2 hours drive from St Gervais, going through the 11km long Mont Blanc tunnel, we are  now in Italy for 2 days for the Grand Paradise summit. We have lunch in an old renovated goat barn just at the start of the trek to the refuge. Nice Italian food, and we are on our way. The weather is changing a lot, it’s warm then cool and then raining, we have to gear up. We arrive at the refuge at around 4pm. All 3 if us are doing fine. Nap until 6pm and 7pm dinner. The refuge can handle 100 guests but today it’s only 30-40 of us which is nice and quiet. We cover the basics for tomorrow with our guide, Jean-Marc. Waking up at 415am, breakfast at 430 and after picking up our thermos with hot tea we are out the door by 5am. If we climb well enough we should crampon up after 1 hour when we hit the snow line, and reach the summit by 9am. It’s 920pm time to go to bed!

Alarm at 415am, we pack for the climb, get dressed, run down for breakfast, pick up the thermos full of hot tea and head out at 515am. We can already see some headlamps up the slope. The first hour is tough and very strenuous walking through a rock field, before reaching the snow line. Hard to keep our balance and tricky for legs and feet. We reach the snow line, and get into snow and ice climbing mode: crampons, gaiters, we rope ourselves in. Jean Marc is leading, then Xavier, Lars and I close the rope. Steep for 1 hour before we hit the snow fields at 3500 meters. It’s beautiful! The final push is very steep, we slowly make it to the summit at 4061 meters. All 3 of us super happy to be there. The weather is fine, sunny on one side, some amazing views of the Mont Blanc. The summit stop is short, there is a 200m drop cliff inches away from where we sit. We start to head down and now Lars leads the way, all 4 of us roped in. The crampons do a wonderful job holding us to the slope at crazy steep angles! Lunch at the Refuge, then all the way down to start of trek. We are exhausted and feet are suffering from wearing high altitude boots all the way up and down the mountain. 2 hours drive from Italy back to St Gervais.  Tonight’s plan: dinner at 7 at the hotel and then a few beers to celebrate our first ascent and 4000m summit together! It seems we have earned our ticket to Mont Blanc! Our guide seems confident we can make it if the weather holds!! Tomorrow rest, Friday day 1 of Mont Blanc climb.