Climbing Gran Paradiso

Gran Paradiso was my first climb in Italy! My friend had picked the mountain as a warm-up for some of the bigger peaks we hoped to climb, and to be honest I hadn’t researched it very much beforehand. I figured Gran Paradiso would mostly be a walk-up, but it turned out to be more of a legitimate climb than I expected.

There are two main routes up Gran Paradiso, each with its own mountain hut. We chose the Chabod route, which is the less traveled of the two. The climb starts around 6,100 feet (1,850 meters) in a pine forest and immediately begins gaining elevation along a steep trail. Even though we were there in the middle of the week, there were still plenty of hikers and climbers heading into the mountains.

Within about an hour we had climbed out of the forest and entered the grassy alpine zone. The trees disappeared behind us and the surrounding mountains finally opened into view. We kept a fast pace and climbed almost 3,000 feet (900 meters) to the lodge in about two hours.

My friend above is someone I’ve now climbed with on three continents. Gran Paradiso was supposed to be an acclimatization climb for us, so reaching the lodge was only the first part of the adventure.

Here I am farther along the approach, with Gran Paradiso visible in the upper right. From this point the mountain still didn’t look particularly intimidating, although that impression would change once we got closer.

I regretfully didn’t take any photos of the lodge, but it was a surprisingly comfortable place to stay. The rooms, showers, and bathrooms were all pretty nice, while the food was excellent and reasonably priced considering we were staying in a mountain hut. Best of all were the views of Gran Paradiso itself. While resting at the lodge and looking toward the mountain, it became obvious to me that reaching the summit was probably going to involve a little more than simple hiking.

Breakfast at the lodge was served at 4:00 in the morning, so we woke up in complete darkness, got some calories in us, and started toward the summit. Initially the trail was similar to what we had hiked the day before, but within about fifteen minutes it became much steeper and rockier. We crossed a short snow slope before returning to rocky terrain, where there was a little route finding to do in the darkness.

The cold early morning temperatures had frozen some of the runoff into ice, making parts of the trail surprisingly slippery. Just below 10,000 feet (3,000 meters), dawn finally began breaking and we stopped to put on our crampons.

Watching the surrounding Alps slowly appear with the morning light was one of the highlights of the climb. Interestingly, the closer we got to Gran Paradiso itself, the less intimidating the mountain looked. Most of the upper mountain is essentially a snow climb, although there is one major obstacle that needs to be taken seriously: the crevasse field.

As the sun rose and visibility improved, we could finally see the broken glacier terrain at the base of the mountain. The crevasse field is relatively short, but there were a couple of nasty openings that I definitely wouldn’t want to fall into. The route gets enough traffic that there was an obvious path through most of it, and many of the larger crevasses were already completely open and easy to see.

It’s difficult to show the scale in a photograph, but the crevasse above looked to be almost 30 feet (10 meters) deep. Seeing something like this up close was a good reminder that even though Gran Paradiso isn’t an extremely technical mountain, you’re still traveling across a glacier where mistakes can have serious consequences.

After crossing the crevasse field, we climbed a snow slope toward a saddle where the Chabod route meets the normal route. The snow had melted and refrozen overnight, making the surface almost feel like rock beneath our crampons. Otherwise this section was straightforward and the grade wasn’t particularly steep. I think I was actually the only person carrying an ice axe, while most of the other climbers were simply using trekking poles.

From the saddle there wasn’t much distance left to the top. Another snow climb brought us to the rocky summit block, which I had imagined would be a long exposed ridge. In reality it was surprisingly short and only took a few minutes to climb. I later read descriptions calling it a difficult exposed scramble, but I honestly didn’t think there was much to it.

This photo was taken while I was on the summit block. The rocky area visible ahead isn’t actually the summit and sits just a little lower, but from up here the views across the Alps were already incredible.

The entire reason we were acclimatizing was to eventually climb the Matterhorn, so I was pretty excited when I unexpectedly realized I could see it from Gran Paradiso. Known as Cervino in Italy, the Matterhorn had been on my list for a long time. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to attempt it during this trip, which gives me a pretty good reason to return.

It took us less than five hours to reach the summit of Gran Paradiso, which stands at 13,323 feet (4,061 meters). My friend had come from sea level only two days earlier and had to be more cautious with his ascent, otherwise we probably could have reached the summit in less than four hours.

Despite being a relatively short climb, Gran Paradiso ended up being a wonderful surprise. There was a nice mixture of hiking, snow, glacier travel, and scrambling, while the views from the summit were easily the biggest reward. The surrounding Alps seemed to stretch endlessly in every direction, and even Gran Paradiso’s own rocky summit towers were impressive.

Gran Paradiso was supposed to be a warm-up climb, but it ended up being a memorable mountain on its own and a great introduction to climbing in the Italian Alps. We’ve already talked about returning for some of the bigger peaks in the region, including Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, and Mont Blanc. After getting my first taste of climbing here, I’m definitely not finished with the Alps.