About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Mont Blanc

Encyclopedia : M : MO : MON : Mont Blanc

 

Mont Blanc (French for white mountain) or Monte Bianco (Italian, same meaning) also known as "La Dame Blanche" (French, the white lady), in the Alps, is the highest mountain in Western Europe. Its height is about 4,808 m (15,774 feet), but varies from year to year by a few metres, depending on snowfall and climate conditions. The latest measure of its height (in December 2005) showed that the summit was 4 808.75 m high. More about the height of Mont Blanc is given below.

Mont Blanc is the 5th highest mountain in Europe, being beaten only by four summits in the Caucasus (Elbrus at 5,642 m, Dykh Tau at 5,203 m, the Chkhara at 5,058 m and the Kazbek at 5,047 m).

The mountain lies between the regions of Haute-Savoie, France and Aosta Valley, Italy. The location of the summit itself is a subject of controversy between the two countries, and each tends to place it within its own boundaries on maps. In a convention between France and Kingdom of Sardinia, in Turin (1861), the border [link] was fixed on the highest point of Mont Blanc and this was the last official definition of this border, but often the French maps do not agree about this solution.

The two most famous towns near Mont Blanc are Chamonix, in Haute-Savoie, France (site of the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924) and Courmayeur, in the Aosta Valley in Italy.

Begun in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 km (7.25 mile) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two cities and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.

The Mont Blanc massif is very popular for mountaineering, hiking, and skiing.

Contents

The ascent

The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was on August 8 1786 by Jacques Balmat and the doctor Michel Paccard. This climb, initiated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who gave a reward for the succesful ascent, traditionally marks the start of modern mountaineering. The first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis in 1808. United States president to-be Theodore Roosevelt also led an expedition, reaching the summit while on his honeymoon in 1886.

Now the summit is ascended by an average 20,000 mountaineer-tourists each year and could be considered an easy, yet long, ascent for someone who is well trained and used to the altitude. This impression is reinforced by the fact that from l'Aiguille du Midi (where the cable car stops) Mont Blanc seems quite close, being merely 1000 m higher.

However every year the Mont Blanc massif takes many victims, and in peak weekends (normally around August) the local rescue service flies an average of 12 missions, mostly directed towards people in trouble on one of the normal routes of the mountain. These are courses that requires knowledge of high-altitude mountaineering, a guide (or at least a veteran mountaineer), and proper equipment. It is a long course that includes delicate passages and the hazard of rock slides. Also, at least one night at the refuge is required to get used to the altitude; less could lead to altitude sickness and possible death.

The different itineraries

There are a few 'classic' itineraries to climb Mont Blanc, which are oputlined below. However, please do not climb Mont Blanc solely with the advice found here, please do some further research, especially with maps, and go with an experienced mountaneer.

The altitude of Mont Blanc

The Glacier des Bossons can be seen slowly streaming down the flanks of Mont Blanc
Enlarge
The Glacier des Bossons can be seen slowly streaming down the flanks of Mont Blanc

For a long time the official height of Mont Blanc was 4,807 m. In 2002, the IGN and expert surveyors, with the aid of GPS, measured the height to be 4,810.40 m.

After the 2003 heatwave in Europe, a team of scientists re-measured the height on the 6th and 7th of September. The team was made up of the glaciologist Luc Moreau, two surveyors from the GPS Company, three people from the IGN, seven expert surveyors, four mountain guides from Chamonix and Saint-Gervais and four students from various institutes in France. This team noted that the height was 4,808.45 m, and the peak was 75 cm away from where it had been in 2002.

After these results were published, more than 500 points were measured, to assess the effects of climate change, and the fluctuations in the height of the mountain at different points. From then on the height of the mountain has been measured every two years.

The interpretation that the heatwave had caused this fluctuation is disputed, because the heatwave is known not to have significantly affected the glaciers above 4000 m. The height and position of the summit could have moved simply because of the violent winds that occur at the top of Mont Blanc.

At this altitude, the temperatures rarely rise above 0°C. During the summer of 2003, the temperature did rise to 2°C, and even 3°C, but this would not have been enough for the ice, which stayed at -15°C, to melt. The decrease in the height of the mountain could have been caused by the following three phenomena:

  1. The ice packing down.
  2. The hundreds of people who visited Mont Blanc during the summer 2003, encouraged by the good weather, will have trampled over the snow and packed it down. The nicer the weather, the more people climbed Mont Blanc. Indeed, five hang gliders who landed on the summit said that they had landed knee-deep in wet snow.
  3. It never actually snows on the summit, but the wind moves the snow there. In the summer of 2003 there was less wind, so less snow was deposited.
The altitude given is always that of the thick, permanent snow and ice that covers the Mont Blanc, which is between 15 and 23 m thick. The actual rock summit is at 4,792 m, and is 40 m away from the ice-covered summit.

When the summit was measured in 2005, the results of which were published on 16 December 2005, the height was found to be 4,808.75 m, 30 cm more than the previous recorded height.

The panorama

From the summit of Mont Blanc, four mountain ranges can be seen: the Jura, the Vosges, the Black Forest and the Massif Central.

History of Mont Blanc

Who owns the summit of Mont Blanc?

Since the French Revolution this question has spurred many debates. Before this date the whole mountain was in the Sardinian Kingdom.

The first treaty to define a border in the region is dated 15 May 1796. In this treaty the Sardinian king recognized the reattachement of Savoie to the French Republic, and in article 4 of this treaty it says: "The border between the Sardinian kingdom and the departements of the French Republic will be established on a line determined by the most advanced points on the Piémont side, of the summits, peaks of mountains and other locations subsequently mentioned, as well as the intermediary peaks, knowing: starting from the point where the borders of Faucigny, the Duchy of Aoust and the Valais, to the extremity of the glaciers or the Monts-Maudits: first the peaks or plateaus of the Alps, to the rising edge of the Col-Mayor". Does this talk about the Col Major, which can be found on an IGN map, where the rising edge is on the east, and so the summit belongs to the French Republic?

This act is even more confusing, because it states that the border should be visible from the town centres of Chamonix and Courmayeur. The summit is not visible from Courmayeur, because part of the mountain lower down obscures it. Already inaccurate at the time, this treaty is no longer valid, because it was replaced by a later legal act.

This act was signed in Turin on 24 March, 1860 by Napoleon III and Victor-Emmanuel II of Savoy, and deals with the annexation of Savoie. A demarcation agreement, signed on 7 March, 1861, defines the "new border", but does not mention the Mont Blanc.

One of the prints from the Sarde Atlas, made in 1856 and published in 1869 (after the treaties above were ratified), positions the border exactly on the summital edge of the mountain (and measures it to be 4,804 m high.

The convention of 7 March 1861 recognizes this, through an attached map, but takes into consideration the limits of the massif, and draws the border on the icecap of the Mont Blanc, and therefore makes it both French and Italian. However, this cartographic document is vague in places, particularly at bodies of water and natural borders. For this reason, France does not recognize the legal validity of this document. The 1864 military map defined the border which the French regard as correct nowadays.

Despite the fact that the Franco-Italian border was redefined in both 1947 and 1963, the commission, made up of both Italians and French, tactfully ignored the Mont Blanc issue. Indeed, this is not a subject for debate between the two countries. The Italian interpretation is that the border runs along the partition of the waters.

Both the councils of Chamonix and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains argued that the peak is in their territory. One argues because of its geographical proximity, and the other because of the fact that the original ascent starts from within their commune. This argument raged until a 1944 prefectorial act gave the French slope to Chamonix and the French part of the Italian slope to Saint-Gervais-les-Bains. This legal act seems to imply that the French possess the summit.

The first ascent

The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was on August 8 1786 by Jacques Balmat and the doctor Michel Paccard. This climb, initiated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who gave a reward for the succesful ascent, traditionally marks the start of modern mountaineering, as we know it today.

The first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis on 14 July 1808. The second feminine ascent was done by Henriette d’Angeville on 4 September 1838. The first winter ascent was done by Isabella Stratton in January 1876. Marguette Bouvier was the first person to ski down the mountain, in 1929.

The Vallot cabin

The first real scientific investigations on the summit were conducted by the botanist at metereologist Joseph Vallot at the end of the 19th century. He wanted to stay near the top of the summit, so he had to build his own permanent cabin.

The Janssen Observatory

In 1891, Pierre Janssen, a scientific academic, envisaged the construction of an observatory at the summit of Mont Blanc, to observe space. Gustave Eiffel agreed to take on this project provided he could find strong foundations. The Swiss surveyor Imfeld dug down 15 m, but found nothing solid, so Eiffel gave up.

The observatory is nonetheless built in 1893, and levers support the observatory, by compromising the movement of the ice. This worked to some extent until 1906, when the building starts leaning heavily. The movement of the levers manages to correct this, but three years later (two years after Jannsen’s death) a crevasse starts opening up underneath the observatory, and so it is abandoned. Eventually the building fell into the ice, and only the tower could be saved in extremis.

Exploits

Mont Blanc in cultural works

Cinema and television

In literature

Protection of Mont Blanc

The Mont Blanc massif is being put forward as a potential World Heritage Site because of its uniqueness and its cultural importance, considered the birthplace and symbol of modern mountaineering. However not everyone shares this goal and it would require the three governments of Italy, France and Switzerland to make a request to UNESCO for it to be listed.

Mont Blanc is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world, and for this reason, it is threatened. Pro-Mont Blanc (an international collective of associations for the protection of Mont Blanc) published in 2002 the book Le versant noir du mont Blanc (The black hillside of Mont Blanc), which exposes current and future problems in conserving the site.

See also

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
[Special]

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: