- This article is about the Alpine mountain. For other uses, see Mont Blanc (disambiguation)
Mont Blanc (Fr., "White Mountain") or Monte Bianco (It., same meaning, also known as La Dame Blanche (the White Lady)), in the Alps, is the highest mountain in western Europe. Its height is about 4,810 metres (15,780 feet), but varies from year to year by a few metres, depending on snowfall and climate conditions.
Parts of Mont Blanc clearly lie in France and others in Italy, but the position of the mountain top relative to the border is disputed: the summit appears to be on the border on Italian maps, but fully within France on French maps. The two most famous towns near Mont Blanc are Chamonix, Haute-Savoie (France; site of the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924) and Courmayeur , Valle d'Aosta (Italy).
Begun in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 kilometer (7.25 mile) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two cities and is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes.
The Mont Blanc massif is very popular for mountaineering, hiking, and skiing. Mont Blanc was first climbed was on August 8, 1786 by Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard ; the first woman to reach the summit was Marie Paradis in 1808.
The Mont Blanc Glaciers
Mont Blanc has traditionally been considered to be 4807 m high, but GPS-based measurements made in 2001 and 2003 show differences of a few metres from year to year. These seem to result from fluctuations, caused by the weather, in the thickness of the glacier that covers the peak to a depth of up to 23 m.
The mountain has a number of glaciers among which the Glacier des Bossons[1] and the glacier D'Argentière can be seen streaming slowly down its flanks; the Mer de Glace is the largest of these.
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