L'Equipement de l'Alpiniste 1900

Established in 1821, the Chamonix Guides’ Company is the oldest and largest guides’ association in the world. Today, a total of 240 self- employed mountain guides and leaders work with our company. Like our elders, passion and professionalism have shaped and inspired our line of conduct until today, always pushing us towards new alpine adventures worldwide. We perform with respect and humanity , always in search of activity renewal and professional improvement. We hope that someday, you will come and share these intense moments with us.
Our very best regards.

La Compagnie des guides de Chamonix est née d'une délibération municipale du 24 juillet 1821. Il s'agit alors d'une caisse de secours pour aider les familles des guides disparus. L'expédition au mont Blanc du Docteur Hammel en 1820 a coûté la vie à trois guides et a fortement marqué les esprits.

La Savoie est alors sous l'autorité du roi de Sardaigne, sa Majesté Charles-Félix de Savoie. C'est le 9 mai 1823 qu'il approuve un manifeste de la chambre des députés de Turin, rendant officielle la création de la Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix.

En 1863, la Savoie étant passée sous administration française, la compagnie devient une société de secours mutuel.

En 1930, Roger Frison-Roche devient le premier « étranger » (non-Chamoniard) admis à la compagnie des guides de Chamonix.

En 1942, un autre étranger, Gaston Rébuffat, intègre la Compagnie avec une dispense d'âge. Il en devient alors le plus jeune élément (il n'a que 21 ans).

En 1958, à la suite de deux sauvetages tragiques et d'un contentieux entre la Société dauphinoise de Secours en montagne en 1956, la Compagnie des Guides abandonne le secours en montagne. Ce dernier sera dès lors assuré par le Peloton de Gendarmerie de Haut-Montagne (PGHM), en vertu surtout de la procédure du plan ORSEC (1952) qui est étendu au domaine montagnard.

En 1966, René Desmaison, qui est allé secourir deux alpinistes allemands en difficulté (dans la face ouest des Drus), contre l'avis de la Compagnie, en est radié.

Enfin, il faudra attendre 1985 pour voir une femme guide à Chamonix : Sylviane Tavernier.

Aujourd'hui, la Compagnie compte plus de 200 membres.

This is the complete history of Chamonix's Compagnie des Guides, brought together for the first time in one book. The work chronicles the exploits and tragedies, great names, early travellers and the traditional working life of the guides. Previously unseen material provided by local families and five years research, Mario Colonel presents, in collaboration with the Compagnie des Guides, the remarkable and hitherto unknown history of a unique professional body. This book covers the whole history of mountaineering in the Mont Blanc Massif as well as that of Chamonix itself.

What you are calling plugs are peened round pins that anchor the top spike in place through wood and metal

ANY attempt to present the development of American mountaineering in the Alps must, of very necessity, be fragmentary. Records were inadequately kept, and much material is buried away in inaccessible press notices, diaries and Führerbücher.

We find, however, that American travel in Switzerland began at an early date. A “Native of Pennsylvania”1 wandered from Paris through Switzerland and Italy in 1801-2. A Mr. Carter resided in parts of Switzerland and France during 1813-15. A quarter of a century before this he had been in Geneva, studying under the naturalist Charles Bonnet (Saussure’s uncle) at Genthod. Visiting Chamonix, he walked to Montenvers and registered at M. Desportes “Temple.”

James Fenimore Cooper toured Switzerland in 1828 and 1832, and, while at Lauterbrunnen on the first of these years, saw the flag on the summit of the Jungfrau, planted by Rohrdorf's party.

Dumas describes a large party of Americans on the Faulhorn in 1832, and W. A. B. Coolidge records the visit of his grandmother, Mrs. Brevoort, to the summit in 1835. Forbes mentions that on September 17, 1842, he and Auguste Balmat rescued an American traveller on the Trelaporte precipice above the Mer de Glace, who “had not shown himself generously sensible of the great effort used in his preservation.”

Among the first Americans to write a volume dealing with the Alps was the militant Presbyterian clergyman, George Barrell Cheever (1807-90), of New York, whose Wanderings of a Pilgrim in the Shadow of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau Alp appeared in 1846.

Schirmer has recently summarized descriptions of Switzerland in American literature up to 1848.

It is natural that the highest peak of the Alps, Mont Blanc, should have attracted Americans as it did travellers of other nationality. Chamonix was a part of the Grand Tour, and Mont Blanc an adventure for a lifetime. Certain it is that many who reached its summit never made any other great ascent or maintained interest in mountaineering.

AAC