Mountaineering at 150: From

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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2015 Mountaineering at 150: From People learn climbing on the ‘Rocher des Gaillands’ yesterday in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, French Alps, during the 150th anniversary of the golden age of mountaineering. The Chamonix Valley pays tribute to both guides and alpinists of the Golden Age of mountaineering from June to October 2015, marking the 150th anniversary of 1865, a landmark year during which 65 first ascents across the Alps and seven others in the Mont-Blanc Massif were undertaken. — AFP photos literary critic, a judge and an explorer were among a they were the first get there via the arduous Brenva route tiny group of wealthy Britons who conquered the on the Italian side. Today, Mont Blanc attracts climbers by AAlps’ highest peaks 150 years ago, never expecting the tens of thousands each year though only a small num- their “gentlemen’s” hobby would morph into a worldwide ber ever see the summit. sport. Mountaineering today attracts people from all walks of life, tackling summits well beyond Europe’s Alpine range ‘Golden Age’ where it all began in 1865.”Everything changed in just two The year 1865 “was the beginning of mountaineering as days,” said Claude Marin, a mountain guide organizing the sport we still practice today,” said Marin. Over the pre- 150th anniversary celebrations in Chamonix, one of vious decade, what had largely been a scientific venture France’s oldest ski and climbing resorts in the shadow of was increasingly seen as a challenge for clubs. “Science was Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps. On July 14 that no longer the sole motivation,” said Gilles Modica in his year, explorer, illustrator and author Edward Whymper book, “1865 and the Golden Age of Mountaineering”. made history when he reached the daunting 4,478-metre Morin has documented 81 first-ever ascents that year in (14,692-feet) summit of the Matterhorn on the Italian-Swiss the Alps and the Pyrenees, the range between France and border. Spain, with Britons clearly at the forefront. On the way down, three other Britons and a guide, a Of the 63 mountaineers who conquered 65 Alpine sum- legendary Chamonix alpinist named Michel Croz, slipped mits in 1865, 34 were British, followed by 13 Austrians, nine and fell to their deaths. The accident launched a fierce Swiss, six Italians and one Frenchman. A total 53 local debate in Britain over whether the practice should be guides assisted these teams, according to official banned. But the very next day, another British group made Chamonix records. Eight years earlier, an elite group of 28 A picture shows signs representing past mountain guides it to the even higher top of Mont Blanc, which straddles British men had formed the world’s first mountaineering in front of the house of mountain guides in Chamonix- France and Italy. While not the first to conquer the 4,810- club, the Alpine Club in London. It promoted climbing as Mont-Blanc, French Alps. metre (15,780-feet) peak-that feat was achieved in 1786 — both a sport and a cultural endeavor, encouraging mem-.

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Guide Hiver 2020-2021
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70fcvSs )UNTAINEERING Presented to the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY by the ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY 1980 v Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Toronto http://www.archive.org/details/mountaineeringveOObens 1 £1. =3 ^ '3 Kg V- * g-a 1 O o « IV* ^ MOUNTAINEERING VENTURES BY CLAUDE E. BENSON Ltd. LONDON : T. C. & E. C. JACK, 35 & 36 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. AND EDINBURGH PREFATORY NOTE This book of Mountaineering Ventures is written primarily not for the man of the peaks, but for the man of the level pavement. Certain technicalities and commonplaces of the sport have therefore been explained not once, but once and again as they occur in the various chapters. The intent is that any reader who may elect to cull the chapters as he lists may not find himself unpleasantly confronted with unfamiliar phraseology whereof there is no elucidation save through the exasperating medium of a glossary or a cross-reference. It must be noted that the percentage of fatal accidents recorded in the following pages far exceeds the actual average in proportion to ascents made, which indeed can only be reckoned in many places of decimals. The explanation is that this volume treats not of regular routes, tariffed and catalogued, but of Ventures—an entirely different matter. Were it within his powers, the compiler would wish ade- quately to express his thanks to the many kind friends who have assisted him with loans of books, photographs, good advice, and, more than all, by encouraging countenance. Failing this, he must resort to the miserably insufficient re- source of cataloguing their names alphabetically.
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