Mont Blanc

The highest point in Western Europe, 4,808 metres on the border between France and Italy, in the heart of the Alps. The name is the mountain — Mont Blanc, the white one. From Chamonix in the French valley, the summit dominates every view. The mountain is the foundational object of European mountaineering. Modern climbing begins here.

The first ascent, in 1786, by Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard, is the moment alpinism was invented. The route they took was speculative. There was no precedent for what they were doing. They returned alive and the world reorganized itself around the possibility. The next century saw every major peak in the Alps climbed, every valley mapped, every face attempted. The Matterhorn, the Eiger, the Grandes Jorasses — all of them descend from what Balmat and Paccard proved on Mont Blanc.

Today the standard route from the Goûter Hut sees thousands of climbers each summer. The mountain is not technical by modern standards but it is not trivial either. The Goûter Couloir, which the route crosses, is the most dangerous section — a rockfall corridor that has killed more climbers than the summit ridge. Above the Goûter, the climb becomes a glaciated walk. The summit itself is a broad snow dome with no rock. In good weather, the view extends from the Mediterranean to the Black Forest.

What Mont Blanc offers the modern climber is lineage. Every step is a step taken before, by figures who shaped a discipline. The mountain is not the test it was in 1786. But it remains the original.