Revealing contrasts

From the depths of the Val d'Hérens, Dent Blanche (4358m) rises to the heavens, touched by the grace of the first autumn snows, which then cover the summits Alps with a fragile alabaster veil. This sublime Valais pyramid looks out over the distant expanses of ice: to its right, the Matterhorn (4478m), whose Lion's Ridge can be glimpsed, tears the sky apart; and to its left, the imposing Monte Rosa (4553m) emerges, haloed by a few smoking clouds and radiant with light. The whole forms a perfect triptych.

The freshly fallen white gold begins to reach the mid-mountains; the landscape is transformed, my gaze reborn. With each change of season, I rediscover this world from above. This first snow, deposited in thin, scattered layers, redraws the landscape in an impressionistic way, as if with small charcoal strokes. Before my eyes, nature becomes a work of art - and me? I'm lost here in the white immensity, seizing the moment. I add nothing, it's all there.

At the foot of the mountain, grey moraines, remnants of a bygone ice age, remind us of the sheer size of Alpine glaciers just a few centuries ago. Snow, mixed with rocks and glacier remnants, gives a new texture to this ensemble. Every nuance is present, expressed in a perfect verticality: from the grey of the moraines, we move higher up to the zebra stripes of the glaciers, with their terrible black crevasses, exaggeratedly open, and screaming out to humanity the horrors of the heatwave of 2022. Then the gaze turns to the sheer walls and sharp edges of Dent Blanche. summit is difficult to reach. The normal route, on the right-hand ridge, starts from the Rossier hut, while the Ferpècle ridge rises in front of us. Finally, climbers can set off from the makeshift bivouac at the col on the left, to begin climbing the perilous north ridge in the darkness.

This exceptional and rare photograph is an invitation to travel back in time.