The highest peak of the Alps, Mont Blanc (15,771ft) is located on the border between Italy and France. Many famous travellers-amongst them writers and poets-have been drawn to the beauty of Mont Blanc and of its glaciers (the 'blanc' of the peak's title). Until improved access opened up the Valley of the Chamonix in the late nineteenth century, this view of Mont Blanc remained an exclusive one. Ruskin observed Mont Blanc on his European travels, including those of 1842, 1845, 1854 and that of 1882 which he made in the company of W. G. Collingwood. He first drew the mountain in 1833. In 1834 he described its geological strata in J. C. Loudon's Magazine of Natural History using engravings from these sketches ( Works, 1.189-205). On many of his following visits he studied its geology. He drew it for the last time in 1882 ( Works, 35.34).