The cabins turn as they climb. Over the four minutes of the first section and the seven of the second the floor makes one full rotation, the view slides past the passengers and nobody has to fight for a window: that is the idea that made the Skyway famous. It opened on 30 May 2015, after a building site begun in 2011, and cost 110 million euros, which at the time made it the most expensive cable car ever built. It runs from Entrèves, a hamlet of Courmayeur at 1,300 metres, up to Punta Helbronner at 3,466 metres, on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif.
What to see
The mid station is Pavillon du Mont Fréty, at 2,173 metres: a bar, a restaurant, a cinema room and Hangar 2173, set up in the old station premises, which retraces the cableways that climbed here before this one. Outside, a network of paths begins, along with the Saussurea alpine botanical garden, open in summer and the highest in Europe: over 900 species, most of them from Aosta Valley habitats. It is the place to stop on the way down, weather permitting.
At the top, on Punta Helbronner, the terrace looks out to the Dent du Géant, the Grandes Jorasses, the Grand Combin, Monte Rosa and Gran Paradiso. Inside the station a permanent display gathers crystals from the massif, quartz, garnets and samples of native gold from Brusson, and a bookshop that at this altitude is the highest in Europe. A horizontal tunnel and a lift shaft lead to the Torino Hut and also anchor the station into the rock: no explosives were used to cut them, only hundreds of holes drilled side by side. Of the second section you see just two pylons, one of them 100 metres tall.
Visiting
The base station is at Pontal d'Entrèves, by the mouth of the Mont Blanc tunnel and a few minutes from the motorway exit; the car park is large but fills early on August weekends. The full ascent takes a quarter of an hour; fares and timetables change with the season and the lift closes for long maintenance periods, so check before setting out and book a time slot. The top is more than two thousand metres above the valley floor: even in July the temperature hovers around freezing and the wind cuts, so bring a jacket, sunglasses and a slow pace. In the summer months you can carry on from Punta Helbronner by the glacier gondola to the Aiguille du Midi and come down to Chamonix.
Our editors' tip
We take the first ride of the day and buy a return with a stop at the Pavillon. At these altitudes cloud builds almost every afternoon: on the first cabin Mont Blanc is often clear with the valley still under haze, while by mid-afternoon you risk paying for a wall of white. Coming back, we get off at the Pavillon and stay an hour: the botanical garden, a plate on the terrace and the quiet of the pastures are worth as much as the summit, and the body is glad of the gradual descent.
