I was in Chamonix for the week with Nate Beckwith. We had already climbed the
Voie Rébuffat-Baquet (5.10-/6a, 10 pitches) on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi and stood atop Mont Blanc via the
Goûter Route. We were cominig to the end of our time in Chamonix, but had a couple of days left to climb. We chose a moderate classic: the
Arête des Cosmiques (
Cosmiques Arête is the English-language version).
The
Arête des Cosmiques is one of Chamonix's finest moderate alpine rock ridges. Though relatively short, it packs an impressive variety of terrain into a single outing: snow arêtes, mixed scrambling, rappels, steep gullies, smooth slabs, exposed knife-edge ridges, and several enjoyable rock pitches, all surrounded by the spectacular Mont Blanc massif. The route follows beautiful tawny protogine granite—about 40 million years old—whose rough, velvety texture has long been prized by alpinists.
The ridge takes its name from the nearby Cosmiques Hut, built on the site of a former cosmic-ray research laboratory at the Col du Midi. The approach passes beneath the south face of the Aiguille du Midi, where Nate and I had climbed the Voie Rébuffat-Baquet just a few days earlier. Unlike that sustained rock climb, the
Arête des Cosmiques is a sampler of classic alpine techniques and an ideal training ground for bigger objectives. The route finishes directly on the Aiguille du Midi viewing terrace, where climbers emerge in front of crowds of surprised tourists before walking a few steps to the cable car.
The route was first climbed by G. and M. Finch on August 2, 1911.
Without advance reservations for the Aiguille du Midi cable car, we arrived at the station around 5:50 a.m. and managed to secure seats on the first 6:10 departure. By the time we reached the base of the route, several parties that had spent the night at the Cosmiques Hut were already climbing, but we were ahead of the wave of day climbers arriving behind us.
When we started up the route, it looked quite dry—more rock than snow—so we decided to remove our crampons. We never ended up needing them again and climbed the entire route in boots. We also solo scrambled most of the route, only roping up for the two rappels and the crux 4c/5.6 slab.
The first bottleneck came at the rappels, but we used an alternate set of anchors and passed several parties in the process. Later, we somehow wandered about 20 feet right of the standard 5.6 crux slab and climbed a crack system with fixed gear instead. It was likely a bit harder than the intended route and took just long enough for a couple of guided parties to slip past us on the correct line. From there it was smooth sailing to the summit. Despite a few brief waits, we completed the route in just 1 hour and 37 minutes. Chamonix to Chamonix in 3 hours 20 minutes.
On the cable car at the beginning of the adventure we ran into my friend Michael Hutchins and his friend David
Isenhour. We ended up climbing near them for much of the route, shared the ride back down, and finished the day swapping photos.
The ridge remained busy throughout the day, but the atmosphere was festive rather than frustrating. Sharing one of Chamonix's most iconic alpine routes with climbers from around the world only added to the experience.
This page provides a route overlay and photos from one of the classic moderate alpine climbs in the Chamonix massif.
