Alpenglow Expeditions · Silent Ridge Traverse · Western Alps

Walk into the sky.

The Silent Ridge — six days, two rope teams, 4,808 metres. Guided since 1987, in the few weeks each year the mountain allows it. The site you are on ascends with you: scroll, and the sky keeps time.

Begin the ascent Book the season

I — The Route

Basecamp to the needle, drawn to scale.

Day 1–2 · 1,200 → 2,350 m

Through the larch line

Out of the Vallon d'Orsa and up the old moraine, slow on purpose: your blood is learning the altitude. We sleep low, walk high, and drink more water than anyone wants to.

CAMP I — 2,350 m

Day 3 · 2,350 → 3,410 m

Onto the Glacier du Silence

Roped in threes through the crevasse field at first light, fixed lines on the serac barrier. By noon the snow rots in the sun — by then we are already in the tents.

CAMP II — 3,410 m

Day 4 · hold at 3,410 m

The rest day that isn't optional

Acclimatisation is arithmetic: sleep at 3,410, climb to 3,900, come back down. We watch the north-west sky and say little. The forecast decides everything after this.

WEATHER WINDOW — GO / NO GO

Day 5–6 · 4,120 → 4,808 m

The Silent Ridge, at night

Bivouac at the Col des Deux Vents. Alpine start at 23:40 — the ridge is 1.9 kilometres of corniced arête, crossed while the ice still believes in itself. Summit at 03:58. Down before the sun loosens the mountain.

SUMMIT — 4,808 m

II — Conditions

The ridge earns its name.

Storms arrive from the north-west with about six hours of warning. When the window shuts we hold at Camp II — three days of margin are sewn into every departure. Waiting is a mountaineering skill. We are excellent at it.

110 km/hGusts on the arête

< 8 mWhiteout visibility

−12°CMidday, in the wind

We waitThe only correct answer

HardshellThree-layer, taped seams. The wind finds every other kind.

Down parka800-fill, rated to −25°. Worn at every belay above Camp II.

Half ropes2 × 60 m, dry-treated. One per rope team, one spare below.

CramponsTwelve-point steel, fitted at basecamp, checked at every camp.

Ice axe58 cm classic. The ridge is walked, not swung at.

TransceiverChecked at basecamp, then every morning. No signal, no rope.

Sleeping bagComfort −18°. The col bivouac is beautiful and bitter.

Stove & fuelFour litres of water per climber per day, all of it melted.

Every item on this list is checked by your guide at basecamp. Twice.

III — The Rope

You climb with people who listen to mountains.

Mara Vollen

IFMGA Mountain Guide · 14 seasons · 31 crossings

“The ridge tells you everything the night before. My job is to stay awake and listen.”

Elias Rott

IFMGA Guide · Former glaciologist · 26 seasons

“I've turned us around at 4,700 more often than I've stood on top. That arithmetic is why we all get to keep coming back.”

One guide to three climbers. Never more. The mountain outnumbers us all anyway.

IV — Summit

“03:58. We switched off our headlamps and the ridge was still there — silver, patient, running all the way down to the valley we'd stopped believing in. Nobody spoke. The mountain had decided to allow it.”

Summit log · 14 June · M. Vollen, rope two

4,808 mAiguille du Silence

03:58Headlamps off

−19°CStill air, aurora north

V — The Season

Three departures. Twelve places.

Early summer and September, when the ice is honest. Six climbers per departure, two guides, six days on the mountain.

June 12 – 17 2 places remaining Open

July 3 – 8 Full — join the waitlist Waitlist

September 9 – 14 4 places remaining Open

€4,950 per place — guides, huts and camps, glacier kit, and the weather-margin days included.

The summit is not included. It never is.

Request a place