In reply to a lakeland climber: That picture of the pillar is awesome!
What we did this Summer really was the babies route of the area, compared to what is around there. Still very glad to have done it though, we also fought our way down in a storm, unlike the Bonatti party we went over the Col Eccles and down the Brouillard glacier. It did help (a lot in fact), that we had a GPS, which I was very sceptical about beforehand, but was comprehensively proved wrong. I suppose Bonatti was influenced by the part of the mountain that he knew best, he certainly wouldn't have had any other clues than previous familiarity in that storm.
It just shows what fantastic mountaineers Whillans and Bonnington were in their prime, it is a stunning achievement, despite the route having its share of tragedies.
What has always struck me about that part of the Mont Blanc massif, and the Brenva area in particular, is how much more serious, remote and full-on it is than the more domesticated (and hugely more popular), Chamonix side. On the Aiguille Blanche, the scenery still towers over you in all its fierce vastness, while it is very easy to be trapped by bad weather and visibility in featureless but menacing terrain, with no clear direction to go in.