Jacques Balmat Jacques Balmat Jacques Balmat, called "le Mont Blanc" (1762–1834) was a mountaineer, a Savoyard mountain guide, born in the Chamonix valley in Savoy, at this time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. A chamois hunter and collector of crystals, Balmat completed the first ascent of Mont Blanc with physician Michel-Gabriel Paccard on 8 August 1786. For this feat, King Victor Amadeus III gave him the honorary title "le Mont Blanc". Balmat and Paccard's ascent of Mont Blanc was a major accomplishment in the early history of mountaineering. C. Douglas Milner wrote "The ascent itself was magnificent; an amazing feat of
The Mountain Calls 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 ums Matterhorn" ("Struggle for the Matterhorn") in which Trenker acted in 1928. The Italian mountaineer Jean-Antoine Carrel wants to be the first man to reach the summit of the Matterhorn. He meets the British mountaineer Whymper and they decide to climb together. But due to an intrigue this agreement is dropped and the two men