This museum was made by the mountain guides, and it stands inside their own house. The guides' society of Courmayeur was founded in 1850 and is the oldest association of mountain guides in Italy; the museum, willed by the Duke of the Abruzzi, explorer and mountaineer, opened in 1929 and tells the story of the trade from its beginnings to today.
What to see
There are photographs, documents, equipment: hemp ropes, hobnailed boots, wooden ice axes, glacier goggles, the little books in which climbs and clients were noted down. You follow the transformation of a job born to accompany English gentlemen up Mont Blanc into a profession with its own rules.
The collection also holds the relics of the distant expeditions the guides of this valley took part in: men from a mountain village who ended up on the summits of Asia and in the polar regions, carried there by the same skills they used on the glaciers at home.
Visiting
The museum is in the guides' house, in strada Villair, in the centre of Courmayeur; a cheap ticket, limited and seasonal hours, so it is worth checking first. An hour.
Our editors' tip
Look at the ropes and the boots bearing in mind that these are not props: they belonged to men born in this village, who went up with clients and who sometimes did not come back. A museum made by the workers of a trade has a different tone from one written from outside, and here you feel it in every label.