Horace Benedict de Saussure may not have been the first man to conquer Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest peak. That accolade fell to Jacques Balmat in 1786. But de Saussure surely did it in greater style. He assembled a prodigious team of guides and porters, took a bed and mattress with him, and made sure he had plenty of wine and fine cuisine. When rain made climbing impossible he passed the time learning passages of The Iliad by heart.
Of course, in those days the high snowy mountains were to budding Alpinists what the Moon was to the Apollo astronauts: a whole new world. No one had any idea what to expect up there, but popular legend had it that dragons roamed above the snowline, that there were caves full of fairy gold guarded by a black goat, and so on, so it was important to carry a blunderbuss along with your ropes and ice axe and keep an open mind. Safe to say, de Saussure encountered none of this and had to contend more with altitude sickness, which the wine wouldn’t have helped, and some bad luck with the weather. On reaching the summit of the mighty mountain on the morning of 3 August 1787, he took out his telescope and picked out his wife waving to him from the town of Chamonix 12,000 feet below.
Sadly you can’t see the summit from the campsite at Le Grand Champ. It looks out from the slopes of the Mont Blanc massif, across the other side of the Chamonix Valley, to the crags and peaks opposite. But you can sense its presence looming over you (and often feel the effects of the weather systems it generates) even as you settle down into one of the campsite’s ample pitches.They’re arranged discreetly between the hedges and trees that divide the site up into private parcels, so it can come as a surprise to discover that the place has 100 pitches. Where have they put them all? Here, there, and everywhere is the answer.
However, all that greenery can mean that the majestic scenery around you is rather hidden from view, which is a shame. So when you arrive, it’s worth asking the genial owner, Françoise Dudas, for a room with a view, and hope that you can soak in the expansive vistas as well as breathing in the crystal Alpine air. Even in summer the peaks are covered in snow and you can sit and marvel at the great glaciers that lie like cracked tongues of ice in the valleys. Catch them soon, though, because they’re receding at an alarming rate.
The Chamonix Valley is a jam pot to the waspy swarms of tourists who’ve been clustering here ever since the late 18th century. The town of Chamonix, a favourite of the Romantics, who were in turns fascinated and horrified by the towering rocks, was a hangout of Turner and Ruskin and it also played host to the 1924 Winter Olympics. It’s still a great ski resort today, though not for the faint-hearted, but is probably busier now in summer than it is in winter. It’s estimated that 40,000 people a day pass through the valley in the height of summer. The majority of them are here for the walking, climbing, mountain-biking, paragliding, and rafting.
Yes, OK, some people come to play golf, but they’re very much in the minority and tend to keep themselves to themselves. Nowadays you can hire a guide to get you to the top of Mont Blanc, if you’re reasonably fit and up for the challenge, though be warned that the mountain can still bear its teeth and sadly climbers do perish on its slopes. Better, perhaps, to order a coffee and sit in the town square looking up… And then there are those who come to stand in the square looking up at Mont Blanc, waving in the hope that someone on the summit remembered to take their telescope.
