Dôme du Goûter, Mountain peak in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France
The Dôme du Goûter is a rounded, snow-covered summit dome of about 4,304 m in the Mont Blanc massif, a shoulder of Mont Blanc whose top lies two kilometres to the south-east. Below the dome, snowfields alternate with bands of dark grey rock, and a crevassed glacier descends toward the left. Ascents of Mont Blanc via the Bosses route cross the dome.
On 30 July 1921, François Durafour landed an aircraft on the Dôme du Goûter and took off again without mishap, the first such flight there. The summit later became a waypoint on the Bosses route to Mont Blanc. In 2013 a new Goûter Refuge opened below it, a wood-and-steel building of roughly egg shape with supports drilled into the rock, replacing an older metal shed that sat on the ice.
The name comes from the hour when, seen from Chamonix, the sun passes over the summit, after 4 p.m., the time of the goûter (afternoon tea). Another hypothesis reads Goûter as a reinterpretation of the Celtic Gutuater, "father of invocations", a major religious function in Gaulish culture.
This summit is only for experienced mountaineers, as the entire approach crosses glaciated terrain and requires crampons, an ice axe, and rope. Good acclimatization matters greatly here, since the altitude makes itself felt well before reaching the top.
The Grand Couloir, a steep gully crossed on the way up, is known for frequent rockfall and is considered the most dangerous section of the whole route. Most climbers cross it very early in the morning, when frost still holds the loose rock in place.
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