Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 10
NEW ORDER
The first ascent of Mont Blanc, highest mountain in the Alps, took place in August
1786. It was an amazing achievement by just two men, Jacques Balmat and Dr
Michel-Gabriel Paccard. Larger, better-equipped parties had previously failed.
Both men were from the Chamonix valley, born in the shadow of the mountain, so
they knew the environment and were drawn to the heights, albeit for different
reasons. Their climb was burdened by the amount of scientific equipment they car-
ried and by the necessities for survival: food, firewood and blankets. They carried
long staves to slam into the snow and haul themselves up. It was a slow and ex-
hausting process, long before the invention of ice axes or modern crampons. Bal-
mat's fellow 'guides', who learned their mountain-craft hunting chamois and/or
exploring for crystals, deemed his proposed route impossible. So it's not surprising
they didn't reach the summit until early evening.
After the ascent, Balmat collected a large reward offered to the first to reach the
summit by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure twenty-five years earlier. De Saussure
was an accomplished scientist. Originally drawn to the mountains as a botanist, he
began to appreciate the complexities of geology as seen in the strata of rocks and
the slow process of erosion by ice and water. He became convinced that mountains
held the secret of the earth's creation and that the world was much older than
people had been led to believe.
Balmat was also given the honorary title of 'Le Mont Blanc' by King Victor
Amadeus III of Savoy. He became a notable guide and next year took de Saussure
himself to the summit, making the third ascent. But Balmat, in the words of Eric
Shipton, later became 'boastful and conceited'. His fame went to his head. Never-
theless, he lived a full and successful life until falling while hunting crystals at the
age of seventy-two. Dr Paccard settled down, married a local girl and continued his
medical practice, later becoming a justice of the peace. He also had a successful life
and died naturally at the age of seventy-one.
Over the two and a quarter centuries since the ascent of Mont Blanc, climbing
mountains has became not only a popular pastime in the Alps, it has spread world-
wide. Members of the Alpine Club, founded in London in 1857, invented the word
'alpinism' to distinguish between those who climbed for the sake of it and those
who went to the mountains for spiritual pilgrimage or scientific study - or to gath-