Emmanuel Boileau de Castelnau

Forced to descend by a storm, he made the acquaintance back in Chamonix of Henry Duhamel, creator of the French Alpine Club and Haut-Dauphiné specialist.

Tired of the bad weather that prevailed in Chamonix, the following year the two men engaged three guides in the valley and went to La Grave[7] and the "rocher de l'aigle" ("rock of the eagle")[8] to bivouac.

The company was tempted by the north face with the three guides (Alexandre Tournier, François and Léon Simond) but the expedition was blocked by an overly dangerous passage in a corridor formed of black ice and sleet.

On 4 August 1877, Boileau de Castelnau and Gaspard tried a new ascent of the Meije by the south side, a route attempted the previous year by Henry Duhamel.

The descent was even more challenging than the ascent and they were obliged to bivouac, on the night of 16 August, on an uncomfortable ledge but managed to return to La Grave the following day.

[13] The Alpine career of the very young Boileau de Castelnau, interrupted by military service the following year, finally ended in 1879.