Monstrous Coquette

With these words, Guy de Maupassant described Dent Blanche (4357m) as "the monstrous coquette"... It's true, there's something both monstrous and elegant about this Valais pyramid.

It's true that there's something both monstrous and elegant about this Valais pyramid. summit The mythical Dent Blanche rises to the heavens in the depths of the Val d'Hérens, and is the envy of its Zermatt neighbor, the Matterhorn, king of the 4000m.

Yet the monstrous coquette has nothing to be ashamed of. To pay tribute to her, I decided to paint a Dantesque portrait. We're on the Val d'Hérens side, on an early autumn afternoon. Opposite, between light and shadow, the slender Ferpècle ridge rises diagonally to summit. On the right, the normal route of the South Ridge tears the sky apart. It is guarded in its middle by the Grand Gendarme (4097m). This mountain emerges powerfully from the bowels of the Valais; it's one of those great mountaineering classics that every lover of the world above dreams of reaching.

In creating this portrait, I wanted, in the manner of a painter preparing the background for his subject, to set the other summits surrounding the dazzling Dent Blanche in the background: to the left of the North ridge, the imposing Obergabelhorn takes shape, recognizable by its Arbengrat ; and, to the right, the Monte Rosa massif balances the composition, followed by the Liskamm and Breithorn. The whole is linked by the play of clouds caressing these celestial peaks.

But this monstrous coquette reveals its weaknesses here. Despite its fierce character and inhospitable curves, the beauty cannot hide its deep wounds: the glaciers that make up its flanks are ravaged by the effects of global warming; and, from the depths of the crevasses, unusually wide in 2022, we hear the cries of thousand-year-old stones.

This is my Dent Blanche, sublime and tragic, between light and darkness.