A sun-drenched skin into the perfect silence of the Combe Maudite. We make our way through the crevasse field in the centre of the glacier, thinking light thoughts as we scuttle across snow bridges spanning three-floors-deep crevasses, and under the grey-blue shadow of the Tour Ronde.

Our target remains hidden from view until we are past the towering rocks of the north-west face and tucked into the corner beyond. When we are directly beneath it, we get our first good look at what we are in for – around 300 metres of a 45-50° couloir barely ten metres across at its widest point, bordered by soaring cliffs and guarded at its base by a gaping double bergschrund. We switch to crampons and rope up, then I stroll easily up over the first narrow rimaye and explore off to the left, looking for somewhere to cross the second, more problematic gap. Nothing but some heel-over-head yoga climbing or a double-axe-dyno will get us over, so I seat myself firmly in the snow and run the rope across my back as Grant wanders off to the right, eventually finding a paper-thin bridge of soft snow over the yawning crevasse. He climbs to a handy flake of rock and sets a quick anchor, then I follow him up, holding my breath as my feet kick more of the failing bridge into the deep blue nothingness below me.

Once over the bergschrund, Grant starts digging a path up the lowest section of the couloir whilst I coil the rope. He swims for thirty metres or so through a foot of soft snow up to a rocky narrow point, where we can cross to firmer ground and quicker climbing on the true-right bank. Winds and shifting snows had filled in the earlier bootpack in places, and we each take turns kicking steps in either decent skiable stuff or nothing that an hour in the sun won’t fix.

Near to the second slight bottleneck higher up in the couloir, where we decide to leave our skis, fist-and-bigger-sized nuggets of eyeball-blue ice stud the slope around us, breaking through the surface of the snow like worn-smooth shards of glass on a sandy beach. Occasionally, a foot or an axe pick dislodges one of them and sends it bouncing down to the glacier below us.

Some gentle mixed climbing in the top section of the couloir brings us to the sloping col that broaches the black ice of the north face, curving steeply down out of sight to our left. Sudden patches of unyielding ice under our feet jolt us awake after our easy climb through receptive snow, but we soon find ourselves at a small flat section where, having never been here before and unsure of what we’ll find on our way to the top, we take the rope out once again. A quick bit of down climbing lands us on a solid path skirting around the base of the summit tower, on to the glistening snow slopes of the east face, and a short walk up to the top. The world opens up around us in an astounding vista – the angry, broken mess of the glacier tumbling down to Val Veny far below us, the snaking ribbons of Courmayeur’s pistes in the forest slopes opposite, and far-off to the south, the wide, flat plain of the Rutor Glacier and the summit of the Gran Paradiso. To the west, the mighty Brenva face of Mont Blanc with its near-constant rumble of falling seracs, and across the white expanse of the Combe Maudite, the rust-red spires of rock muscling their way up to Mont Maudit, the Tacul, and the Capucins. On the other side of the rolling snowy sea of the Vallee Blanche to the north-east, the sawtooth ridgeline of the Aiguilles du Chamonix and, colossal despite the distance, the sprawl of peaks leaning against the Aiguille Verte. I immediately feel even smaller than I did on the way up here – to be enveloped by such a magnificent view, surrounded by the scene of so many incredible feats in mountaineering’s history, you really get a sense of your own insignificance. At moments like these, struck dumb by the sheer beauty of every visible inch of the world, from horizon to far-flung horizon, I can’t help but consider how ridiculously lucky I am to be here, to have the opportunity to spend time in this awe-inspiring environment. Mere words and photos, of course, don’t capture the experience. I’ll just have to come back again.

Well, that’s enough dwelling on one’s own inconsequentiality for now, we came here to go skiing. After taking on fuel and water, we turn tail and reverse the route back to where we left our skis. Encouraged by the chasmal drop of the north face as we make our way back into the Gervasutti Couloir, we keep the rope on and protect our down climb with an ice screw. Our eyes scan the rocks below us for obvious spikes or scraps of tat, and after smacking one or two candidates with an axe to hear them sing, we settle on one particularly sturdy-looking fellow. We set our ropes for rappel, throwing them directly over the spike and tying the two different widths together with a double fisherman’s instead of the usual overhand knot, whilst we wait for a group of four carrying snowshoes to climb past us, not even halfway through what is obviously a very long day for them. Once they are above us, Grant rappels down with inches to spare on the ropes to an obvious anchor strewn with tat, which he backs up with some fresh stuff of his own for luck. I join him, and as we pull the ropes for a second rappel we learn a valuable lesson – it is always better to leave a bit of tat than it is to be pulling on a rope, stuck in a small crack at the back of your anchor high above you, using prussiks and ropemen for grip and swearing at yourself through gritted teeth. After a brief workout, the rope eventually falls down on us, we make our second rap, and we are at our skis. By now, the sun has been on the west-facing couloir for a little over an hour, and the icy surface on which we climbed has softened slightly to firm but grippy chalk. I get dressed first and side-step down the bottleneck, barely wider than my skis are long, dislodging the same golf-balls and fists of blue ice peppering the slope as we found on the way up. I tuck in to the side to shelter from the pebbles of ice that Grant sends down, and when we are both in the relatively-wider body of the couloir, we ski.

The walls grow taller around us and the bare ice of the west col and the Col du Trident start to loom over us, and all too quickly, we find ourselves in the deep, soft snow in the bottom of the couloir, which has had just a little-bit-too-much sun to be perfect. Crossing the bergschrund is quicker, easier, and a thousand times more fun than it was on the way up, and soon we are back on flat ground. A superb ski, the first descent for both of us but certainly not the last – hopefully, in a good snow year, we’ll be able to ski it from top to bottom. After one last glance up at the couloir, we point our skis towards the Italian Valley Blanche, cutting wide GS turns on smooth chalk, all alone in the late afternoon sun.

Cheers Grant for a groovy day out, bagging a brand new peak and an awesome descent.