Not many people seem to visit the Blonniere valley of the south Aravis chain of the French Alps. There are some very popular routes in the area - Mont Charvin, Sulens and La Tournette for example. But the Blonniere combe does have any marked paths above the track that leads to the lonely little Blonniere chalet at 1675 m. There are not even any names for the 3 peaks that sit on the seldom visited ridge at the top of the valley. This is odd because after L'Etale and Mont Charvin, these are the highest peaks in the south Aravis chain, the views across to Mont Blanc are magnificent, the walk up the valley is joyous, why has no one thought to give a name to these mountains?

It's become a favourite hike of ours when we visit the area to look in on the Blonniere valley. From the bottom, the car park at Comburce, it looks unpromising. It is a narrow and fairly dull start through the forest. But the valley soon fans out and becomes one enormous playground for chamoix and marmots, with buzzards, red kites and the occasional eagle soaring overhead. It leads all the way up to a wild and rocky ridge above 2300 m, tucked in under the left flank of its big brother L'Etale. Myself and my son, Luca, have been up there a couple of times just to reach the ridge and peer over towards Mont Blanc. But we've never, until now, taken on a traverse of the ridge and made it to the top of the three nameless peaks. That's what we decided to do on this occasion. We set off with my parents with the aim of having lunch from a good vantage we know of just above the Blonniere chalet. Luca and I would then push on higher up the pathless combe and take on the ridge.





We set off mid-morning. The sun already high, and hot.



Every time we come this way, even in peak hiking season, it always seems so quiet. I don't think I've never seen anyone else in the Blonniere valley, though my parents have once or twice. Not long out of the trees the way ahead opens up and there are great views up to the Blonniere ridge at the back, and the huge bulk of L'Etale to the right. Of interest here is the rudely named Coillu a Bordel - a big cleft in the backside of L'Etale that forms a narrow passage up from the Blonniere chalet towards the upper reaches of L'Etale. You can't see the exit to this corridor on the normal route up to L'Etale - but it looks like a fun route - we decided that one day we will check it out. The broad rocky peak avec fir trees in the photo below, below L'Etale, is where we stopped for lunch. Great views in all directions.



After lunch Luca and I headed further up towards the ridge. Although there is a signpost pointing towards 'Combe de la Blonniere' there are no paths above this point. We took a line up the right hand side of the valley, initially through the (at that point) dry bed of the Nant de la Blonniere stream.







Initially we were heading for the col that forms an obvious low point between Dent de Chatlet (which always looks like the local high point - but is not) and the north Blonniere peak (which is the high point). However, as we got higher we were unsure what the route and conditions were like for the scramble up from the col along the ridge. We didn't want to have to go back down and find a different route back up. Success looked more certain if we headed right of the Blonniere north peak and hit the ridge higher up. I think this was the best way - the scrambling up to the ridge was nice and easy over good grippy limestone. It is a bit of a slog though, especially when there are no paths to follow. We surprised the occasional chamoix who in this place do not seem used to having humans disturb their peace.





After a while the Couloir Combaz just below the L'Etale summit becomes visible (appearing as a snow lined gully below and to the right of L'Etale summit in the photo below). This leads up to the nasty little col that sits at the top of the Foiroux combe on the normal route up to L'Etale (the normal route is on the other side of the mountain from the photo below). A couple of times we have rested on the lip of that col on the way up L'Etale, staring down what feels like an enormous drop into the Blonniere combe. Dizzying stuff. In the photo below it looks almost climbable (proper gear definitely needed for that though.)



Before long we were at the ridge. And what a nice ridge it is. The Mont Blanc massif is straight ahead and there is a wild and rocky scramble in either direction north and south to visit the Blonniere peaks that have no name. We headed left first, for the high point, the north peak at 2369 m.









Here we saw two unexpected things. Firstly two other humans. They were below us on a prominence at the top of the Marion arete just above the col below Dent de Chatlet that we had originally been aiming for. This is a climbing route up the back side (Mont Blanc side) of Blonniere. They seemed to reach their peak just as we reached ours above them. I think they saw us but they didn't seem to want to wave! The other thing we saw in the distance is there is a cross to mark the summit of Dent de Chatlet. This was most unexpected. Dent de Chatlet peaks at a mere 2356 m. Here we were on the Blonniere north peak at a mighty 2369 m and there is nothing at all. Not even a cairn. Not even a name! Why does no one give these peaks the recognition they deserve? We decided that the presence of that cross meant we need to also scale the peak of Dent de Chatlet one day (another pathless trek with no 'normal route').



After a while we retraced our steps off the north peak and headed along the ridge towards the central peak. It's a wonderful walk. The meadow, with its blanket of flowers, slopes up steadily to the edge of the ridge then simply stops and seems to drop down almost vertical on the other side. It's quite unnerving being close to the edge. It's a short scramble up to the central peak which feels higher than the north peak but isn't.









I knew there was three peaks to the Blonniere ridge but so far we hadn't seen the south one. Unexpectedly fur us it turns out the central peak has a kind of triangular pyramid shape to the top of it. We didn't realise this until we were standing on the top and suddenly the route down to the south peak was evident - the ridge angles eastwards a bit at this point in Mont Blanc direction. The scramble down off the central summit was the most technical part of the route. Most of it is down a stony gully that has a lot of loose rock and is therefore slippy in places, but the exposure is closed off by a friendly wall that shields from what would otherwise be a shear drop down on the Mont Blanc side.





A few more ups and downs and we were on the smaller south summit. After a short break we continued along the ridge in the direction of L'Etale until there was a nice grassy rib that made a convenient staircase for us to descend back into the combe.







We came down the the combe on the other side to our ascent. Under the shadow of L'Etale but we preferred to stay on the grassy rib rather than the scree and bounders that is hard up against the north wall of L'Etale. We've been that way before and it is quite unstable.

Here we came upon a herd of chamoix. Mainly females and their young by the looks of it. Interestingly, some of them seemed to be sat down together resting on a big patch of residual snow - apparently cooling off from the sun. Chamoix tend to be quite skittish and we tried to give them a wide berth so as not to disturb them. Some of them took fright (in a lazy way) and ambled up to higher ground but others seemed content just to watch us pass by. We counted at least 25-30 of them. There may have been more. More than we've ever seen in one place before.



Later on there was a thunderstorm, long after we'd made it back. I do wonder what the chamoix do up there above 2000 m when there is a thunderstorm. It looks like there is some shelter here and there - the odd cave and big boulder perhaps. But it must be a brutal life up there! Us fair weather climbers prefer to watch the forecast. Nice and warm and sunny for our traverse of the Blonniere ridge. We'll be back next time to check out the Coillu a Bordel route up to L'Etale, and again after that for Dent de Chatlet and Pointe de Merdassier.