In 1874, Boileau de Castelnau traveled to Chamonix to climb Mont Blanc. Forced to descend by a storm, he made the acquaintance back in Chamonix of Henry Duhamel, creator of the French Alpine Club and Haut-Dauphiné specialist. Boileau de Castelnau told Duhamel of his desire to achieve the ascent of the Grand Pic de la Meije. Tired of the bad weather that prevailed in Chamonix, the following year the two men engaged three guides in the valley and went to La Grave and the rocher de l'aigle (rock of the eagle) to bivouac. The company was tempted by the north face with the three guides (Alexandre Tournier, François and Léon Simond) but the expedition was blocked by an overly dangerous passage in a corridor formed of black ice and sleet. That year they reached the central peak of the Meije (), conquered by W. A. B. Coolidge five years earlier.