A British adventurer plans to climb Mont Blanc wearing a replica of the outfit worn by a woman who conquered one of the world’s most dangerous peaks in 1838.
Lise Wortley will eschew modern high-altitude clothing in bulky trousers, an ankle-length woolen coat and a feather boa to climb the 15,777ft peak in the French Alps later this year.
He will wear a massive helmet to protect against falling rocks and nighttime temperatures well below freezing.
Ms. Wortley hopes to emulate Henriette d’Angeville’s pioneering success in 1838.
Ms. Wortley will use only the equipment used by her predecessor in a replica of the outfit designed by d’Angeville.
Ms Wortley, 34, is planning her climb for early September to reach the summit on the anniversary of d’Angeville’s four-day ascent.
The adventure is one of a series of expeditions retracing routes used by female explorers of the past; using the same means of transportation and old equipment or a close replica.
Students at Morley College, near Ms Wortley’s home in south London, are making the outfit.
In 1830s France, women were not encouraged to climb mountains and there were no clothes designed for such activities. D’Angeville, a 44-year-old aristocrat who dreamed of climbing Mont Blanc all his life and grew up in its shadow, designed an outfit that would protect him no matter what conditions he faced. Made without the use of modern lightweight materials, their clothing weighed 27 lbs.
Ms. Wortley has all her gear custom-made, including her hobnail boots, and her bodywork is made by the milliner who supplied the hats for the Harry Potter films.
She said: “I wanted to know what women were going through and I don’t think I would understand it if I were in modern clothes.
“Even after almost 200 years, there are still far more men than women in this outdoor adventure area. I could only find one female mountain guide to take me to Mont Blanc, but there are dozens of men. “I think there is a direct correlation between women not being given a platform and the fact that they still don’t see themselves in this world.”
D’Angeville had six guides and six porters to transport his equipment and supplies, including 26 roast chickens, 18 bottles of wine, two sirloins of beef, a leg of lamb, 12 lemons and three pounds of chocolate.
Miss Wortley is a vegetarian and will be accompanied only by a female filmmaker and a mountain guide. She says she can take a bottle of wine for emergencies.
Ms. Wortley will face the dangers of altitude sickness, which strikes D’Angeville and nearly forces her to abandon the climb. In her account, she wrote that she found new determination when her guides suggested they could move her. Terrified at the idea of descending just below the summit, when she finally did, she insisted that they created a human tower so that she could climb higher than any man in history.
By the time he reached the summit at 1:25 p.m., D’Angeville was feeling light-headed from lack of oxygen.
It is estimated that more than 1,400 people have died trying to climb Mont Blanc, losing their lives due to falls, falling rocks or getting lost in dangerous conditions.
Ms Wortley said: “This is the deadliest mountain in the world because more people die every year. This is because it is quite accessible and many people who go up are actually not prepared because they think it is easy.
“We will try to follow the route Henriette took, but everything is getting hotter due to global warming and that part is quite dangerous. “The rocks are shifting because the ice is melting.”
Some time after reaching the summit of Mont Blanc, d’Angeville discovered that she was not the first woman to set foot there. In 1808, Marie Paradis, a chambermaid at an inn in Chamonix, went up, but her ascent could not be considered a record because she fainted from fatigue and lack of oxygen and had to be carried part of the way. Thirty years later, he was among the first to congratulate d’Angeville on his success.
Ms Wortley said: “It’s so hard to organise, get the funding, organize the route and I have a job too, it feels like the climbing might be the easiest part of the whole thing.”
He was abandoned in 2023 with only basic supplies and left to fend for himself in the Canadian wilderness for the Channel 4 Alone documentary series. She had previously followed in Freya Stark’s footsteps through the Valley of Assassins in western Iran with an old Burberry Mac and 100-year-old boots.
The attempt to climb Mont Blanc is supported by adventure travel company Explore Wild.