The Dent du Géant ( It.: Dente del Gigante, "giant's tooth") (4,013 m) is a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...

in the

Mont Blanc massif The Mont Blanc massif (french: Massif du Mont-Blanc; it, Massiccio del Monte Bianco) is a mountain range in the Alps, located mostly in France and Italy, but also straddling Switzerland at its northeastern end. It contains eleven major indepen ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The Dent du Géant remained unclimbed during the

golden age of alpinism The golden age of alpinism was the decade in mountaineering between Alfred Wills's ascent of the Wetterhorn in 1854 and Edward Whymper's ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865, during which many major peaks in the Alps saw their first ascents. Prom ...

, and was a much-coveted peak in the 1870s, repelling many parties who attempted it mostly from the Rochefort ridge. In 1880 the strong team of

Albert F. Mummery Albert Frederick Mummery (10 September 1855, Dover, Kent, England – 24 August 1895, Nanga Parbat), was an English mountaineer and author. Although most notable for his many and varied first ascents put up in the Alps, Mummery, along with ...

and

Alexander Burgener Alexander Burgener Alexander Burgener (10 January 1845, Saas Fee – 8 July 1910, near the Berglihütte) was a Swiss mountain guide and the first ascentionist of many mountains and new routes in the western Alps during the silver age of alpinis ...

tried to force a passage via the south-west face but were repelled by a band of slabs, causing Mummery to exclaim, 'Absolutely inaccessible by fair means!' The mountain has two summits, apart and separated by a small col (an 'extremely awkward notch' according to W. W. Graham): :*''Pointe Sella'' (4,009 m), first ascent via the south-west face by Jean Joseph Maquignaz with son Baptiste Maquignaz and nephew, Daniel Maquignaz on 28 July 1882. Over a period of four days they placed iron stanchions and fixed ropes,Willy Blaser and Glyn Hughes
Kabru 1883, a reassessment
, ''Alpine Journal'', 2009, p. 219 enabling the same party to climb ''Pointe Sella'' a second time on the following day with clients Alessandro Sella, Alfonso Sella, Corradino Sella and Gaudenzio Sella. :*''Pointe Graham'' (4,013 m), first ascent by W. W. Graham with guides Auguste Cupelin and Alphonse Payot on 20 August 1882. They used the fixed ropes of "Sella's staircase" to repeat the ascent of ''Pointe Sella'', where Graham noted that one of the Maquignazes had carved the letter 'M' on a rock step. They then lowered themselves into the col to climb this higher north-east peak. This ascent marked the end of the so-called

silver age of alpinism The silver age of alpinism is the name given in the United Kingdom to the era in mountaineering that began after Edward Whymper and party's ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 and ended with W. W. Graham and party's ascent of the Dent du Géant in ...

On 28 July 1935 the Austrian climbers Herbert Burggasser and Rudi Leitz first ascended the vertical-to-overhanging 160 m-high south face. It was the first climb in the Western Alps systematically aided by the pitons and artificial techniques that were already in use by climbers in the Eastern Alps. During a heat wave in the summer of 2019, a glaciological rarity in the form of a previously unseen lake emerged at the foot of the Dent du Géant, the

Aiguilles Marbrées The Aiguilles Marbrées (), (, literally "marbled needles") is a mountain peak in the Mont Blanc massif, above the Glacier du Géant, with its summits forming part of the frontier between France and Italy. It is situated between the Col de Roc ...

and the Col de Rochefort at an altitude of about 3400 meters, that was considered as evidence for the effects of

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

on the glaciers in the Alps.''La formation d'un lac dans le massif du Mont-Blanc est-elle liée au réchauffement climatique?''
/ref> The following facilities serve the mountain: *

Torino Hut The Torino Hut ( it, Rifugio Torino; French: ''Refuge Turin'') is a high mountain refuge in the Alps in northwestern Italy. Located near the border with France, it is about southwest of Mont Dolent, the tripoint with Switzerland. The refuge ...

(3,375 m, CAI, all year) *

Pointe Helbronner Pointe Helbronner () is a mountain in the Mont Blanc massif in the Graian Alps on the watershed between France and Italy. The peak, which used to be a mere geodetic reference point, was named after Paul Helbronner, a French '' polytechnicien'', ...

(3,462 m, téléphérique station for

Skyway Monte Bianco Skyway Monte Bianco is a cable car in the Italian Alps, linking the town of Courmayeur with Pointe Helbronner on the southern side of the Mont Blanc massif. Taking over three years to construct, it opened in 2015 at a cost of 110 million euro ...

)

References

External links

The Dent du Géant on SummitPost
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dent du Geant Alpine four-thousanders Mountains of the Alps Mountains of Haute-Savoie Mountains of Italy France–Italy border International mountains of Europe Mont Blanc massif

See also

References

External links