Angels of Mont Blanc

Francis Claudon, of the Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haute Montagne (PGHM) in Chamonix, France, was on second call that July evening. With one team already out on a rescue, he was kitted up and ready for the next mission, boots on and rucksack packed. When the alert came, he was relaxing in the Dropzone lounge next to the helipad with his rescue partner. The room was spacious but sparsely decorated, with a TV, a couple of sofas, and a coffee machine. A loudspeaker relayed the message from the control room, and the pair listened before heading downstairs, shouldering their packs, and striding out to the helicopter, where a mechanic was filling the tank with enough kerosene for the job ahead.

The powerful twin-motor Eurocopter 145 took off vertically before pivoting and climbing steeply up toward the nearby Mer de Glace. Five minutes after take-off, the pilot was passing between the towering needles of the Drus and the Grands Charmoz, hugging the ice as he followed the snaking glacier up toward the north face of the Grandes Jorasses.

For many rescue specialists, getting dropped onto the ice-draped, nearly vertical walls of a peak like the Grandes Jorasses might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but for Francis and the other members of the PGHM, which does many hundreds of rescue missions a year, mostly by helicopter, it’s all in a day’s work.

The Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses is one of the most sought-after climbs in the Alps. A striking, 1,200-meter- high pillar of rock leading straight to the highest point on the mountain, it is as pure an alpine line as you could wish for, and on the rare summer days when it is in prime condition, it draws climbers like wasps to a jam jar. As with many other alpine classics, its length and difficulty are often underestimated by aspirant ascensionists. When it is clear of snow, a fast party climbing light will manage it in a long day, but many still spend a cold night out on the mountain. If an evening storm catches a team high on the route, the situation suddenly becomes very serious.

Marcel and Marcus, two experienced alpinists from Switzerland, were well aware of the dangers when they set out to claim their prize. Their strategy was atypical. Rather than stay in the Leschaux Hut and leave early the next morning to attempt a one-day ascent, they decided to walk in directly from the Montenvers train station above the Mer de Glace, start climbing around noon, bivouac at halfheight, and then—hopefully—top out the following day. Their plan would leave them more exposed to stonefall on the approach, but would help them avoid other parties on the route and allow them time to reach the summit before the arrival of the bad weather that was forecast for the next day.

Everything went according to plan until late in the afternoon of the second day. The team had moved as fast as they could, but 700 feet of technical climbing still separated them from the summit when the predicted storm rolled in. It was of rare violence: torrential rain accompanied by incessant lightning strikes. With the Swiss already exhausted after two long days of effort and a testing bivouac, the downpour proved to be the final straw. Soaking wet and with signs of hypothermia setting in, they called the PGHM on their mobile phone and requested a rescue.