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| Jacques Balmat & Michel-Gabriel Paccard |
Today, The Grandma is still enjoying the visit of Joseph de Ca'th Lon, one of her closest friends. They have been talking about climbing and mountains and, especially, about Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, that was climbed for the first time by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard on a day like today in 1786.
Mont Blanc in French, Monte Bianco in Italian is the second-highest mountain in Europe after Mount Elbrus. It is the highest mountain in the Alps, rising 4,808 m above sea level. It is the eleventh-most prominent peak in the world.
The mountain stands in a range called the Graian Alps, between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Savoie and Haute-Savoie, France.
The location of the summit is on the watershed line between the valleys of Ferret and Veny in Italy and the valleys of Montjoie, and Arve in France, on the border between the two countries.
The Mont Blanc massif is popular for outdoor activities like hiking, climbing, trail running and winter sports like skiing, and snowboarding. The most popular route is the Goûter Route, which typically takes two days.
The three towns and
their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley,
Italy; and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie,
France. The latter town was the site of the first Winter Olympics.
A
cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to
Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. The 11.6 km Mont Blanc Tunnel,
constructed between 1957 and 1965, runs beneath the mountain and is a
major trans-Alpine transport route.
More information: French Moments
Since 1760 Swiss naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure began to go to Chamonix to observe Mont Blanc. He tried with the Courmayeur mountain guide Jean-Laurent Jordaney, native of Pré-Saint-Didier, who accompanied De Saussure since 1774 on the Miage Glacier and on mont Crammont.
The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc, at the time neither within Italy nor France, was on 8 August 1786 by Jacques Balmat and the doctor Michel Paccard.
This climb, initiated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who gave a reward for the
successful ascent, traditionally marks the start of modern
mountaineering.
The first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis in
1808.
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| Joseph de Ca'th Lon climbs Mont Blanc |
Nowadays the summit is ascended by an average of 20,000 mountaineer-tourists each year. It could be considered a technically easy, yet arduous, ascent for someone who is well-trained and acclimatized to the altitude.
From l'Aiguille du Midi, where the cable car stops, Mont Blanc seems quite close, being 1,000 m higher. But while the peak seems deceptively close, La Voie des 3 Monts route, known to be more technical and challenging than other more commonly used routes, requires much ascent over two other 4,000 m mountains, Mont Blanc du Tacul and Mont Maudit, before the final section of the climb is reached and the last 1,000 m push to the summit is undertaken.
Each year climbing deaths occur on Mont Blanc, and on the busiest weekends, normally around August, the local rescue service performs an average of 12 missions, mostly directed to aid people in trouble on one of the normal routes of the mountain.
Some routes require knowledge of high-altitude mountaineering, a guide or at least an experienced mountaineer, and all require proper equipment.
All routes are long and arduous, involving delicate passages and the hazard of rock-fall or avalanche.
Climbers may also suffer altitude sickness, occasionally life threatening, particularly if they do not acclimatize to it.
More information: Monte Bianco
Jacques Balmat, called Balmat du Mont Blanc (1762–1834) was a mountaineer, a Savoyard mountain guide, born in the Chamonix valley in Savoy, at this time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
A chamois hunter and collector of crystals, Balmat completed the first ascent of Mont Blanc with physician Michel-Gabriel Paccard on 8 August 1786.
For this feat, King Victor Amadeus III gave him the honorary title du Mont Blanc.
Balmat and Paccard's ascent of Mont Blanc was a major accomplishment in the early history of mountaineering. C. Douglas Milner wrote The ascent itself was magnificent; an amazing feat of endurance and sustained courage, carried through by these two men only, unroped and without ice axes, heavily burdened with scientific equipment and with long iron-pointed batons. The fortunate weather and a moon alone ensured their return alive.
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| Jacques Balmat |
Eric Shipton wrote Theirs was an astounding achievement of courage and determination, one of the greatest in the annals of mountaineering. It was accomplished by men who were not only on unexplored ground but on a route that all the guides believed to be impossible.
Gaston Rébuffat praised Balmat's climbing abilities, describing him as This man, robust, resolute, this crystal hunter who, as it turns out, possesses an extraordinary mountaineering sense, an unerring instinct for the crevasses and seracs of the glaciers...
After the successful ascent, Balmat collected the reward offered 25 years before by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure to the first man who could climb Mont Blanc. On 3 August 1787 he assisted de Saussure himself to reach the summit with a party of about 17 people.
During the Napoleonic Wars, Savoy fell under French control, and Citizen Jacques Balmat became a member of the council of the commune. He led an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Merino sheep into the Chamonix valley.
Balmat was criticized for his autobiographical account of the climb, later published in English as Jacques Balmat, or The First Ascent of Mont Blanc, since his account downplayed the role of Dr. Paccard.
Milner describes Balmat's story as cloudily romantic and largely fictional and quotes four analysts of mountaineering history who discovered errors in Balmat's version of events.
Shipton describes Balmat as boastful and conceited and that in character, he was both vain and mean. Success went to his head, and he soon began to amplify his part in the exploit.
Balmat died by falling off a cliff while prospecting for gold in the Sixt valley in 1834.
More information: The Atlantic
Michel Gabriel Paccard (1757–1827) was a Savoyard doctor and alpinist, citizen of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
Born in Chamonix, he studied medicine in Turin. Due to his passion for botany and minerals, he met Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who initiated the race to be the first to ascend Mont Blanc.
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| Michel Gabriel Paccard |
Gaston Rébuffat wrote Like Saussure a devotee of the natural sciences, he has a dream: to
carry a barometer to the summit and take a reading there. An excellent
mountaineer, he has already made several attempts.
Paccard had a first, unsuccessful, attempt in 1783 with Marc Theodore Bourrit.
In 1784, he made several attempts with Jacques Balmat before they made the first ascent of Mont Blanc together on 8 August 1786.
Balmat and Paccard's ascent of Mont Blanc was a major accomplishment in the early history of mountaineering.
C. Douglas Milner wrote The ascent itself was magnificent; an amazing feat of endurance and sustained courage, carried through by these two men only, unroped and without ice axes, heavily burdened with scientific equipment and with long iron-pointed batons. The fortunate weather and a moon alone ensured their return alive.
Eric Shipton wrote Theirs was an astounding achievement of courage and determination, one of the greatest in the annals of mountaineering. It was accomplished by men who were not only on unexplored ground but on a route that all the guides believed to be impossible.
Paccard later married Jacques Balmat's sister, and became a justice of the peace.
There is a statue of him in Chamonix.
More information: Chamonix Guides
When I was born, my parents were huge into skiing.
I grew up on Mont Blanc, skiing on that hill.
I was really a ski baby.
Loved it; I still love it.
Patrick Chan
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