When I was young, I traveled extensively with my mother. She was a geologist and cartographer by training, and a member of the Royal Geographical Society. Although her career evolved into other pursuits, she never lost her passion for landscape and what lay beneath its surface. There was always a rock hammer in the trunk of the car. Every so often she would pull over to the side of the road, smile brightly at me, and inform me that we would find fossils in the rock on the side of the road. She was almost invariably correct. We came home with ammonites and trilobites, dainty pressed ferns, insects as large as my hand, whole worlds from a distant era. I loved every minute. I especially loved her stories.
She became a geologist in the 1950s, when women simply did not do scientific work. At least, not respectable women. She graduated from the University of Sheffield and went to work with British Mines. Quickly she discovered she was a liability, not because of what she knew but because of what she was. A woman in a mine was considered bad luck. She was offered a job doing a geological survey and mapping Mont Blanc. She took it. Later, she surveyed and mapped in the Himalayas. One of the few adamant pieces of advice she ever gave me was “Never drink yak-butter tea.”
One of the only things I felt very strongly about seeing on this trip was Mont Blanc (pronounced Mon Blan). My mother loved it, and her time there was one of the few stories from her past she told and retold. Fortunately, six other people wanted to go too, so it became a kind of pilgrimage of friends.
We drove to the Saint Gervais train station to meet the tram that would take us up the mountain. It was (to borrow a title) a narrow road to the deep north. The original Narrow Road to the Deep North by Oku No Homonichi and the novel by John Flanagan remain two of my favorite works. Both texts are about travel both in the world and in the soul. as this trip was for me.
The stars aligned. Here is our tram for the journey. My mother’s name was Anne, as is mine.
The trip up the mountain was not for those who fear great clanking gears straining against gravity while perched on the edge of a precipice. The climb was just that – at times so steep as to feel almost vertical. We were joined on our upward voyage by a bevy of serious young men and their climbing gear. The view was quite nice both inside and outside the tram.
The tram takes a little over an hour and drops you at the base of the glacier. The great peak of Mont Blanc was obscured by clouds while the valley below was bathed in sunlight.
Mont Blanc may be an older distant cousin of the Himalayas, but it still dominates the landscape. It is the roof of the world it inhabits. He demands respect. It is hard not to think of him as an old veteran of perpetual war. Other mountains – Annapurna for instance , whose name means “goddess of harvests” roughly translated from Sanskrit – are clearly grande dames. This old man is showing some wear. I watched as clouds gathered around the summit, and suddenly there was an earth-shaking sound reminiscent of an explosion. Several large sections of the glacier broke free, one after the other, and shattered thousands of feet below.
The first photo in the series of three above shows the Bionnassey Glacier at Nid d’Aigle as it is today. Three years ago, the entire rock face at this altitude was covered in ice millennia old. Soon, Mont Blanc may no longer be the white mountain, but the grey one. The death of a glacier may not seem particularly significant to some. I believe it to be a great tragedy. Within that ice was stored the DNA of creatures long since vanished, information about the climate changes our planet has undergone, and quite literal watermarks of history. The ice that is melting now might have formed in 1066, or in the time of Roman occupation. It might have formed when primitive hunters killed horses at Solutre, more than 3000 years ago. It might be more recent. No one I spoke with recalled a time when the mountain was as bare as it is now. A glacier is not just ice. It is a dynamic icescape of tremendous proportions. It is a repository of our history, of our planet’s history.
This was my narrow road to the deep north. It was an honor to walk it, but it was not a pleasure. It requires balance, strength, and a good pair of shoes. While there is a path, it is not groomed ; it shouldn’t be. To climb here requires a commitment of self, both the spirit and the body. It should not be easy. For me, it was an act of faith and courage. It was awe-inspiring to stand on this majestic monument, and a joy to stand where my mother once stood. She loved this mountain. Through her I learned to respect and love the natural world even though it does not to call to me as it did to her. I have other siren songs.
I have fallen in love, as I thought I would, with this rugged place. Every year, Mont Blanc claims the lives of climbers, and yet every year they return. This past year, roughly 20,000 attempted to summit. Fifteen died. For me, it is enough to stand on the narrow road and stare in wonder at the breathtaking majesty of Mont Blanc.