Dents de Géants, new climb by Baud, Bouillanne and Charlet

On 29 June the French alpinists Christopher Baud, Brice Bouillanne and Jonathan Charlet made the first ascent of Cœurs de géants (560m, ED M5+), a new route up the Dents de Geants, Mont Blanc massif.

New routes on the Dents de Géants in the Mont Blanc massif aren't an every-day occurrence in one of the undisputed symbols of the Mont Blanc and world mountaineering in general. Hence the climb put up Christopher Baud, Brice Bouillanne and Jonathan Charlet on 29 June is all the more interesting.

In truth we don't have too many details, but what we have suffices: the French trio took the first lift on 29 June, reached the Bergschrund below the NW Face at 10 am and after climbing circa 380m of new terrain they reached the North Ridge. From here a further 180m lef to the summit at 21.00, from where they descended back to the Torino hut which they reached at 22:30. Baud describes the climb as "a superb mixed route up superb quality rock, with an ice couloir on the third pitch and all the rest dry tooling, with some sustained climbing up to M5+ dry tooling."

The route is dedicated to Baud's brother Édouard who died while skiing on Mont Blanc du Tacul in 2004, to the late Maxime Belleville who perished in a crevasse in Vallée Blanche in 2009 and to Gregory Costa who was buried in an avalanche on Manaslu in 2012. The line, understandably, is called Cœurs de géants.