In the 1920s, more and more motivated mountaineers were looking to open up new, more challenging routes in the Mont Blanc massif. In August 1928, two climbers, Paul Chevalier and Maurice Sauvage, decided to build a small shelter in the middle of the beautiful ridge known as Les Périades.

The two companions chose the Pointe de Sisyphe at 3459 metres, near the Brèche Puiseux. The equipment was mounted on the backs of men. They inaugurated it in August 1928, making their first ascent of the calotte de Rochefort via the north ridge.

This micro-refuge, which provided shelter for a small roped party, ended up collapsing dangerously in the summer of 2019, victim of the melting permafrost and climate change, of which it had become one of the symbols in the Alps.

It was guide and ENSA professor Jean-Sébastien Knoertzer who launched the fundraising campaign to rebuild the hut from scratch. In less than a year, just over 300 people have put their hands in their pockets to raise around 14,000 euros. Not all of the money raised was spent, as the service providers often worked as volunteers. The new bivouac at Les Périades was helicoptered to its planned location opposite the Grandes Jorasses in the Mont Blanc massif on 20 July 2020.

Mountaineering generates some beautiful stories, and they are not necessarily mountaineering stories. This one takes us back to the solidarity of the mountains, to the attachment that mountaineers feel for their history and their elders, to the heritage that the younger generations will carry on in their own way, to the links that bind mountaineers together.