Aiguille du Midi and Mont Blanc – Glaciers above Chamonix
September 2026. The cable car hauls you up out of Chamonix – first over forest, then over rock, then over nothing at all. 25 degrees below, zero at the top. 3,842 metres. The Aiguille du Midi is a granite needle on which someone very bravely put a station. Up there a sky so clear you think you can see to the end of the Alps. Peak after peak, ridge after ridge. Nothing in the way.
Opposite stands Mont Blanc, white and round like a freshly made bed. From its dome the Bossons Glacier tumbles down towards Les Bossons and Les Houches as if it had run out of patience: a huge field of ice, broken into seracs, crevasses and ribs. Its tongue reaches lower into the valley than any other in the Alps. From afar it looks smooth. Up close it is a jumble of blue, white and rubble – structures that rearrange themselves with every look.
At mid-height, the middle station, Plan de l’Aiguille. Get off, scree under my boots, a short hike. The needle above me, the glacier always in view, and suddenly very close.
Up top, the vastness. Down below, the force.
A fractured alpine glacier drops through the Mont Blanc massif above the Chamonix valley. Blue ice, seracs and open crevasses show the scale and fragility of high-altitude ice.A glacier tongue descends from the Mont Blanc massif toward the Chamonix valley. Fractured ice, debris and snow slopes mark a high alpine ice stream.Broken seracs and open crevasses cut across glacier ice above Chamonix. Blue ice and shadow lines show active flow.High alpine ice meets dark rock on the Mont Blanc massif. Snowfields, glacier ice and granite walls.An alpine glacier landscape unfolds above the Chamonix valley – ice, snow and rock ridges as far as the eye can see.From the Aiguille du Midi the snow dome of Mont Blanc feeds a broad glacier that drops toward the Chamonix valley. Ogives, debris and bare ice, with layered ranges beyond.Crevassed ice and flow bands pour off the Mont Blanc snow dome, seen from the Aiguille du Midi. A wind cloud lifts behind the summit.A summer trail crosses scree beside the blue ice of the Bossons Glacier. Snow slopes and a sharp peak rise above the icefall.Blue seracs and debris-covered ice between bare rock flanks – the Bossons Glacier falls toward the valley.The heavily crevassed icefall of the Bossons Glacier climbs toward the snow peaks. Crevasses, seracs and flow lines fill the frame.Dirty ice, seracs and flow lines beside a dark rock wall – a glacier at the end of summer.The granite needle of the Aiguille du Midi under a deep blue sky, the summit station a speck on the peak.From Plan de l’Aiguille: the Aiguille du Midi stands at the right of a granite ridge of Chamonix aiguilles, with scree and sparse alpine vegetation below.Close to the ice: seracs, crevasses and flow lines form a dense white-and-blue surface.A ribbed icefall drops between snow peaks and dark rock outcrops, with ogives and seracs below.Heavily crevassed ice: dirty seracs, flow ridges and scattered debris.Flowing ice up close: crevasses, rounded seracs and faint debris streaks on a blue-white surface.The fractured snout of the Bossons Glacier ends above a grey debris fan and meltwater channel, framed by the forested slopes of the Chamonix valley.Blue ice presses against a dark rock wall and pale scree, seracs and flow lines packed tight.Ice against the dark rock flank: seracs, melt streaks and debris along the edge.Seracs radiate toward a dark ice cave in the Bossons Glacier.A field of blocky ice and shadowed crevasses – the raw surface of a melting glacier.Looking up the steep icefall: broken seracs stacked against a deep blue sky.Angular seracs, thin crevasses and scattered debris – ice at the end of summer.Blue-white ice blocks, deep clefts and debris up close.A chaotic icefall climbs toward snow peaks and granite towers, broken seracs in front.Broken ice with debris streaks – the melt zone of the glacier above Chamonix.Crevasses and seracs radiate across the surface in a dense pattern of dirty ice blocks.Debris bands cross the glacier beneath snow peaks and dark rock outcrops.Crevassed ice climbs toward the Mont Blanc snow dome beside a dark rock rib.Broken ice leans against a steep rock ridge beneath Mont Blanc, snow peaks and a sharp summit beyond.Ogives and flow bands: the icefall becomes a pattern of ribs and blue shadow lines.The ribbed icefall of the Bossons Glacier drops from the Mont Blanc snow dome and a sharp neighbouring peak as the sun grazes the massif.Diagonal ice ridges, compressed flow bands and blue-grey crevasses.The icefall spreads beneath dark rock outcrops and snow peaks, ogives and seracs in front.Pale turquoise ice up close, crossed by a thin crack and a dark debris streak.Looking out through an ice cave in the Bossons Glacier: layered teal ice walls curve toward a bright entrance.
