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
The Night Climbers of Oxford The Night Climbers of Oxford The Night Climbers of Oxford is a secret society, dedicated to nocturnally scaling College and town Buildings in Oxford, England. The society is particularly renowned for its political activism, controversial acts ,and urban exploration. The society was likely inspired by their Cambridge counterparts, The Night Climbers of Cambridge Their activities are forbidden by the University authorities, meaning that acts are completed under the cover of darkness, to avoid detection. Acts of nocturnal climbing in Oxford are reported to date back as early as the 1930's, with members of the Alpine Club and Oxford University Mountaineering