Mont Blanc climber numbers to be capped
French authorities restrict mountaineers using most popular route to 214 a day after 16 deaths this summer
MONT BLANC is to impose “permanent restrictions” on climbing Western Europe’s highest mountain via its busiest route in an attempt to reduce deaths and bottlenecks on the perilous ascent.
Starting next summer, the daily number of hikers allowed to tackle the “Royal Route” to the mountain’s 15,780ft (4,810m) peak – used by three quarters of climbers – will be limited to 214, according to local officials.
Twice that number have been trying to reach the top over the summer, some of them “ill-prepared thrill-seekers” with scant gear who undertake the climb without even booking a place in a refuge, they said.
Sixteen climbers have died so far this summer, most recently a week ago, with the heatwave increasing the risk of avalanches and rockfalls. While some treat the ascent as a gentle climb, a section of the Goûter ridge near the top is so dangerous its nickname is the “corridor of death”.
Jean-marc Peillex, the Saint-gervais mayor, who has fought for years to restrict the number of climbers, welcomed the decision by regional authorities after a meeting with mountain police, the French mountaineering federation and guides.
“It’s important to tell people wanting to climb Mont Blanc next summer, ‘Watch out, it’s no longer an open bar,’” he told The Daily Telegraph, calling the decision a vindication of his “crusade to restore the mountain’s nobility”.
“This is not about punishing mountaineers but simple common sense: we want the number of people setting out on Mont Blanc to correspond to the number of places available in refuges.”
Temporary restrictions had already been imposed on climbers this summer with authorities turning away those without pre-booked accommodation at the Goûter refuge. Starting next year, climbers without guides must pick up a “free” permit from the tourism office. Mountain gendarmes are mulling forming a “white brigade” to enforce the rules.
Mr Peillex said that the mountain had increasingly fallen prey to “dangerous buffoons” and that this summer was “the last straw”.
“One guide was punched for not stopping to let climbers pass; a bunch of Eastern Europeans stayed in a refuge without booking and left without paying; and to cap it all, gendarmes had to turn away a group of Latvians trying to carry up a 10-metre-long mast and flag to plant on the summit,” he said.
The mayor is pushing to fine people who attempt the climb without proper equipment. One man was recently spotted wearing trainers instead of mountain boots with crampons.
However, news of the restrictions sparked a furious row with neighbouring Chamonix, whose mayor Eric Fournier said he had not been informed of the “unilateral” decision.
Limiting the numbers on the Royal Route could push hikers to attempt “technically more difficult” and dangerous ones on the Chamonix side where the “security stakes have not been calculated”, he warned.