Chamonix: the Mer de Glace. Descent.

Overview

Four roped men descend through the seracs of the Mer de Glace. One of them falls and has to be hoisted. The shot belongs to a collection of scenes that were presented together as a kind of travelogue film under the title of 'Voyages animés' in a diorama pavilion in the Universal Exhibition of Paris of 1900. The mountaineering scenes in this series include four scenes in the Mer de Glace and one in the Meije glacier. These five scenes, under a minute long, are the first mountaineering images ever filmed. Several of the 'Voyages animés' scenes were included in the Lumière catalog in 1901 under the title of 'À travers la France'.

Louis Lumière