Michel-Gabriel Paccard
Michel-Gabriel Paccard (* 1757 in Chamonix ; † May 21, 1827 ibid) was a Savoyard physician and mountaineer.
Life
After studying medicine in Turin , which at that time was the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont , he worked as a doctor in Chamonix. His passion for botany and minerals brought him together with Horace-Bénédict de Saussure , who initiated the race for the first ascent of Mont Blanc . In 1783, Paccard and Marc-Théodore Bourrit made a first unsuccessful attempt to climb the mountain. Several attempts with Pierre Balmat followed in 1784 . On August 8, 1786 he finally reached the summit of Montblanc with Jacques Balmat and thus the highest point of theAlps . A statue in Chamonix commemorates Paccard.
Web links
- Personal folder on Michel-Gabriel Paccard (PDF) in the historical Alpine archive of the Alpine clubs in Germany, Austria and South Tyrol (temporarily offline)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Paccard, Michel-Gabriel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Doctor and first to climb Mont Blanc |
| BIRTH DATE | 1757 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chamonix |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 21, 1827 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Chamonix |