Mont Blanc Measured at 4,807.47 Metres, Nearly Two Metres Higher Than 2023 Reading

Mont Blanc now stands at 4,807.47 metres, according to measurements taken by French chartered surveyors in September 2026 and announced on Wednesday in Saint-Gervais-Mont-Blanc. The figure is 1.88 metres higher than the 4,805.59 metres recorded in 2023, the lowest reading in the modern series that began in 2001.

A team of 32 surveyors, mountain guides, and technical specialists spent three days on the mountain from 15 to 17 September. They reached the summit at daybreak on the 17th and spent more than two hours taking readings with equipment weighing nearly 30 kilograms. This year’s campaign also used ground-penetrating radar to map the thickness of the ice cap and the underlying rock. Jean des Garets, president of the Haute-Savoie chamber of chartered surveyors, noted that the summit is in constant motion. Individual measurements do not by themselves indicate the effects of climate change, but the accumulating series supplies data for later analysis.

Interim unpublished readings from 2024 and 2025 placed the summit above 4,808 metres, so the 2026 figure is higher than 2023 yet lower than the two most recent internal observations. The variation is driven by snowfall, wind, and temperature acting on the snow and ice that cover the rock summit. The mountain’s height has fluctuated between roughly 4,805 and 4,811 metres since modern surveys began. The 1894 measurement by the Vallot cousins stands close to the new figure.

Glaciologists have observed that the summit is high and cold enough that its ice rarely melts, so the thickness of the cap has changed by only a few metres over the twentieth century. The surveyors emphasise that one reading does not allow conclusions about long-term trends. The data will be added to the record maintained since 2001 for scientists studying the Alps under changing climatic conditions.

Mont Blanc remains the highest peak in Western Europe. Its precise altitude continues to shift with the seasons even as the underlying rock stays fixed. The September expedition supplies the latest public number in a series that has now run for a quarter of a century.