Michel-Gabriel Paccard Michel-Gabriel Paccard Michel Gabriel Paccard (1757–1827) was a Savoyard doctor and alpinist, citizen of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Born in Chamonix, he studied medicine in Turin. Due to his passion for botany and minerals, he met Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who initiated the race to be the first to ascend Mont Blanc. Gaston Rébuffat wrote "Like Saussure a devotee of the natural sciences, he has a dream: to carry a barometer to the summit and take a reading there. An excellent mountaineer, he has already made several attempts." Paccard had a first, unsuccessful, attempt in 1783 with Marc Theodore Bourrit. In
Grünhorn the Bernese mineralogist Edmund von Fellenberg with guides Peter Michel, Peter Egger and Peter Inäbnit. They climbed the mountain from the west side, starting at the "Ewigschneefeld", a tributary glacier of the Aletsch Glacier. They successfully reached the summit despite very bad weather conditions. The same climbers had made an attempt on the peak in the previous year, but they could only reach a lower prominence of the Grünegghorn. The second ascent was made by W. A. B. Coolidge, with guides Christian and Rudolf Almer (sons of Christian Almer). A route on the north-east ridge was opened on 26 August