With its height of 4,808 meters, Mont-Blanc is called “the roof of Europe”. The highest mountains on our planet have been insurmountable for a long time. Only in the past 250 years have those giants been mounted. Crystal-hunter Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard, a doctor, were the first to climb Mont-Blanc, in 1786.

Many paths lead to Mont-Blanc’s peak: the regular ascent goes through the magnificent “voie royale of Saint-Gervais-les- Bains”, which was opened in August 1855 by the Engl...