Description
Mont Blanc is a massif composed of many peaks and spires, each with their own routes. The massif straddles the French-Italian border. Sources vary as to what is the precise border between Italy and France. Fact sheets consistently list Monte Bianco di Courmayeur, a summit not far from Mont Blanc, as Italy's highest point and French and Swiss maps also show this to be the border. However, most insist that the border crosses Mont Blanc itself.
The main summit is the highest in the Alps with an elevation difference from bottom to top of more than 13,000 feet. Mont Blanc has traditionally been considered to be 4807 m high, but GPS-based measurements made in 2001 and 2003 show differences of a few meters from year to year, because of fluctuations in the thickness of the glacier that covers the peak to a depth of up to 23 m.
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