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
1996 Mount Everest disaster supplemental oxygen, guide Boukreev from the Mountain Madness team reached the summit (8,848 m/29,029 ft) first at 13:07. Many of the climbers had not yet reached the summit by 14:00, the last safe time to turn around to reach Camp IV before nightfall. Boukreev began his descent to Camp IV at 14:30, having spent nearly 1.5 hours at or near the summit helping others complete their climb. By that time, Hall, Krakauer, Harris, Beidleman, Namba and Mountain Madness clients Martin Adams and Klev Schoening had reached the summit, and the remaining four Mountain Madness clients had arrived. After this time,