Émile Rey

Émile Rey was born and lived his life in La Saxe, a small hamlet near Courmayeur. Rey's career as a mountain guide did not begin until the "great age of conquest" of the Alps was over. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not learn his craft by serving an apprenticeship with other, older guides. One British mountaineer wrote in detail about Rey's achievements in "Pioneers of the Alps" (1888) Thereafter, Mont Blanc became an important venue for his mountaineering exploits, and he had many regular wealthy clients from across Europe, including Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed, Paul Güssfeldt In 1882, Rey was leader of a team that retrieved the bodies of Francis Maitland Balfour and his guide Johann Petrus, who together had attempted to make the first ascent of the Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey. Balfour had invited Rey to join his party, but Rey declined, considering the snow to be in a dangerous condition. It was to be another three years later before Rey was involved in the first successful attempt to reach its summit. Rey was married to Faustina Vercelin and had sons Adolphe and Henri, the eldest, and a grandson, Emile. He was evidently very proud of his children. (1878–1969) went on to become a mountain guide like his father. ==First ascents==

He made more than a dozen first ascents, including: • 1877: First ascent of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey with Lord Wentworth (the grandson of Lord Byron) and Jean-Baptiste Bich on 5 August. • 1879: First ascent of the Aiguille de Talèfre (3,730 m) with Johan Baumann, F. J. Cullinan, G. Fitzgerald, Joseph Moser and Laurent Lanier on 25 August. • 1882: First ascent of the Calotte de Rochefort, the main summit of Les Périades, with C. D. Cunningham. • 1888: First winter traverse of Mont Blanc from the Italian side, with Alessandro, Corradino, Erminio and Vittorio Sella, Joseph Jean-Baptiste and Daniele Maquignaz and Giuseppe Maquignaz and two porters. They went from the Aiguilles Grises, cutting many steps in the Bosses Ridge to reach the summit, and then descended to the Grand Mulets, on 5 January. It was later described as a "very remarkable and daring enterprise". • 1888: New route to Mont Blanc by the Aiguille de Bionnassay east ridge with Katharine Richardson and Jean-Baptiste Bich on 13 August. • 1893: First ascent of Mont Blanc by the Aiguille Blanche and the Peuterey Ridge with Paul Güssfeldt, Christian Klucker and Cesar Ollier. Four-day climb from 14 to 17 August. • The third, fourth, and fifth ascents of the higher peak of the Dru over four consecutive days. One of these ascents, with W.E. Davidson, was made direct from Montenvert without an overnight stop beforehand. It was also made totally unaided by fixed ropes or ladders, a feat that impressed the first ascensionist, C. T. Dent, who had spent innumerable hours on the route. • 1877: First traverse of the Grands Charmoz. • Gran Paradiso from the glacier of the Tribulation. • Dent d'Hérens to the crest Tiefenmatten. ==Travels abroad==

In the winter of 1884 Rey travelled to Britain where he spent some weeks with alpine mountaineer C. D. Cunningham in England. His trip included an intellectual afternoon visit to Madame Tussaud's in the company of the editor of the Nineteenth Century literary magazine and a visit to Scotland where on 11 February after a spell of bad weather, Rey, Cunningham and a local man, John Cameron, made a winter ascent to the top of Ben Nevis. At the summit they visited the new observatory which had been opened just a few months earlier, and enjoyed hot steaming coffee and toasted ship's biscuits in the company of the observer and his two assistants. Cunningham later observed that Rey was known to have referred to their trip up Ben Nevis more frequently than some of his other great achievements in the Alps. Rey is known to have spent a winter in Meiringen in order to learn German so that, as a leading guide himself, he would be better equipped to work with some of the top Swiss guides such as Andreas Maurer whose mountaineering skills he much admired. He knew they would constantly come into contact with one another, and that this would better help him work together with the Oberland guide. ==Personality==

Rey was known to have always kept himself fit and in condition. He never smoked and was described as always having a temperate manner in whatever he did, and was always courteous – a characteristic which gained him many acquaintances well beyond the usual climbing circles. In the autumn of 1886 Rey was climbing on the Schreckhorn in the Bernese Oberland and narrowly avoided being killed in an avalanche. However another guided party some ten minutes behind his was struck by falling ice, and their client, a Herr Munz, was killed, and his guide, Meyer, very severely injured, and subsequently died. Rey took the lead in retrieving Munz's body and taking it back down to Grindelwald. One of the alpine climbers who was with Rey, C.D. Cunningham, later wrote how impressed he was with the "great force of character and power of organisation that Rey displayed". He observed how Rey's ability to take the lead without seeming to take command of his fellow guides provided "the moving spirit of the whole party". ==Survival against the odds==

The account below is extracted almost verbatim from True Tales of Mountain Adventure: For Non-Climbers Young and Old (1903): ==Death and legacy==

Rey was killed in a fall whilst descending the lower, easy rocks at the base of the Dent du Géant on 24 August 1895 with his client, A. Carson Roberts. They were unroped. Roberts subsequently wrote at very great length and detail about the events, suggested that Rey might have fallen because of some malaise which might have led to a "physical seizure" at an inopportune moment he previously observed that Rey had not been displaying his usual good form or temperament. Another source later suggested the slip might have been "due to excessive and incorrect hobnailing of his boots". On hearing of Rey's death, Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi was said to have been devastated by the news. Forty years after Rey's death, mountaineer Frank S. Smythe described him as "the greatest guide of his generation". ==Honours==

The Col Emile Rey (4030 m), located on the Italian side of Mont Blanc (between Mont Brouillard and Picco Luigi Amedeo), is named in Rey's honour. Described as "a superb col in wild surroundings", it can be subject to bad stonefall on both sides. It is not used as a route between adjacent glaciers, but can be used by mountaineers to access the Brouillard Ridge. The first traverse of the Col Émile Rey was made in 1899 by G.B. and G.F. Gugliermina with N. Shiavi, exactly four years to the day after Rey's death. It was subsequently replaced with a monument containing a sculpted figure, showing him in a similar pose to that of his photograph, wearing his guide's hat. It bears the words "Emile Rey, 1846–1895, Prince Des Guides". It stands between monuments to two other alpine guides from Courmayeur, Giuseppe Petigax (1860–1926) and Mario Puchoz (1918–1954). ==References==

Portions of the text are from which is in the public domain. ==External links==