Alps mountaineering?

“This July I’ll be in the lake region of Italy for a wedding but figured while I’m there I should get some more mountaineering experience. If any of you have been to that area / or researched it would you mind pointing me in the right direction for further research?

I’m looking for a mountain/route tougher than the DC route on Rainier, but not exactly the Matterhorn either. Right now I'm looking at Mont Blanc, but I'm not sure if it's more rigorous than Rainier

Thanks for then input.”

“Good to see you here Ice Tea. Naked Ape spent a lot of time in Italy. Hopefully he'll have some ideas.”

“IMG says Mt. Blanc is tougher than Rainier, and it seems that way from the reports & pictures I've seen. IMG's classic Alps climbs (just for ideas - not selling anything):
http://www.mountainguides.com/alps-itin.shtml”

“try here.”

“BOL!”

“I am offering an alpine level hut-to-hut hike next August in Switzerland. So far we are four who signed up and two "maybe's". Including three TTers.”

“It's not mountaineering though, but some parts are strenous hiking.”

“Toejam, that is exactly one of the trips I was looking at. I like it, but they're a little pricey, about 1K higher than competitors. That said, I used IMG on Rainier and I was very happy.

Euro Hike, thanks, but I'm looking to gain skills that will get me closer to Denali, so a tough hike probably wouldn't do that.”

“:-) No, we definetly go hiking, not mountaineering. We'll have a glacier crossing, but that'll be piece of cake. We will stay at huts which are access points to peaks that involve serious mountaneering. Like the Eiger, which we may skirt on day five, but Eiger is in a different league anyway.”

“In case you are interested to go with a local mountaineering school, Grindelwald Sports overs guided tours of all levels, including Eiger, Mönch, Jungfrau, Mont Blance and others.

http://www.grindelwaldsports.ch/homepage.html”