2023-06-26 20:24:12
Sophie Lavaud enters the history of French mountaineering: on Monday, she became the first French woman, men and women alike, to have managed to climb the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters on the planet, completing her feat by conquest of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan.
Published on: 06/26/2023 – 20:24Modified on: 06/27/2023 – 10:52
The performance brings Sophie Lavaud directly into the very exclusive club – some forty members – of world mountaineering, bringing together those who have conquered the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters on the planet. At 55, Sophie Lavaud also became on Monday June 26 the first Frenchwoman, women and men alike, to achieve this feat.
“The more I climb these big mountains, the more I realize that we are nothing in the face of the immensity of the Himalayas”, she had explained to AFP a few days before embarking on the ascent. Nanga Parbat, a peak located in Pakistan and rising to 8,126 meters above sea level.
After twelve hours of extreme mountaineering, in difficult conditions marked by heavy snowfall and squalls, the climber realized her dream, a project started more than ten years ago, making history at the same time. of the Himalayas.
“Our entire expedition team successfully climbed Mount Nanga Parbat,” operator Chhang Dawa Sherpa, in charge of the ascent, said on social media early Monday morning.
The summit of Nanga Parbat is reflected in a pond in the tourist village of Fairy Meadows, Pakistan, October 13, 2019. © Amélie Herenstein, AFP (archives)
A few hours later, Sophie Lavaud’s entourage confirmed to AFP that the group was safe and sound and had stopped at Nanga Parbat camp 3, at 6,750 meters above sea level, to spend the night before. to go back down to base camp on Tuesday.
The expedition, made up of twenty experienced mountaineers, including the famous Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila, who seeks to climb the 14 highest peaks on the planet (over 8,000 m) in less than six months, achieved its goal in 9:15 a.m.
“Special Flavor”
“The Nanga Parbat has a special flavor because if I reach the summit, this great project initiated 11 years ago will come true! I find it hard to believe,” said Sophie Lavaud, mountaineer with triple nationality (French , Swiss and Canadian).
She discovered the mountain while growing up in Argentière (Haute-Savoie), but this project began to take shape in her mind in 2012, when she reached her first “8,000”, the Cho Oyu, a Tibetan peak.
“In 2015, I resigned from my last job (she ran an event company, editor’s note) to take the plunge and devote myself fully to this objective (…). I like the adventure that comes with in each expedition, I like the countries, the villages that we cross, the meetings, the life on the base camps”, she had detailed.
About 40 men and women worldwide have climbed the fourteen Himalayan giants, according to the online database The Himalayan Database. Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, in 1986, was the first to do so.
But Sophie Lavaud is the only Frenchwoman to have accomplished such a feat. And just a handful of women before her had succeeded.
In the 1990s, several French mountaineers attempted to achieve this. The Parisian Chantal Mauduit had reached six, without oxygen and in alpine style, between 1992 and 1997, but lost her life a year later at 34, attacking Dhaulagiri (Nepal).
Undated and unlocated photo of French mountaineer Chantal Mauduit. © COR, AFP (archives)
Just like Gapençais Jean-Christophe Lafaille, who died in 2006 while tackling the first solo winter ascent of Makalu, his twelfth “8,000”.
“My driving force is neither performance nor the quest for achievement,” Sophie Lavaud told AFP from Nanga Parbat base camp.
It is therefore “the love of adventure” that led the mountaineer to the summits.
With AFP
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