Jules Jacot-Guillarmod climbed his first summit of 2,169 metres in 1889 during an excursion with friends in the Fribourg region. At the beginning of 1890, he bought an ice axe and hiked around Mont Blanc for the first time. In 1893, Jules Jacot-Guillarmod climbed the Jungfrau, his first peak of 4,000 metres, accompanied by a professor and a group of students. On June 12, 1897, after cycling from Martigny to Chamonix with two friends, he climbed the Mont Blanc for the first time, without a mountain guide. A few months later, on a training course in Paris, he gave a lecture on it at the Club Alpin Français (CAF) and is soon after accepted as a member. His contacts within the CAF lead to his first expedition project in the Himalayas, however abandoned for lack of funding · .