Glacier Camping in the Mont Blanc Massif: Night Photos Under Alpine Stars

Two tents glow on the Géant Glacier, the dark ridge of Aiguille d’Entrèves above them and the first stars coming out over the Mont Blanc massif. Lumi Toma and a fellow photographer spent about a week camping on the ice between France and Italy to make these night photographs, sharing them through their blog Life Nature Adventure in November 2015.

Getting there was the hard part. The pair rode the cable car from Chamonix to the Aiguille du Midi at 3,842 metres, then descended a ridge to the glacier carrying around 30 kg of gear each. They pitched camp near La Tour Ronde and sat out the first nights in storms, strong wind and thunder, with temperatures around −15 °C. When the sky finally cleared, the reward was a sky free of city light.

Camping on the Géant Glacier below La Tour Ronde

The Glacier du Géant spreads below the Aiguille du Midi and the Italian border ridge. It is a high, open basin, crossed by the Vallée Blanche ski route and ringed by some of the best-known peaks in the Alps, which makes it a superb place to photograph a night sky.

Several frames show the lights of other people in the mountains. The Refuge des Cosmiques glows near the Midi, while the head-torches of climbers trace lines up the north face of Mont Blanc du Tacul. Those climbers are on the Three Monts route, the classic high traverse over Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Maudit to the summit of Mont Blanc, which usually starts in the small hours from the Cosmiques hut.

A warm tent, a headlamp beam or a cup of hot tea turns a huge, cold scene into something human. That small source of light also tells the eye where to look first.

Dent du Géant, Bionnassay and the Milky Way

The Dent du Géant, the Giant’s Tooth, is a 4,013-metre granite fang on the France–Italy border. Its higher summit, Pointe Graham, was first climbed on 20 August 1882 by William Woodman Graham with guides Auguste Cupelin and Alphonse Payot; the Maquignaz family of guides had reached the lower Pointe Sella a few weeks earlier. Behind it rise the Grandes Jorasses, one of the great north walls of the Alps.

On the French side, the snowy Aiguille de Bionnassay makes a quieter foreground for a summer night sky, its pale ridge set against the stars.

Courmayeur and the Italian side of Mont Blanc

Looking south, the view drops into Italy. The lights of the Torino refuge shine from the border ridge near Pointe Helbronner, and far below glow the streets of Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley. On a clear night the camera picks up this light pollution as a warm haze on the horizon, a reminder of how close the high glaciers are to busy resort towns.

Visiting the Aiguille du Midi and the glacier safely

The Téléphérique de l’Aiguille du Midi opened in 1955 and climbs more than 2,800 metres from Chamonix in about 20 minutes. At the top, viewing platforms face the summits of the massif. In summer the Vallée Blanche cable car continues peak to peak to Pointe Helbronner (3,462 m) in Italy. Details and opening times are on the official Aiguille du Midi site.

The glacier beyond the station is serious mountaineering terrain, with crevasses, altitude and fast-changing weather. Go with a qualified mountain guide if you want to travel or camp on it: the photographers themselves recommend a guide for beginners, good fitness and proper equipment.

For a night-sky gallery among forests and fields, visit Joni Niemelä’s Finnish night photography. For a moving view of another Alpine range, watch TIMEDRIFT II in the Dolomites.