Aiguille du Midi

The Aiguille du Midi is a 3,842-metre rock needle in the Mont Blanc massif, and one of the few places in the Alps where anyone can stand face to face with the high mountains without climbing. Its name means "needle of midday". From the summit the view takes in Mont Blanc to the south, a whole horizon of peaks and glaciers, and, straight down, the rooftops of Chamonix more than two and a half kilometres below.

The cable car that makes this possible was first proposed around 1909 but did not open until 1955, when it was the highest cable car in the world, a title it held for about two decades. It still has the greatest vertical rise of any cable car: from Chamonix at 1,035 metres to the top station at 3,777 metres, the rest of the way to the summit by lift. The first stage climbs to the Plan de l'Aiguille at 2,317 metres; the second is a single unsupported span of about 2,867 metres, with no pylon at all between the two stations, rising steeply up the rock. The whole journey takes about 20 minutes.

At the top, terraces and walkways cling to the pinnacle. In 2013 a glass box called Step into the Void was added, projecting over a drop of more than a kilometre, and in 2016 an enclosed tubular walkway, Le Tube, was built around the summit. Even in summer the open terraces can drop well below freezing, and the light off the snow is fierce. Visitors cannot leave the facilities, but from a tunnel near the station mountaineers and skiers step out onto a steep, extremely exposed ice ridge that leads down to the glacier. This is the start of the Vallée Blanche, a 20 km off-piste descent through crevassed terrain best done with a guide, and of popular climbs such as the Cosmiques Ridge, which ends by a ladder straight onto the viewing platform.

In summer a second cable car, the Vallée Blanche line, crosses the glaciers to Pointe Helbronner on the Italian side, where the Skyway Monte Bianco descends towards Courmayeur, making it possible to travel between France and Italy through the air instead of under the mountain in the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

Getting there

The cable car leaves from the centre of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. By straight-line distance the nearest larger town is Sallanches, about 21 km away. The nearest airport is Annecy (NCY), about 62 km away; Geneva Airport, the main gateway to the valley, is 88 km from Chamonix.