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By Edward Marriott
NEARLY 200 years ago, in the summer of 1809, a young
girl named Maria Paradis became the first child to
climb Mont Blanc. Paradis, whose exact age has not
survived, was dragged up western Europe’s
highest peak for the amusement of three Chamonix
mountain guides. Despite the strenuousness of the
climb – Paradis ended up having to be hauled to
the 4,808m summit by the arms – her financial
security, as the guides had promised, was guaranteed.
She became known as ‘Marie Mont-Blanc’
and set up a tea shop at the foot of the mountain.
‘Thanks to the curiosity of the public,’
she later acknowledged, ‘I have made a nice
profit out of it, which is what I intended to
do.’
Unlike Paradis, the 16 children gathered in expectant
groups at the bottom of a 50m rock face just outside
Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval, in the Haute Savoie, show
no signs of needing to be coerced. Above us, five
instructors are securing and throwing down ropes.
Adults and children – including my
seven-year-old son Louis, a neophyte Joe Simpson
restricted until now to the indoor wall at
London’s Westway sports centre – begin
wrestling themselves into harnesses.
Such a scene would have unthinkable in centuries
past; and certainly, until the mid-19th century,
mountains in most parts of the world were feared and
avoided by adults and children alike. Crossing the
Great St Bernard Pass in 1188, Master John de Bremble
quaked, ‘Lord, restore me to my brethren that I
may tell them that they come not to this place of
torture.’ By 1857, though, with the formation
of the British Alpine Club, mountains had become
places where mettle could be tested and character
forged. Only over the last two decades has lighter
and more versatile equipment finally made it possible
for children to be able to climb in relative safety.
Certainly the guides who are schooling us –
most of whom are in their mid-40s –
didn’t touch a karabiner until their late
teens.
In this flawless spot in the pine forest, the rush of
the nearby Giffre river like radio static, it’s
fast developing into a hot morning. Louis is gazing
up at the rock in thrilled silence. From where
we’re standing it looks close to vertical. He
wants to do the hardest section, he says, but our
instructor gently suggests a more moderate starter.
He knots a rope on to Louis’ harness.
The climbers work in pairs: one climbing and another
on the ground. For this first climb I’m
belaying Louis. Twenty metres up he stops, looks
down. ‘I want to come down now,’ he
calls, a slight tremor in his voice. He leans out,
tentatively at first, and abseils down while I feed
out the rope, keeping it taut all the way. Pascal,
our instructor, nods approvingly. ‘Bien fait,
petit Louis,’ he grins.
Somewhat more tentatively, I start my first climb.
Françoise, a petite 37-year-old schoolteacher
from Lyon, acts as my ‘assureur’. Should
I fall, I can picture my greater weight hoisting her
up the rock towards me. I climb the same route as
Louis, and the rock smells musty under my fingers.
This is limestone – ‘calcaire’
– and at the start of the climbing season,
another instructor comments, it’s prone to
cracking. ‘The ice gets in, and it can crumble.
You have to be careful.’ As the morning wears
on, Louis becomes ever more fearless. By the time we
leave, he’s offering me advice. ‘The
thing is, dad, don’t look down. That’s
the best tip.’
The day has worked its spell. That evening, sitting
in the hotel dining room with my wife and younger
son, Louis is staring up at the mountains, lost in a
high-altitude reverie. ‘How about that one
tomorrow?’ he says, pointing out the sheer
cliffs of Aouille de Criou, 2,227m above
Samoëns. ‘Can we climb that?’ In the
end we opt for a scramble up the 2,090m Pointe
d’Angolon, with awesome views clear across the
Dents d’Oddaz. In the winter, this is part of
the Morzine ski area but now, mid-July, its quiet but
for the tinkle of sheep’s bells. High overhead,
hawks soar. The following day, too, we go hiking: a
breathtaking walk east of Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval,
towards the head of the Giffre, finishing in a bowl
of high cliffs: Le Bout du Monde. We drink from the
mountain streams; walk through a snow cave, the
inside of which is melting so fast it feels like
rain.
After two days of hiking, however, Louis is getting
desperate to get some limestone under his fingernails
again. And so the next day we find ourselves hitching
tight our harnesses once more. Knowing this day will
be his last, Louis is determined to conquer the very
hardest route. Halfway up he gets stuck under an
overhang. Two of the instructors are watching him,
about to shout instructions, when he slowly begins to
extricate himself, palms upturned, foot over foot
like a ballerina. ‘Bravo, petit Louis!’
shouts up Pascal, before turning to me. ‘Il
réfléchisse avec sa tête,’
he says, index finger tapping his temple, praising
Louis’ coolness under pressure. At the very
top, tiny in the distance, I can just hear
Louis’ voice. ‘I want to come down
now.’
‘Do you know what, dad,’ he says
breathlessly, finally on solid ground. ‘I like
climbing. Maybe even as much as football.’
Which, from him, is the highest praise.
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