If the summer holidays are the ideal time to tackle Mont Blanc, you should know that the highest peak in Europe has been subject to a regulatory system since June 15th. In effect until September 29, it aims to curb security problems and overcrowding related to the popularity of the site.
Attacking Mont-Blanc at the last minute, without preparation or adequate equipment, is no longer possible. Since June 15, a prefectural decree has regulated access to the highest peak in Europe, which culminates at 4,810 meters above sea level. In question: the number of climbers per year, which amounts to nearly 25,000. Because, in addition to the overcrowding of refuges, the popularity of Mont-Blanc leads to security problems, even incivility and attacks on public order. All in a context where the site is strongly affected by global warming.
Thus, a regulating device aims to enforce the maximum public number of refuges on the normal route, as well as the ban on camping in a classified site outside the derogation granted to the Tête Rousse base camp. Another objective: to control the mountain guides to ensure that they all hold a professional card or a diploma, in order to ensure their qualifications. Finally, the decree also aims to continue to promote the prevention undertaken for several years on the equipment and the preparation necessary for the ascent, as well as on the conditions of the mountain.
A “white brigade” to enforce the regulatory system
To carry out this project, the obligation of nominative reservation in all the refuges of the route has been put in place, just like the passage under management of the base camp of Tête Rousse, with a limitation of its capacity to 50 people. At the same time, Jean-Marc Peillex, the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, created a “white brigade”, in charge of checking reservation receipts for climbers along the entire route. Thus, it intervenes in addition to the high mountain gendarmerie platoons (PGHM).
The implementation of these measures was announced in mid-February, when Emmanuel Macron visited Haute-Savoie. They will be in effect until September 29. “It’s the end of the rule ‘in the name of freedom we let everything happen’, including what was prohibited by the textsdeclared Jean-Marc Peillex to 20 minutes in June. Mont-Blanc is protected, it is a classified site. Camping, for example, is prohibited. And yet, for years we tolerated camping around the Refuge du Goûter. Five years ago, we had set up up to 90 tents, or 180 people, when it was prohibited. For decades, everyone veiled their face.”
“Until 2018-2019, I found myself very much alone”
It has been 17 years – since the heat wave of 2003, which revealed the sorry state of the highest peak in Europe – that the elected official has been fighting to protect Mont-Blanc. “We have written texts and no one has applied them in the name of this principle according to which the mountain is a space of freedomregretted the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains to our colleagues. But as we went too far, as the guardian of the refuge almost got his face broken, as there was an overcrowding at the top, people began to say to themselves that we could not continue like this. And there was a shift in awareness. But until 2018-2019, I found myself quite alone.”
Jean-Marc Peillex alludes to the progress that had already been felt at the end of the 2019 summer season: two people had died there and 46 had been rescued, compared to 3.6 and 62 respectively on average over the past 10. Furthermore, ifinappropriate behavior” were still noted, no serious incivility had been noted. Finally, while the maximum accommodation capacities had been respected, new luminescent markings for the ascent of the Aiguille du Goûter had proved effective.
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