2023-06-27 13:21:27
Sophie Lavaud made history. On Monday June 26, the 55-year-old French mountaineer successfully climbed Mount Nanga Parbat, Pakistan, the last in the list of the 14 highest in the world.
She thus became the first Frenchwoman, men and women alike, to reach the summits of the 14 main mountains over 8,000 meters, located in the Himalayan and Karakorum ranges in Asia. Sophie Lavaud will have devoted eleven years of her life to it.
???? Seven Summit Treks Nanga Parbat Expedition Summit Update! ????2023 Summer !
• The entire team of our first Nanga Parbat expedition achieved a remarkable feat today (26th June 2023) by successfully climbing Mount Nanga Parbat, standing tall at 8,126 meters, between 6:55 AM -… pic.twitter.com/mDSV2uRl8d
— Seven Summit Treks ???????? (@sst8848) June 26, 2023
In mountaineering, the route “of the 8000” is one of the most popular challenges, but also the most dangerous. Overview of the highest peaks in the world.
The “8000”, an elite competition
Over the years, a real competition has developed between high-level climbers to see who would be the first to climb the 14 peaks. The first to complete the 14 × 8,000 race was finally Reinhold Messner in 1986. The competitors who succeeded him the following year were the Polish Jerzy Kukuczka and the Swiss Erhard Loretan.
Among the women, it was the Spanish mountaineer Edurne Pasaban who accomplished the feat first, in 2010. Only three women joined her: an Austrian, an Italian, and Sophie Lavaut, who has triple French nationality, Swiss and Canadian.
In total, only 44 people (40 men and 4 women) climbed “the 8000”. Some mountaineers, whose ascents are disputed, have been removed from the competition lists.
Two summits in eight hours
Climbing the 14 highest peaks is not enough for elite mountaineers. Now, they are vying for the place of the fastest to have completed the “Grand Slam”.
Norwegian mountaineer Kristin Harila, who accompanied Sophie Lavaud during her ascent of Shishapangma, is trying to break all speed records by ticking all 8,000 in less than six months. Last May, she chained Everest then Lhotse in record time, achieving her sixth summit of more than 8,000 meters in one month.
She is thus trying to beat the Nepalese Nims Dai, the first to have successfully climbed the 14 peaks over 8,000 m on the planet in six months and six days, in 2019.
Setting such a tight window of time remains disputed, such deadlines leave no room for chance and encourage risk-taking. The use of oxygen cylinders and helicopters is also considered by some professionals to be a form of “cheat”.
A significant mortality rate
Tempting, the route of the 14 highest peaks in the world is above all extremely dangerous. The altitude, the avalanches, the freezing weather conditions and the total isolation of the climbers make the ascent a risky experience, even for experienced mountaineers.
How is mountaineer frostbite treated?
Thus in 1989, two years after having climbed “the fourteen”, Jerzy Kukuczka lost his life in a new attempt to climb Lhotse. In 1995, Frenchman Benoît Chamoux disappeared during the ascent of his eleventh 8,000 meters. The French mountaineer Jean-Christophe Lafaille also lost his life after climbing eleven peaks, while he was climbing alone.
The Annapurna (8,091 m) mortality rate exceeds 30%, with 72 deaths out of 365 expeditions. That of K2 (second peak in the world, at 8,611 m) is 23%, a little more than that of Nanga Parbat, says the “killer mountain”. Everest (8,848 m), more framed, is much less dangerous, even if the death rate still reaches 5%.
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