Mountain guides of the Ecrins: the first ascent of Le Pelvoux
© - Victor Chaud
1828-1830: the first ascents of the Pelvoux by a French officer also mark the beginnings of the mountain guide profession. L’Ecrin, a film produced by and featuring the guides themselves, pays homage to those pioneers.
Long considered as the highest point of the French Alps – before the Savoy, along with Mont Blanc, was annexed in 1860, Mont Pelvoux is an imposing pyramid of rock and ice almost 4,000 metres high. It was climbed for the first time by Captain Durand, a graduate of the prestigious French Polytechnic school of engineering, appointed in 1828 by the Defence Ministry to establish a map of the massif. And so, on the 30th of July 1928, in the company of two guides and chamois hunters Jacques-Etienne Mathéoud and Alexis Liotard, the Captain reached one of the massif's four peaks, to which he gave his name: "Pointe Durand".
In 2009, in L’Ecrin, the film produced by Christian Guillaume, a guide himself, and a distant descendant of Mathéoud and Liotard, retells the saga which involved both a world record and the real beginnings of the mountain guide profession in the valley.
Back to the 19th century. Pointe Durand is not in fact the highest point. The true summit proved to be Pointe Puiseux (3,946 m). Durand himself confirmed that a higher summit was hiding just behind the Pelvoux, the Oursine mountain, re-baptised a few years later as the "Barre des Ecrins", or Ecrins ridge. It was conquered in 1864 by the famous British mountaineer, Edward Whymper, with the assistance of guide Michel Croz.
Later still, the culminating point gave its name to the whole range, the Massif des Ecrins, although its designation as Pelvoux never quite disappeared. This is also the name of the highest village in the Vallouise valley, just below where the climb to the summits starts, at Ailefroide and Pré de Madame Carle.
These legendary mountaineering destinations have produced some guides of remarkable temperament. Here are just some of the outstanding names from the various periods of Alpine conquest - Alphand, Chaud, Engilberge, Gérard, Giraud, Mathéoud, Roland, Sémiond.
As Claude Albrand recalls in the centenary publication, the greatest names in the history of Alpine mountaineering have tackled this range, from Whymper to Coolidge, from Bonatti to Desmaison and Rebuffat.
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Pays des Ecrins
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Topic : Landscapes and nature
Published on : 2009/06/23
Tags : guides ecrins record pelvoux
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