Aiguille du Midi

The Aiguille du Midi is a sheer granite peak at 3,842 metres in the Mont Blanc massif, soaring nearly 2,800 metres above the centre of Chamonix. When the Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi opened in 1955 it was the highest cable car in the world, making the summit accessible to non-climbers and transforming Chamonix tourism entirely. The summit platform delivers a 360-degree panorama over the Mont Blanc massif, the Grandes Jorasses, and on clear days deep into Swiss and Italian Alpine territory. For alpinists, the top station is the classic launchpad for Mont Blanc summit attempts and for the Vallée Blanche, one of Europe's longest off-piste glacier descents at around 20 kilometres.