Mont Blanc and snowboarding. The three towns and their communes which surround Mont Blanc are Courmayeur in Aosta Valley, Italy; and Saint-Gervais-les-Bains and Chamonix in Haute-Savoie, France. The latter town was the site of the first Winter Olympics. A cable car ascends and crosses the mountain range from Courmayeur to Chamonix, through the Col du Géant. The 11 km (7¼-mile) Mont Blanc Tunnel, constructed between 1957 and 1965, runs beneath the mountain and is a major trans-Alpine transport route. The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was on 8 August 1786 by Jacques Balmat and the doctor Michel Paccard. This climb, initiated
The Mountain Calls try it on the same day with two different teams, Carrel on the Italian side and Whymper on the Swiss side. The latter will successfully reach the summit along with his six companions, Hudson, Hadow, Douglas and the guides Croz and Taugwalder father and son. Only Whymper and the guides Taugwalder will survive the descent. The Mountain Calls The Mountain Calls (German: "Der Berg ruft") is a film directed by Luis Trenker which recreates the struggle between Edward Whymper and Jean-Antoine Carrel for the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. The film is a remake of "Der Kampf