Driving up the wild Valsavaranche valley from Aosta we parked in the half empty car park at Pont, where the cross country skiing season had just ended, shouldered our heavy packs with attached skis and plodded our way slowly up to the Vittorio Emmanuele hut along the twisty summer path. We soon encountered snow too rotten to tread upon and so we reluctantly put on our skis with climbing skins and labored up the final slopes to a warm and welcoming mountain hut. The next morning dawned clear enough for the climb so we set out with ski touring gear and followed a good ski skinning track upward and onward on a firm snowpack towards the summit of Gran Paradiso. The route we followed is a variation of the normal summer trail and took us up steep scree slopes past lofty peaks and towering ice cliffs and over a glacier to the final bergschrund and summit ridge. On the way we encountered some icy sections and were glad of our ski crampons. At the bergschrund we left our skis behind and donning proper crampons, walked up to an exposed rock ridge which was the key to the summit. Luckily it was possible to belay here thanks to some well placed bolts, even though the climbing was not at all difficult. At last after a 5 hour climb we hugged the Madonna on the summit of the Gran Paradiso. The clouds were coming in thick and thin and all that remained of us was a 2100m descent all the way back down to the car park.