UKC

Hi folks,

will be spending a week in Cham in July, with the aim of climbing Mt Blanc. I'm looking for some suggestions on other summits that we could take a look at, partly as acclimatisation. Will be travelling with a buddy with winter skills but no real climbing experience. I've done plenty of rock but no winter climbing so whilst a bit of gear placement will be fine it'll need to be easy ground.

Suggestions for gear hire and accommodation would also be useful

Thanks in advance

Lee

In reply to clipskipper:

The Aig. du Tour from the Albert Premier hut is basically just a glacier walk with a short scramble at the end and at 3500m is a good first acclimatiser.
The Milieu Glacier on the Aig. d'Argentiere is a little harder, still not much more than a walk but a bit steeper at the end at 3900m.
The NW Face of Mont Blanc du Tacul is again a steep glacier walk and getting a bit higher at 4250m but with caveats regarding snow stabiltiy and serac conditions (enquire in the Office de Haute Montagne in Chamonix for the latest beforehand) though if you're planning to climb Mnt. Blanc via the 3 Monts route you'll be doing this anyway.

I'm sure there are some other walk ups to the south of Mnt. Blanc (Aig de Tre la Tete perhaps?) but I don't know that end of the range particularly well.

In reply to clipskipper:
Another possibility if you have a car is to drive through the Mont Blanc Tunnel into Italy towards Aosta and climb Gran Paradiso from the Val Savarenche which is one of the easier 4000m peaks, there's also a couple of adjacent peaks, La Tresenta and Ciarforon (both c.3600m) with easy routes on them which you can climb from the same hut (Vittorio Emanuele) as Gran Paradiso. If time was short this would allow you to get quite well acclimatised without spending time travelling or walking in to different huts.

Being a little further east and lower, the Gran Paradiso option may be possible if you find the weather forecast is bad in Chamonix and you don't want to waste your acclimatisation time sitting around in the rain.