Joseph Vallot

Joseph Vallot (Henri Marie Joseph of his real name) is a French astronomer, geographer, naturalist, mountaineer and patron, born February 16, 1854 in Lodève and died April 11, 1925 in Nice. He left Lodève to join the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris, studied botany and geology. He was appointed vice-president of the Société Botanique de France and later president of the Club Alpin Français. In 1875 when he went to a geology congress held in Chamonix, he fell in love with Mont Blanc. At that time, despite the few scientific observations made by the Genevan naturalist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, everything still remained to be discovered about life at altitude, the movement of glaciers, etc. He made his first ascent in 1881 in 1887, to prove that it was possible to live, sleep, eat and work at such a high altitude, Vallot and his guides spent three nights in a tent at the top of Mont Blanc. On their descent, they receive a triumphal welcome. That same year, Vallot made the ascent five times. For the next three years, he continued his observations while negotiating, with the municipality of Chamonix and the company of guides, the conditions for the construction of a refuge-laboratory on the site of Rocher des Bosses located just 450 meters below the summit. He gets 800 francs from the municipality and 200 francs from the guides and invests 5,500 francs. In 1890, 110 guides and porters climbed in eight days on their backs (15 to 30 kg each) the materials necessary for the construct…