Mont Blanc was first climbed by Dr. Pacard and Jacques Balmat in 1786. In 1986, perhaps 20,000 people will climb the mountain. This account tells of the ascent of three of them.

Andrew and I drove out and rather unexpectedly found Tim as arranged in Chamonix at 10.00 a.m. We hired crampons and bought a picnic while Tim rang his office back in London, and caught the train up to Montenvers in order to walk up the Mer de Glace to the Couvercle hut (3 hours says the guidebook).

The Mer de Glace is 11 km long, 1 km wide, and up to 250 m deep. It flows at a rate of up to 90 m per year (1 cm per hour). Much of it is flat and crevasse-free, but the crevasses are difficult to avoid altogether <196> fissures of indeterminate depth, anything from 1 cm to 10 m wide often stretching for hundreds of metres. One prowls along the edge and jumps across at a narrow point or walks gingerly across a snow bridge. At the lower end the glacier is dirty and the top inch is friable, but beneath that the ice is transparent blue and rock-hard.

By 3.00 p.m. we had lost Tim again. We were making our way up the Mer de Glace, jumping small crevasses. I stopped at a good vantage point and waited for Andrew, who soon arrived convinced that Tim was behind. We waited for half an hour, then spread out and walked slowly back, peering down crevasses as we went. The sun shone, and there were lots of people around. No sign of Tim, either on the glacier or at the Montenvers railway terminus. "Perhaps he felt ill and has gone down." So we went down but found no sign of Tim in Chamonix either. We went to the mountain rescue people, who were impressively efficient, and told them of our predicament.

"Each year," they said, "we lose five or six people on glaciers, and find five or six people. Not the same people, you understand. Yesterday we found someone who disappeared sixteen years ago."

Still, they thought it possible that Tim might have passed us and be at the Couvercle hut. After much difficulty, they made radio contact and established that he was indeed there. If he had not been, we would have ordered out a helicopter for a thorough search of the glacier. Imagine Tim's state of mind slogging across glacier and moraine, cursing Andrew and me for not waiting, then arriving and finding us not there.

Andrew and I joined Tim at the hut the next day and spent the afternoon sitting in the sun. I should think the view is unrivalled in the Alps. Below the Leschaux glacier merges with the Mer de Glace. Across the Leschaux glacier are the Dent Du Geant and the Grandes Jorasses with the Walker Spur, one of Gaston Rebuffat's six great North faces of the Alps. Behind us the Aiguilles Verte and Drus (another of the North faces). Across the Mer de Glace are all the Chamonix Aiguilles leading up to the Aiguille du Midi, the Vallee Blanche and Mont Blanc itself.

Inside, too, the Couvercle hut was outstanding. These huts perhaps represent a French outlook on life. The bunks are comfortable and warm. The food and drink, supplied by helicopter, are good though expensive. The Couvercle hut had a cold water tap and a flushing loo, facilities we did not find elsewhere. Many of the other huts have no running water, and the loo is often a hole in a plank over the edge of a cliff.

The next day was our low point. We set off at 5.00 a.m. on a training climb up the Aiguille du Moine (4 hours, peu difficile). It rained, first drizzle, then heavy rain, then sheet. We got almost to the top, lost our way, gave up and returned to the hut cold and wet through. Having little in the way of dry clothes, we went to bed (and to sleep) at midday in our wet ones.

At 3.00 p.m., damp and steaming, we decided to admit defeat and retreat to Chamonix. At 5.00 p.m., alone on the Mer de Glace, it became apparent that we would miss the last train down from Montenvers. So we took a decision to cross the glacier and go up it to the Requin hut. As we grappled with an interminable maze of crevasses, the rain turned to hail whipped at us by a cold wind, lightning and thunder crashed all round, Tim lost his crampon (again) and I feared we would be benighted.

It was a long slog, but we finally reached the Requin hut at 8.15 p.m., to find ourselves the only guests. The warden thought us mad, but fed us well and dried our clothes. Next day the cloud was down and we sat talking with a Colorado girl who was assisting the warden; about an Air India crash which has taken Tim abroad eight times already this year; about acetazolamide for acclimatisation and electrolyte balance, from Andrew's book on Medicine for Mountaineers; and about Aluminium technology, so far as anyone would listen to me.

Back to Chamonix we went, for a rest day while we waited for the weather to improve. Tim spent the rest day in bed with a nasty gum infection and also probably a temperature. We all wondered whether he would make it up Mont Blanc. His blotchy unshaven peeling face seemed to have an effect on women, though we could not understand why.

Mont Blanc (4807 m) is accessible from five or six huts, three on the French side. Much the most convenient of these is the Gouter hut (3817 m), but the Gouter hut was fully booked for weeks ahead. Most years the Grand Mulets hut (3051 m) gives access by a route approximately that followed by Pacard and Balmat, but in 1986 crevasses on the Bosson glacier made the route difficult. We stayed at the Tete Rousse hut (3187 m) at the bottom of a cliff on the top of which we could see the Gouter hut gleaming in the evening sunshine.

The warden woke us at 1.00 a.m., gave us breakfast and a candle (which went out) and left us to it. Other parties with pitons and karabiners and head torches set off into the night. We sat in the dark until 4.00 a.m., when we strapped on our crampons and set off across the couloir (danger of snowfall, Tim loses a crampon) and up the cliff to the Gouter hut.

We had planned to fill up with liquid at the Gouter hut and were dismayed to find that none was available. Tim and I went on, leaving Andrew to wait for the warden to wake up and sell him some liquid. From the Gouter, the route is a long plod on snow, steep but in excellent condition, so I left the rope behind.

The Dome de Gouter looks a small mound but took us two hours to get up. It was a perfect day, sunny and not too much wind. As we climbed, we topped the Aiguille de Bionassay (4013 m) a shapely peak on our right, and views to the Bosson glacier, the Aiguille du Midi and the Grandes Jorasses unfolded on our left. As we climbed, numerous parties passed us on the way down, mostly roped together and all looking miserable.

From the Dome de Gouter (4304 m) one can see the top of Mont Blanc (4807 m) which is good for morale. Tim and I stopped at the Vallot hut, a shack with no facilities for use only in emergency, and waited for Andrew who soon arrived with a headache and 2.5 litres of water, a substantial weight to carry and more than we actually managed to drink. We left rucksacks there and went on light.

At this point a cold wind was blowing and the ridge is quite sharp with steep snow for a thousand metres down either side. Andrew and I had no problem, but Tim's sense of balance is more precarious and he crawled much of it and complained that we should have been roped. The actual summit is quite a large dome. We were the last party of the day on it (12.30 p.m.) except for one person bivouacking in a small tent. Andrew had been sponsored by his hospice; he unfurled his hospice flag, posed Tensing style - and my camera jammed. Perhaps it was the cold, which was intense, perhaps the fact that I had dropped it down a cliff a few days earlier.

The return to the Gouter hut was nice; you can almost run down steep snow in crampons. It would have made a marvellous ski run. Descending the cliff to the Tete Rousse hut was long and tedious, with dozens of people pressing up past us to the Gouter hut which would obviously be grossly overcrowded. Andrew went on ahead, fell in the couloir and slid 50 m before stopping himself by digging in with his ice-axe, tearing all his fingernails in the process but also getting rid of his headache. Tim and I took it very slowly and got down at 6.00 p.m. just in time for supper and early bed.

The macho hut warden looked at us with interest when he heard that we had done Mont Blanc from his hut. A look at the hut logbook indicated that it was not a very frequent feat. For Tim, who was not well and was not eating much on account of his gums, it was a fine achievement. We bought commemorative Tee shirts and made our way down to the valley and the car.

With bad weather forecast for the next day, we decided to come home. Andrew and I dropped Tim at Geneva airport, and drove home, 1440 miles without incident. On arrival I discovered that Camilla had driven our new Nissan Micra half a mile and parked, whereupon it had been hit by an L-driver and was a write-off. Fortunately we had comprehensive insurance.

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