IFMGA alpine guiding · Valsorde, Hautes-Cimes
Small rope teams, honest forecasts, and seventeen seasons of knowing when to go up and when to make tea instead.
46.02° N · 7.41° EEST. 2009BUREAU: 14 ROUTE DES SÉRACS
01 / Expeditions
Set departures with two clients to a rope. Private dates on request; the mountain does not mind which calendar you use.
ADNorth Ridge, integral
3,842m
A patient line up clean granite to the most photographed crest in the range. We take the extra half-day most parties skip, and it shows on summit morning.
Hut nights, lift transfers, technical kit check, summit-day rations.
PD+West Arête to Col des Autans
4,067m
Six days above 3,000 metres, hut to hut, with one night on the moraine at Camp Autans. The classic first 4,000er, walked at a pace your legs will thank you for.
All huts and the moraine camp, glacier kit, rope fees, luggage shuttle.
SKI / AD-Ski expedition, three cols
3,560m
Cold starts, long descents, and one deliberately slow evening under the clearest sky in the massif. Skinning fitness matters more than turns here.
Winter room fees, avalanche kit, skin wax, one alarmingly early alpine start.
02 / Approach
Every itinerary carries a spare half-day at altitude. Headaches are data, not weakness, so we build schedules that listen to them.
Two climbers to a guide, never more on technical ground. The margin we keep in reserve is the part of the trip you never see, and the part we are proudest of.
We set the turn time together the night before, in plain numbers. When it arrives, we turn. The summit is optional; the walk down never is.
“Nobody remembers a fast ascent. Everybody remembers feeling looked after at 4,000 metres.”
The line we hire guides by
03 / Gear
We check every pack the evening before departure. Twice, if it is your first glacier. The list is short because your shoulders will meet every item on it.
The house 38 L pack · €7 / day
Everything above can be rented from the bureau, fitted the evening you arrive. Bring your own boots if you love them; bring nothing cotton either way.
04 / Guides
IFMGA · since 2011 · Valsorde, b. Tromsø
Reads a lenticular cloud the way other people read a timetable. Leads the ski programme and most north faces.
IFMGA · since 2007 · Valsorde, b. Huaraz
Nineteen seasons across the Andes and the Alps. Has never once been late for a sunrise, and will not start now.
Four more guides join the roster in high season, and you will meet the one holding your rope on the phone, long before the trailhead.
05 / Safety
Competence is quiet. It looks like paperwork, drills in November, and a forecast read out loud every evening whether the news is good or not.
Every Cairn guide holds the full international mountain guide diploma, the highest qualification the profession has.
Recertified annually, every guide, no exceptions. Scenario days each November on the Séracs glacier.
We publish our own avalanche and weather read for clients every evening at 18:00, in writing, with our reasoning.
Two-way satellite messengers travel with each rope team, checked and charged at the evening kit review.
Full rescue and repatriation insurance is required on every trip; we will help you arrange it, and we read the fine print so you do not have to. Turn-around decisions are final and non-refundable; summits are weather permitting, descents are not.
06 / Enquire
Dates, the trip you have in mind, and an honest note on your experience. Honest is the useful kind.
A thirty-minute call, not with an office but with the guide who will hold your rope. We match objectives to conditions.
A 30% deposit reserves the rope. The balance is due six weeks out, after the final conditions review.
Write with your dates and ambitions,
we answer within two working days.