Jacques Balmat it turns out, possesses an extraordinary mountaineering sense, an unerring instinct for the crevasses and seracs of the glaciers ..." After the successful ascent, Balmat collected the reward offered 25 years before by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure to the first man who could climb Mont Blanc. On 3 August 1787 he assisted de Saussure himself to reach the summit with a party of about 17 people. During the Napoleonic Wars, Savoy fell under French control, and Citizen Jacques Balmat became a member of the council of the commune. He led an unsuccessful attempt to introduce Merino sheep into the Chamonix valley.
Wanda Rutkiewicz she became the third woman, the first Pole, and the first European woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. In 1986 she became the first woman to successfully climb K2, which she did without supplemental oxygen, as part of a small expedition led by Lilliane and Maurice Barrard. Her triumph was marred when both the Barrards died on the descent, becoming two of thirteen climbers to die on K2 that summer. Rutkiewicz's goal was to become the first woman to summit all fourteen of the eight-thousanders. During her climbing life she successfully summitted the following mountains: While climbing Kangchenjunga,