We are climbing Mont Blanc in place of Elbrus due to geopolitical climate in Russia with ongoing Ukrainian conflict. We arrived in Geneva, Switzerland but none of our bags made it. It was a two-hour drive to get to our hotel in Chamonix, France. The airport said they would contact us when the bags made it. My Dad’s luggage came the next day but mine never did. That meant that we had to buy all new gear for me. The good news was there were many mountaineering gear shops in Chamonix. A few days later, we met up with our group and did some acclimatization hikes. The hikes were super fun because we took cable cars really high and then hiked around there. Then we went over to the base of Mont Blanc. It was a three-day climb. The first day was really easy; it was a short and rocky hike to the first hut. The next day was our summit day. We woke up at around 4am and left an hour later. The first section wasn't hard. We started with crampons on and climbed a few hours to the next hut where we took a break. Then we kept going for what seemed like a long time. I got very tired in the middle of the climb but not physically. I just wanted to go back to sleep. But we kept going and eventually got to the summit. It was a very big summit and we could see forever. We spent a long time on the summit and then we started descending. We went all the way down to the second hut and went right to bed. The next day we went from the second hut, passed the first hut, all the way down to the bottom. Another one in the bag.
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