Edited by:
Massimo Martini
A Chamonix mountain guide who was a climbing partner of the British mountaineer James Eccles for around forty years.
Personal details
name: Michel-Clément Payot
date of birth: 17 June 1840 - Chamonix
Died: 21 July 1922
Nationality: French (subject of the Kingdom of Sardinia until 1860)
Occupation: mountain guide, farrier
affiliation: Compagnie des guides de Chamonix
Biography
Michel-Clément Payot was a mountain guide from Chamonix in the second half of the nineteenth century. For around forty years, he accompanied the British mountaineer and geologist James Eccles, with whom he pioneered new routes in the Mont Blanc massif and climbed peaks in the Rocky Mountains.
He was born in 1840, when Chamonix still belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia, into a family of farmers and guides: his father Jean and his brothers Frédéric and Alphonse all followed the same profession. Before devoting himself to the mountains, he worked as a farrier. Biographical tradition identifies him with the young Michel Payot whom John Tyndall lists amongst the porters on the 1858 Mont Blanc expedition led by Auguste Balmat; the account records the name without a surname, and no other contemporary document confirms this identification. Modern biographies date his entry into the Compagnie des guides de Chamonix to 1863, but the admission register has not yet been found.
Reconstructing his career is made difficult by the fact that there were others with the same name. During the same decades, at least two other Michel Payots were active in Chamonix: the guide Michel-Ambroise (1815–1885) and the doctor Michel Payot (1869–1908), a promoter of winter sports in the valley. Several modern records attribute ascents made by Michel-Ambroise to Michel-Clément, including the Gran Paradiso in 1860, the Nordend in 1861 and theAiguille de Bionnassay in 1865; regarding the latter, mountaineering historiography has explicitly established that the guide was Michel-Ambroise. There is also a statement attributed to Michel Croz, according to which Payot was the most gifted guide he had ever known; however, no source has been identified for this claim.
The first season documented with certainty is that of 1864. Payot joined Michel Croz and Henri Charlet in the rope team led by Edward Whymper and Anthony Adams-Reilly, who, in the space of a week, completed a traverse and three first ascents on the eastern face of the massif. Even the accounts from that year distinguished him from the older guide of the same name.
From at least 1869 [to be verified], he was, together with his brother Alphonse, a regular guide for James Eccles. The partnership lasted for around forty consecutive seasons. The 1877 ascent of Mont Blanc via the Courmayeur side was regarded, even at the time of his death, as the pair’s greatest feat: the route remained unrepeated until 1919 [to be verified]. In 1878, Payot followed Eccles to the United States as part of Ferdinand V. Hayden’s geographical expedition – a rare instance at the time of a professional guide from Chamonix taking part in an American expedition. In Wyoming, the two planned an attempt on the Grand Teton with A. D. Wilson and Harry Yount, but abandoned the plan when they were held up by the search for two lost mules.
He retained remarkable physical stamina for a long time: the year before his death, he covered the route from Les Mottets to Courmayeur via the Col de la Seigne, and back again, in twenty-four hours. He died on 21 July 1922, aged 82, after about a week’s illness following a paralytic episode. The Musée Alpin in Chamonix houses a posthumous portrait of him in charcoal and white chalk, created in 1971 by Attilio Zadeo based on a photograph of the guide in his later years.
Mountaineering exploits
Mont Blanc – 1858 – porter on John Tyndall’s expedition led by Auguste Balmat (identification according to biographical tradition)
Col du Triolet - 1864 – first traverse on 8 July, with Anthony Adams-Reilly, Edward Whymper, Michel Croz and Henri Charlet
Mont Dolent - 1864 – first ascent on 9 July, with Anthony Adams-Reilly, Edward Whymper, Michel Croz and Henri Charlet
Aiguille de Tré-la-Tête - 1864 – first ascent on 12 July, with the same rope party
Aiguille d’Argentière - 1864 – first ascent on 15 July, with the same party
Matterhorn - 1869 – ascent from the Breuil side on 20 July, with James Eccles, Alphonse Payot, Jean-Antoine Carrel and the guide Bich [to be verified]
Aiguille du Plan – 1871 – first ascent inearly July, with James Eccles and Alphonse Payot
Aiguille de Rochefort – 1873 – first ascent on 14 August, with James Eccles and Alphonse Payot
Mont Blanc – 1877 – first ascent via the southern face on 30 and 31 July, from Courmayeur via the Brouillard and Frêney glaciers to the upper part of the Peuterey ridge, then on to Mont Blanc de Courmayeur and the summit, with James Eccles and Alphonse Payot
a peak in the Wind River Range, probably identified as Wind River Peak – 1878 - United States, Wyoming, Rocky Mountains – ascended on 1 August with James Eccles, Ferdinand V. Hayden, A. D. Wilson and William H. Holmes, during the Hayden expedition
Fremont Peak – 1878 - United States, Wyoming, Wind River Range – ascended on 7 August with James Eccles during the Hayden expedition, second documented ascent [to be verified]
Dôme de Rochefort - 1881 – first ascent on 12 August, via the north-western face, with James Eccles and Alphonse Payot
Bibliography
As an author
no documented works of his own
As a notable reference
C. D. Cunningham, W. de W. Abney, The Pioneers of the Alps, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1888 (profile “Michel Payot” written by James Eccles)
Ronald W. Clark, The Early Alpine Guides, Phoenix House, 1949
Henry de Ségogne, Les Alpinistes célèbres, Mazenod, 1956