Courmayeur historical timeline

Courmayeur was a hard place to live until people started paying to climb the mountain above it.

Before the climbers

The parish lived on pasture, a little grain, and the traffic over the Little St Bernard. Its mineral spring at nearby Pré-Saint-Didier was known from the seventeenth century and drew the first outside visitors.

The golden age

From the 1850s British and other climbers arrived to attempt the peaks, and the Italian side became a base for the harder routes. The Sociétà delle Guide di Courmayeur was founded in 1850, the first association of its kind in Italy, to regulate and protect the trade.

Guides as an institution

Guiding became the village's profession and stayed so: families passed the work down, the society kept the register, and the mountain rescue that grew out of it is among the most experienced anywhere.

The tunnel

The Mont Blanc tunnel opened in 1965, connecting Courmayeur to Chamonix in about twenty minutes and turning a dead end into a through route. It transformed the local economy and brought heavy freight to the valley.

1999

On 24 March 1999 a lorry caught fire in the tunnel. Thirty-nine people died. The tunnel was closed for three years and reopened with a completely redesigned safety system.

The Skyway

A first cable car to the Italian side of the massif was built in the 1940s and carried three generations of climbers and skiers; it was replaced in 2015 by the present installation, which was among the most expensive lift projects ever built in Italy.

The modern resort

Courmayeur has been built up steadily since the 1960s and is now one of the most expensive addresses in the Italian Alps.