THE INVENTOR OF THE ALPES-MARITIMES
In Saint-Etienne-de-Tinee, at the foot of the Col de la Bonette, there's a street called Boulevard Victor de Cessole. Go east across the mountains to Tende and every February an Alpine ski competition called the Trophée Victor de Cessole takes place in the surrounding peaks that form the border with Italy. In between those two high mountain locations, if you hike to the top of the beautiful Gordolasque valley you'll arrive at the Refuge Victor de Cessole, aka the Refuge de Nice. Back down in town, just beside the famous Negresco Hotel on the Promenade des Anglais, keen eyes can find the Bibliothèque du Chevalier Victor de Cessole.
Who is Victor de Cessole? Answer : he’s the ‘inventor of the Alpes-Maritimes’.
Cessole is the person credited for pioneering the mountains that form the last chain of the Southern Alps before the mountains dive into the Med.
He was an aristocrat, Niçois born and bred. A privileged education was not wasted on his inquisitive mind and he excelled at everything from legal studies to botany. A medical condition of rheumatism sent him to Saint-Martin-Vesubie as he turned 40 years old. Fresh air and exercise were the doctor’s prescription.
He chose La Madone de Fenestre, 10kms up the valley that lies northeast of Saint-Martin-Vesubie as his base camp. The dead-end road from the town to the refuge at the top is now called Boulevard Chevalier de Cessole. If you haven’t been there, you have to go. It sits in the shadow of the Cime du Gélas, the highest peak of the Alpes-Maritimes in a location that says two words : Alpine beauty.
Cessole was awed and inspired. A 30-year quest began. He walked, he climbed, he made notes, he took photos, he drew maps and he hatched plans. He joined the Club Alpin Français (CAF), established just 20 years before, to learn the tricks and the trade of alpinism. Through his passion and a never-ending drive to explore and document this over-looked section of the Alps, he would become the president of the regional section of the national organization.
With his co-explorers they commissioned the building of refuges, upgrades to the shepherds huts they had been using, which would form base camps to scale the peaks.
Those peaks reach above 3,000m. The three ‘majors’ are the Gélas, the Malédie and the Clapier. The Malédie was one of his conquests as Cessole pushed himself higher and higher to become the first pioneer to reach its peak. Other notable firsts included the western wall of Agentera and the Corno Stella in 1902. It gained him fame in the international mountaineering community. In the end, he opened nearly 200 new routes and peaks in the Alpes-Maritimes!
To read his written accounts of the thousands of explorative hikes is to follow step by step, sense by sense, in the shoes of the man. It is almost too much. More accessible are the 10,000-odd photos he took. Like cycling and Instagram, Cessole considered photography as the best medium to partner with his expeditions.
Over the course of 30 years from 1896 to 1927, Cessole made nearly 10,000 photographs. A total of 7200 of those were dedicated to mountain expeditions. They are all numbered, dated, captioned. The vast majority of photos reveal either the mineral mountain, pure and hard, with its peaks and ridges, scree slopes and snowfields, or the climber's reward: the view from the top, proof of his victory. It brought to life his notes and was a perfect illustration to show the landscapes and the pioneers’ difficulty in scaling the peaks.
It wasn't only through his photography that Cessole brought the Alpes-Maritimes to the people. Presumably it was a combination of his academic background and sheer excitement after each successful expedition that drove the desire to share his knowledge and experiences. Not only did he help name and map the previously un-scaled or undiscovered peaks of the Alpes-Maritimes but he grew the membership of the local CAF to over 500, he established ‘school caravans’ to bring teenage kids to the mountains and together with the help of the army he created the first ski competitions on the slopes and peaks between Piera-Cava and Camp d’Argent, respectively below and above our beloved Col de Turini.
To say Cessole left a legacy is an understatement. Riding high into the Alpes-Maritimes you might notice the wooden or yellow waymarker signs at the side of the road. The network of hiking trails is a goldmine for outdoor lovers. And it was paved by the pionner that was Victor de Cessole. He rests now in the graveyard at the foot of Nice’s Castel, but it is said that his soul remains ever-present in the mountains. Merci Victor.
Thanks go to the Bibliothèque Chevalier de Cessole for providing and authorising the use of the scans of the original photographs taken by Cessole and his pioneering counterparts.
