Altitude : 4 808 m
It is impossible to evoke Haute-Savoie without mentioning the highest peak of the Alps !
Chamonix, world capital of mountaineering, and the Mont-Blanc massif illustrate the international tourist vocation of Haute-Savoie. From the eighteenth century, the English are the first to reside in Chamonix, especially to observe the glaciers in flood at that time, these are the famous "trips to the glaciers".
Mont Blanc was climbed for the first time by Dr. Paccard and the Balmat guide in 1786.
Today, Mont-Blanc and the great peaks that surround it remain legendary and attract mountaineers from all walks of life.
The Mont-Blanc tunnel, it is between Chamonix and Courmayeur and is 11.6 km long.
THE HISTORY OF MONT-BLANC
August 8, 1786 The doctor Gabriel-Michel Paccard, 29, and the Savoyard hunter Jacques Balmat, 24, are the first to reach the summit of Mont Blanc. They thus take up the challenge of Horace Benedict de Saussure who had promised a strong reward to the first who would reach the highest peak in Europe.
This ascent marks the beginning of mountaineering.
The two men have today their statues on the place of Chamonix.
1787 First ascent with "client".
June 2, 1910 The Aiguille du Midi-Mont Blanc Aerial Funicular Company begins the construction of the "Glacier Funicular". The works will be interrupted during the two world wars, to be finally abandoned in 1950 for the benefit of the current funicular which borrows a different route.
1924 At the foot of Mont Blanc, Chamonix hosts the first Olympic Winter Games. Sixteen countries are represented and nearly 300 athletes participate in this new competition.
1932 First radio broadcast from the summit by the young Roger Frison Roche who will become the great mountaineer that we know.
1954 The first section of the cable car is inaugurated, it reaches the altitude of 2 317 meters. For the second section, 30 guides of Aosta and Chamonix will take two days to hoist a cable of 1700 m long and more than one ton at the top of the Aiguille du Midi, at 3 842 meters.
1955 The Aiguille du Midi cable car comes into service and first landing at the top of a helicopter (a Bell 47 G) by pilot Jean Moine.
June 23, 1960 The aviator Henri Giraud lands his plane at the top of Mont Blanc, on a track of just 30 meters long.
July 16, 1965 General de Gaulle and Italian President Giuseppe Saragat inaugurate the Mont Blanc tunnel. 11.6 kilometers long, it connects France to Italy.
January 24, 1966 An Air India Boeing 707 on the Bombay-New York route crashed into the Mont-Blanc massif. There are no survivors among the 117 passengers. Sixteen years ago, another Air India plane had crashed into the same spot, killing 48 people.
1973 First lift-off by Rudy Kishazy.
1982 First paragliding takeoff by Roger Fillon.
1986 Tony Bernos is the first to parachute at the summit. It is located in the first descent in snowboarding ....
DID YOU KNOW ?
The altitude of Mont Blanc can vary from year to year.
Thus, between 2001 and 2003, it lost two meters of altitude following the melting of a portion of the huge layer of ice covering the rocky summit.
In 1863, the altitude was estimated at 4807m.
In 2001, measurements made by the National Institute of Geography (IGN) using a GPS system measured the altitude at 4810.4 m.
Two years later, the summit was 4,808.45 meters above sea level, almost two meters lower.
A displacement of the summit of 70 cm to the northwest would also have been recently noted. The latter is, in turn, due to the movements of the tectonic plates.
Official website of Mont Blanc
https://www.chamonix.com/mont-blanc-et-panorama,47,fr.html