Nanuls wrote:Hello all
I also plan to climb Mont Blanc this summer in early July (also by the Goûter route), but I was planning to camp/bivy around the Goûter Shelter, rather than booking in any of the huts. Has anyone got any advice about this? I know people do it but is camping really that suitable at this location?
Dan
I have been to Goutier-hut last year and would give the advice to camp there rather than sleeping in that hut a second time. You can camp on the ridge just some meters above the hut.
Here´s a panorama I took up there:
Panorama Ag. du GoutierYou can see the tents to the right side of the ridge next to the track that leads up to Dome du Goutier (enlarge the picture).
Moni wrote:Technically, it is illegal to camp on Mont Blanc, but it doesn't seem to be enforced.
At that elevation and in that high use area, camping is not a good idea. There's not that much room and sanitation is an issue. If the hut is very full (the majority sleep on the floor every night, as we did when we climbed it,) it is also too full to accommodate campers looking for a toilet and water. The environmental impact of camping, especially in that place, flies in the face of mountain ethics.
Sorry Moni, but that´s nonsense:
Technically there´s absolutely no problem camping at 4000meters a. s. and it doesn´t do anything bad to a mountain when camping there, if you follow some basic rules:
1. don´t leave any litter and carry all your plastic stuff back down.
2. dig a hole (in the snow) for your excrements, so that they are not visible to others.
3. don´t pee or puh in distance of 50meters next to any rivers.
There´s absolutely no difference for the environment when you´re camping compared to staying in a hut.
If you use the toilett at any high-area alpine mountain hut, there will be no treatment to any wastewater, because it´s not possible to build sewers up there and there´s simply no necessity.
The same will happen with your excrements in all those huts as I described under Nr. 2 up here: your excrements will go into a small hole carved in the rocks untreated or they will just "run down" the rocks somewhere (what is actually the case at Goutier hut).
A waste water plant, that treats water collected by sewers uses the same effects in a concentrated way that nature provides. Nature itself is able to clean human excrements with oxygene and bacteria. It just takes longer than in a waste water plant.
As
Tomás Blázquez told here before:
A very good idea is starting a MB-climb directly from Tete Rousse all the way up to the summit. If you have gained good acclimatization before this is a comfortable way to climb MB. You can manage it up to the Goutier ridge in 2 hours, because there´s no traffic in the night.
When you return from the summit later, just stop by for something to drink at Goutier hut and work yourself further down after that to Tete Rousse hut again.