Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
During summer months only, the Vallée Blanche Cable Car crosses "peak-to-peak" from Aiguille du Midi to Pointe Helbronner (3,462 m (11,358 ft)) at the Italian side of the Mont Blanc Massif. Pointe Helbronner is served by another cable car, Skyway Monte Bianco, to Entrèves, near the Italian town of Courmayeur in the Aosta Valley.
The cable car connects the peaks of Aiguille du Midi (3,778 m (12,395 ft) elevation) and Pointe Helbronner (3,466 m (11,371 ft) elevation), over a distance of some 5 km (3.1 mi). The two peaks have their own cable car system connecting them to their nearby villages.
The Aiguille du Midi Cable Car in Chamonix attracts 500,000 people each year and gives views over much of the massif, and up towards Mont Blanc itself. From Chamonix it rises to the summit of the Aiguille du Midi at 3,842 metres (12,605 ft), and holds the world record for the highest vertical ascent of any cable car (2,807 m (9,209 ft)). [5]
This, in turn, gives access to the French Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi, the cable car connecting Aiguille du Midi to the French village of Chamonix, Courmayeur's sister "city". The Skyway Monte Bianco station platform on Pointe Helbronner offers a remarkable view over the Aosta Valley and the Piedmont region. The French-Italian border ...
Chamonix is known as the "Gateway to the European Cascades." The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc has been held every August since 2003. There is a cable car up to the 3,842 m (12,605 ft) Aiguille du Midi. Constructed in 1955, it was then the highest cable car in the world [15] and remains the highest vertical ascent cable car in the world. [16]
The Téléphérique de l'Aiguille du Midi, opened in 1955, can carry 75 passengers in the first section and 65 passengers in the second section. It starts in Chamonix at the altitude of 1030 m to Plan de l'Aiguille at 2317 m for the first section. The second section arrives at the top of the Aiguille du Midi in a station at 3777 m high.
A corresponding, but much older cable car on the northern side of the Mont Blanc massif, which ascends from Chamonix to the Aiguille du Midi, attracts around 500,000 people per annum, with an annual turnover of 16 million euros.
It can be most easily accessed from the Italian side by the Skyway Monte Bianco cable car from La Palud in Courmayeur, with a change at the Pavilion du Mont Fréty. [1] It can also be reached from Chamonix via the Aiguille du Midi , either by cable car which crosses the massif, or by a long crossing of the Glacier du Gèant.