Mountaineering In 1573 Francesco De Marchi and Francesco Di Domenico ascended Corno Grande, the highest peak in the Apennine Mountains. During the Enlightenment, as a product of the new spirit of curiosity for the natural world, many mountain summits were surmounted for the first time.. In 1741 Richard Pococke and William Windham made a historic visit to Chamonix. In 1757 Swiss scientist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure made the first of several unsuccessful attempts on Mont Blanc in France, finally offering a reward, which was claimed in 1786 by Jacques Balmat and Michel-Gabriel Paccard. By the early 19th century many of the alpine
1986 K2 disaster an avalanche on 21 June. Pennington's body was pulled out by climbers who had witnessed the incident, but Smolich's body has yet to be found. The rest of the team left the mountain shortly after the accident. On 23 June, French climbers Liliane and Maurice Barrard reached the summit, just 30 minutes after their teammate Wanda Rutkiewicz became the first woman to summit K2. Both Liliane Barrard and Rutkiewicz were climbing without bottled oxygen. As darkness fell, all three, along with team member Michel Parmentier and two Spanish climbers, Mari Abrego and Josema Casimiro, had to make an emergency bivouac