Chamonix Mountain Adventures. Hilary Sharp
Snowcard www.snowcard.co.uk
Access America www.accessamerica.com
Austrian Alpine Club www.aacuk.org.uk
Club Alpin Français www.ffcam.fr
How to hire a mountain guide
At the top of the Cosmiques Arête (Alpine Mountaineering, Route 3)
As mentioned, all the activities in this guide have associated guides or instructors and hiring such a person to take you on your chosen route, whatever it may be, should enhance your experience in many ways, while reducing or eliminating some of the potential for either failing on the route for one reason or another or having rather more of an ‘adventure’ than expected or desired.
Sometimes taking a guide is not just to provide a better day or a longer route; it’s actually a question of safety and in some situations may save you from disaster. The mountaineering routes in this book are inherently dangerous, so if you want to hike on the glaciers or climb the high peaks you either need to know what you’re doing or take along someone who does.
Chamonix has several guiding companies, the most well known and established being the town’s own group of guides, the Compagnie des Guides (www.chamonix-guides.com), which works out of the same building as the Office de Haute Montagne next to the church. Alternatively there are lots of independent guides of all nationalities, including the author’s own company Trekking in the Alps (www.trekkinginthealps.com), some of whom are resident full-time in Chamonix while others just spend the season in the area.
If you decide to hire a guide, it’s best to contact the company or person in advance and find out whether they are willing to guide your chosen route, what prior training they require of you, how many days they expect you to hire them for and what is their policy in case of bad weather.
Some routes, such as the glacier hikes, can usually be done without training days with the guide, whereas for Mont Blanc the guide will usually require that you do some acclimatisation routes beforehand, usually guided. It should be noted that Mont Blanc is subject to certain norms of guiding: a guide can take only one or two clients at a time and there is an established tariff.
When hiring a guide you should ask for their credentials. Here are the certifications required to guide in France:
Hiking on non-glaciated terrain Accompagnateur en Montagne/International Mountain Leader; Guide de Haute Montagne/High Mountain Guide (IFMGA certified)
Hiking and climbing on glaciers Guide de Haute Montagne/High Mountain Guide (IFMGA certified)
Via ferrata Moniteur d’escalade; Guide de Haute Montagne/High Mountain Guide (IFMGA certified)
Rock climbing Moniteur d’escalade; Guide de Haute Montagne/High Mountain Guide (IFMGA certified)
Mountain biking Accompagnateur en Montagne with VTT qualification; Moniteur de VTT
Road biking Moniteur Cycliste
Using this guide
Nearing the end of the Crochues traverse (Alpine Mountaineering, Route 5)
This is intended to be a guide to introduce you to lots of different activities, sending you in the right direction, giving you the basics but not a comprehensive guide to each activity. It is weighted towards hill walking at many different levels, but there is also plenty of information regarding travel on two wheels and for those who want to scale the cliffs of the region by whatever means. Local guidebooks for each activity are mentioned, where available.
If you’re coming to Chamonix with your family or a group of friends with different interests, or if you yourself fancy branching out and trying lots of adventures in the mountains rather than concentrating on one, then this is the book to buy.
Grades and timings
The walks are graded as Alpine Mountaineering, Adventure, Classic, Hut and Family. No further grades are given (apart from for Alpine Mountaineering routes); but each walk has distance (except Alpine Mountaineering) and altitude gain and you’ll get a good idea of what’s involved from the category a walk falls into and from information given in the text.
Timings are given for walks, but these are a guideline only. Do not treat the timings as a challenge. They are generally based on an ascent of 300m per hour or around 4km an hour.
For mountain biking the timings are based on those given in local information. For climbing timings are not appropriate, as the routes in this guide are generally one pitch or very short multi-pitch. The times given for via ferrata come from local information.
Road biking is so variable in speed that timings are not really possible. I know from personal experience that cyclists have very different speeds, not only for ascents but also for descents, so any attempt to give a timing seems to be of no real use. Distances and altitudes are given and this should be enough to calculate whether you’ll be back for lunch or should take a picnic.
Maps
The French Institut Géographique National Top 25 series maps are the best for the activities described here. The ones needed are:
3630 OT Chamonix Mont Blanc
3531 ET Saint-Gervais-les-Bains
3530 ET Samoëns
3531 OT Megève
3530 OT Cluses Sallanches
A 1:50,000 map is useful to get an overview of the region, and for the road biking routes. The whole area is covered by the IGN Rando Editions map A1 Alpes Pays du Mont Blanc.
If you use a GPS, programme it to datum WGS84 and grid system UTM/UPS otherwise all grid references will be inaccurate.
Referred to as cable cars, chairlifts or gondolas, lifts are written in French as téléphérique, télésiège and télécabine and shown with a symbol on the maps.
Equipment
A well-equipped hiker is a happy one. Descending from the Grands Montets (Alpine Mountaineering, Route 2)
While some activities require more gear than others, and the knowledge of how to use it, certain essentials are common to all mountain activities. A map and compass are recommended unless you already know where you’re going. Even then, you’ll be out in the hills where the weather can change and fog can make it difficult to find your way back, so it would seem prudent to always go equipped with navigation tools. The other gear that is common for all activities is appropriate warm clothing, drink and some food, as well as the first aid kit mentioned above.
Other gear is particular to different activities, as outlined below.
Walking
First and foremost, whichever walks you go for, this guide alone will not suffice; you need to buy the local 1:25,000 maps. This book includes sketch maps for each route, but these do not stand alone – they are for location and guidance before you set out.
Other requirements are basic, but essentials shouldn’t be overlooked – the weather can change very quickly in the Alps and a hail storm at 2500m can have serious consequences if you don’t have any warm gear. Shoes or boots should have good soles, as a slip can be fatal even on