Mont Maudit
French for 'cursed mountain' — the name inherited from the medieval-era catch-all term for the whole upper Mont Blanc range (la Montagne Maudite), which was attached to this neighbouring summit once Mont Blanc proper had been baptised in white.
Third of the Three Monts on the Chamonix-side traverse of Mont Blanc. Crossed via the Col du Mont Maudit on the popular Trois Monts route from the Cosmiques hut.
The 'cursed mountain' — the second of the Trois Monts on the classic Aiguille du Midi → Mont Blanc traverse. Climbed on 12 September 1878 by an English party with the Grindelwald guide Johann Jaun. The crux of the modern route is not the summit itself but the steep snow slope below it (the Mur de la Côte and, on the Trois Monts variant, the rappel into the Col du Mont Maudit) which has produced repeated avalanche accidents — most notoriously in July 2012, when a serac collapse triggered a slide that killed nine climbers and was the deadliest single accident in the Mont Blanc range of the modern era.
Summit · huts that serve as bases for routes on this peak
- Refuge des Cosmiques3,613 m
- Rifugio Torino3,375 m