Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi

Few machines lift you into another world as abruptly as the Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi. In about twenty minutes it rises more than 2,700 metres from the streets of Chamonix to a needle of granite on the Mont Blanc massif, trading chalets and cafés for glaciers, séracs and the white dome of Mont Blanc itself, seemingly close enough to touch. When the full line opened in 1955 it was the highest passenger cable car in the world, a title it held until 1960, and its vertical rise is still one of the greatest of any cable car.

The idea is older than the line. A first "Glaciers" ropeway opened in 1924 — the first passenger cable car in France — running from Les Pèlerins to La Para, and was extended in 1927 to 2,404 metres, still well short of the summit. The present route was driven by the Italian promoter Dino Lora Totino in the 1950s: the lower section, opened in 1954, climbs to the Plan de l'Aiguille at 2,317 metres; the upper section, opened a year later, crosses 2,867 metres of air in a single span with no pylon at all, hanging over the rock and ice before docking at 3,777 metres. The system was thoroughly modernised in 1990–1991 and is run by the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc.

The top station clings to the rock, and a lift bored through the peak carries visitors on to the summit terrace at 3,842 metres. From there the view spans the peaks and glaciers of the massif, with Mont Blanc to one side and the long glacier of the Vallée Blanche below. Since 2013 "Step into the Void" — a glass box projecting over a drop of about a thousand metres — has offered a vertiginous look straight down, and a tubular walkway added in 2016 circles the summit. In summer a further cable car crosses the glacier to Pointe Helbronner on the Italian side, from where one can continue down to Courmayeur.

Getting there

The valley station is in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, about a ten-minute walk from Chamonix-Mont-Blanc railway station; Sallanches, down the Arve valley, is about 19 km away. The nearest airport by distance is Annecy (NCY), about 60 km away, but most visitors fly into Geneva, about 88 km from Chamonix, with direct shuttle buses taking around an hour and a half.