'Needle of the garden' — named after the Jardin de Talèfre, the small rocky 'island' in the middle of the Talèfre glacier below the peak. The Jardin was a 19th-century curiosity that Chamonix guides used to take tourists up to admire its summer wildflowers.
A summit on the east ridge of Aiguille Verte, technically more challenging than its neighbours Verte and Les Droites.
A granite tower on the long crest east of the Aiguille Verte, just above the Jardin de Talèfre — the rocky 'island' in the middle of the Talèfre glacier that early Chamonix visitors used to walk up to as a curiosity. First climbed on 27 July 1904 by the Irish alpinist V. J. E. Ryan with the two great St-Niklaus guides Franz and Josef Lochmatter, in a season in which the Ryan–Lochmatter rope made an extraordinary string of first ascents on hard granite (the Täschhorn south face, the Aiguille du Plan east ridge, the Aiguilles du Diable). The peak is now usually traversed in combination with the neighbouring Grande Rocheuse and the Aiguille Verte.
Route lines are approximate — drawn from guidebook waypoints, not GPS tracks. Don't navigate by them.
