Courmayeur · Italy
The Dent du Géant
The tooth of rock above this hut is the Dent du Géant, 4,013 metres, and for most of the nineteenth century it was the one summit in the range nobody could reach. In 1880 Albert Mummery, the finest rock climber of his generation, attempted it and left a note at his high point: absolutely inaccessible by fair means. Two years later four Sella brothers returned with the Maquignaz guides from Valtournenche, and with iron. It was not how mountaineering was practised, and they were perfectly aware of it. They drove stanchions into the slab, fixed ropes to them and hauled themselves up. On 28 July 1882 they stood upon the lower of its two summits. The higher, four metres above, fell three weeks later to an Englishman with two Chamonix guides. Mummery had been right about fair means. It proved not to matter.
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What did he mean by fair means?
Climbing with hands, feet and rope alone, with nothing hammered into the rock to make it easier. Mummery thought iron was cheating. The argument he started about what counts as a real ascent has never entirely closed.
Are the ropes still there?
Not the originals. The slab still carries fixed ropes, replaced and maintained, and most people who climb the Dent use them. The line goes exactly where the Maquignaz put it in 1882.
Who were the Maquignaz?
A family of guides from Valtournenche, under the Matterhorn, where Jean-Joseph had already made his name forcing the Italian ridge. Valtournenche and Courmayeur were the two guiding valleys of the Italian side, and they knew each other well.
Where it is
More stories in Courmayeur
- The Aiguille Blanche
- The Aiguille Noire
- Duke of the Abruzzi Alpine Museum
- The Brenva Spur
- The Guides' House
- Church of Saint Pantaléon
- The quiet col
- The Col de la Seigne