Chamonix, situated on the slope of Mont Blanc in eastern France, is one of the country's premier skiing grounds. As the highest mountain in Western Europe, Mont Blanc has been a popular destination even before it hosted the 1924 Winter Olympics, attracting practitioners of extreme sports such as ice climbing, canyoning, snowboarding and extreme skiing in the winter. During the summer, rock climbers, and mountain bikers swarm the town, enjoying the hundreds of challenging trails in the region. An extensive cable car system shuttles people around the slopes in both seasons. Though it looks like little more than a mountain village, the town of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc has depended on tourism since the nineteenth century, and today sees about 5 million visitors a year.
