Amé Gorret was born on 25 October 1836 at Valtournenche in the Aosta Valley which at that time was in the Kingdom of Sardinia.

On 17 July 1865, with Jean-Antoine Carrel, Jean-Baptiste Bich and Jean-Augustin Meynet, Gorret undertook the second successful ascent of the Matterhorn.

Following the Carrel group's successful ascent it was Gorret who created a wider awareness of the exploit by submitting a report to the local newspaper, the Feuille d’Aoste.

During this period he combined parish duties as the village priest with teaching at the seminary in Aosta and with mountaineering.

However, church-state relations were moving up the political agenda in France, and in 1884 the government required the church to repatriate all foreign priests.