Henry Duhamel

Henry or Henri Duhamel (born 9 December 1853 in Paris, died 7 February 1917 in Gières (Isère)) was a French mountaineer, author and skiing pioneer. He introduced the practice of skiing to his circle of friends at Grenoble, leading to the creation of the first ski club in France.

Henry Duhamel was born in Paris in 1853 and moved in 1873 to Gières, near Grenoble, due to health problems. There, the young Parisian bourgeois developed a taste for the mountains, the practice of hiking, climbing, running and combined driving and strove to become an accomplished athlete.

In 1874, Duhamel founded the Isère or Grenoble section of the Club alpin français (French Alpine Club) and began to explore the peaks of Dauphiné. In 1875, in the company of Baron Emmanuel Boileau de Castelnau and the guide Alexandre Tournier, Duhamel tried to climb the western peak of the Meije without reaching the summit. A second attempt the following year by the south side led to the foot of a wall deemed impassable. Finally in 1877 Boileau de Castelnau and his guide Pierre Gaspard reached the top, taking the first path traced by Henry Duhamel. Henry Duhamel turned to other peaks, both in France and Kabylie, and established twenty-three new routes, including first ascents of eight virgin peaks. He climbed the Pic Gaspard (3883 m) in 1878 and the south face of the Barre des Écrins (the south arête of the Pic Lory, 4088 m) in 1880 with Pierre Gaspard and his son.

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