'White Needle of Peuterey' — aiguille is the standard Chamonix-French term for a granite spire ('needle'); Peuterey is the Aosta-side valley below. The 'white' distinguishes it from the lower, dark, rotten-rock Aiguille Noire de Peuterey on the same ridge.
Remote three-summited peak on the Peuterey ridge above the Brenva glacier, widely regarded as the most serious of the Alpine 4000ers to reach. Normal route is the historic line from the Craveri bivouac.
The keystone of the Peuterey ridge — the longest ridge in the Alps to any summit (more than 4500 m of cumulative ascent from Val Veni to Mont Blanc). Climbed on 31 July 1885 by the English alpinist Henry Seymour King with three Saas and Courmayeur guides led by Émile Rey, the great Courmayeur guide of the late 19th century. The traverse of the Aiguille Blanche on the way to Mont Blanc via the integral Peuterey ridge — taking in the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey (below 4000 m and outside the UIAA list), the Aiguille Blanche, the Grand Pilier d'Angle and Mont Blanc de Courmayeur — is still considered one of the supreme ridge traverses of the Alps.
Route lines are approximate — drawn from guidebook waypoints, not GPS tracks. Don't navigate by them.
