Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc rises to 4,808 m on the France–Italy frontier, the highest summit in the Alps and a defining presence above the valleys of Chamonix and Courmayeur. Long feared for storms and avalanches, it became a beacon of Enlightenment science and modern alpinism after Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard’s ascent in 1786. Its glaciers still carve the massif’s drama, but their rapid retreat has turned the mountain into a stark measure of climate change in the high Alps.