T&C then what some guiding company/ies does would not affect your insurance. If it was possible for the local govt to close the mountain or ban climbing and you ignored that closure then it almost certainly would.
It most certainly is possible for the local govt to close the mountain or ban climbing, and if the local mayor, commune or prefecture who have legal control over a given area of mountain or countryside want to, they can impose almost any restrictions they think fit, backed up with fines imposed by the local gendarmerie. Jean-Marc Peillex, mayor of Saint-Gervais, has issued numerous controls on the route up Mount Blanc that falls in his area in the past, and gendarmes have certainly been posted on the route up to the Gouter hut, turning people back without bookings, when the route had been officially closed due to the level of rock fall, when encountering people who fail to carry the required equipment and those illegally camping in the vicinity of refuges.
> It's the approach from leaving the glacier to the breakfast table, it's always been a bit loose at the best of times.
Yes, its a pile of choss really but used to be bound together by snow, it was the first time I went up it.
Last time it was all dry but still seemed ok, more so on the way up when the temperature was below freezing (odd considering there was no snow) but even in descent it didn't feel dangerous as long as you handled it carefully, there was no spontaneous rockfall.
Makes me wonder why it's so bad now, perhaps whole sections of the slope are sliding if it was previously held together by permafrost below the surface and now that's melting? Just speculating.
Some people just don't know how to walk delicately, especially when tired or in crampons. Sloppy ropes skills when in coils allowing the rope between to drag and catch stuff etc... seen people ab and or lower the last 25m onto the glacier too... sometimes you just have to meander a bit to follow the best route down. I can see why guides are wary as you can't predict the idiots above you.
Bet you thought that'd slip through unnoticed.....!
> I realize we've been forgetting the Hinterer Koukouspitz, so called because it was in figuratives spitting distance of Mont Blanc when Savoie elected to join Fran......
Could you explain a bit more?
Wikipedia on cuckoo spit
The froghoppers, or the superfamily Cercopoidea, are a group of hemipteran insects in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha. Adults are capable of jumping many times their height and length.
Rather appropriate counter claim against the froggies, I thought, after the plebiscite which established a right on Mont Blanc. In fact i've been to the nearest point where the three countries meet on the Dolent, and it's not at the summit
The French would argue that Mont Blanc summit is entirely in their territory too.
youtube.com/watch?v=4PGMKRDrohk&
This is a link to footage from Cervino (Matterhorn) yesterday. It's a substantial rockfall. The story (separate in Italian) notes that 3 pairs were above at the time and all were helicoptered off.
No injuries were recorded, which is as lucky as it gets.
The guidebook says about a section exposed to stonefall when en-route to the Colle del Leone. That's rather more than just a bit of stonefall!
There doesn't appear to be snow above the rockfall releasing stones as it melts. It looks like a whole section of the rockface has collapsed which, as I suggested above, makes you wonder if its the melting of permafrost making large areas unstable?
I was going to post that but you got there first. But I wonder how much this is just the mayor of Saint Gervais raising his public profile yet again ? He does seem to like this sort of annoucement.
Yeh he does love to a show of this stuff.
Merci
Huts now shut https://twitter.com/jan_beutel/status/1555486469183135748?t=W_R_PLoFpmLyeT_...
I think if guides don't want to be on a route in the middle of summer then it's probably because there are too many unpredictable elements that can't be controlled adequately. Taking a client up a route has more elements of unpredictability than an experienced partner of known qualities. So on that basis I would say that there could be routes ok for experienced climbers in theory, given the overall level of unpredictability is lower.
The mountains generally are in a bad and deteriorating state. E.g. the first snow slope on the Nadelhorn is now bare ice and exposed to rockfall from the Ulrichshorn. Normally the rocks stop quickly in the snow, but now there is nothing to stop them bulleting down to the lower glacier.
There's also more rockfall generally earlier in the day, so there's a significant risk even if you are on the route in good time.
There is a huge amount of meltwater flooding off the glaciers.
did you go higher up the Nadelhorn? I was wondering how that was faring
Sorry if I've been a Muppet and missed some well reported news events but whatever happened to Planpincieux? In danger of collapse https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53692476 and later danger not as bad? https://www.chamonix.net/english/news/planpincieux-glacier-risk-collapse-dr...
I feel sorry for people in the danger zone, I'm not sure how easy it is to predict this stuff, not sure I'd sleep easily in my bed if I was underneath it.
Would it be better to accept a scheduled disaster and fire a mortar round into it, because it's going to go at some point or other!
I was there mid July and it was fine higher.
> I think if guides don't want to be on a route in the middle of summer then it's probably because there are too many unpredictable elements that can't be controlled adequately. Taking a client up a route has more elements of unpredictability than an experienced partner of known qualities.
Yes, and a thousand, say, guides and their clients crossing a danger zone in a month with statistically one party getting killed might be unacceptable to a company of guides, whereas, to one climber, a risk of one in a thousand getting killed might be acceptable.
It's the same reason you have lollipop men/women outside school gates.
Went up it Thursday, Windjoch is very steep and complicated/exposed to rockfall in decent. The snow arête on the ridge is fine but getting down is pretty involved.
> Yes, and a thousand, say, guides and their clients crossing a danger zone in a month with statistically one party getting killed might be unacceptable to a company of guides, whereas, to one climber, a risk of one in a thousand getting killed might be acceptable.
Have you told your insurance company this?
Ultimately its not the economic costs that will be our undoing but the environmental costs. Its just taking us humans a long time to realise this.
You would kind of assume insurance companies know already!
> You would kind of assume insurance companies know already!
Yes, from the fact that the insurance covers repatriation dead or alive in the event of an accident. Apart from there being a market for their insurance in the first place.
> whereas, to one climber, a risk of one in a thousand getting killed might be acceptable.
I wonder if that figure is not far from the truth. A one in a thousand chance of dying on a typical alpine route?
A scour of a few articles (could not find a definitive set of statistics) indicates 20K-30K attempts and ~100 deaths a year for Mont Blanc, which would mean a 1/200 to 1/300 chance of being dead at the end an attempt.
Looking at the videos of recent rockfalls, I think you could knock a couple of zeroes off that if you picked a bad day.
As for "a typical alpine route", I don't think any such thing exists.
I’ve seen the 100 figure before, but it was for the whole of the Mont Blanc range and included anyone that died in any circumstances (eg elderly hikers having heart attacks etc). Unless there are official stats, I’d be wary of news articles on this.
I'm surprised this thread is still active...
I'm not sure how reliable this site is, but the article makes interesting reading: https://explorersweb.com/climbers-rescued-from-closed-matterhorn-fined-heav...
Especially the bit about insurance.
This Alpine Conditions page gives a summary of what is being climbed at the moment, what is 'in' nick and what the prospects are...
The second BMC Members Open Forum webinar took place on 20 March. Recently-appointed BMC CEO Paul Ratcliffe, President Andy Syme and Chair Roger Murray shared updates on staff changes, new and ongoing initiatives, insurance policy changes and the current...