2023-07-27 16:33:04
92 days to climb the 14 highest peaks in the world. This is the feat achieved by Norwegian Kristin Harila and her Nepalese guide Tenjin Sherpa in 2023. They finished their race this Thursday, July 27 by Mount K2, the second highest peak in the world, located in Pakistan.
With this ascent, they finish a race started on April 26, at Shishapangma (8,027 m), in Tibet, in the Himalayas. In 3 months and one day, the two acolytes climbed the 14 peaks over 8,000 m including Everest (8,849 m), Kangchenjunga (8,586 m) or Lhoste (8,516 m), most of them located on the Himalayan mountain range.
The previous record was held by Nepalo-British Nirmal Purja, who set it with a bang in 2019, in just six months and six days.
About forty men and only a few women have reached the 14 peaks culminating above 8,000 meters. The Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, in 1986, was the first to have achieved it. Men and women alike, Sophie Lavaud is the only French woman to have achieved this feat on June 26, 2023.
The world of mountaineering is full of records, each more impressive than the next. Overview of these high-pitched exploits.
► The Grandes Jorasses solo: six days of cold and fatigue
The ascent of the “Rolling Stones”, the famous north face of the Grandes Jorasses on the Mont Blanc massif by Charles Dubouloz in January 2022 remains in the annals.
Already for its weather conditions: for the first time, the ascent of the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, is carried out in winter, constantly in the shade, with temperatures dropping below -15°C during very short days.
Then the north face is known for its steepness, forcing the mountaineer to make summary bivouacs, to sleep in a hammock hanging above the void or sitting on a step.
A performance all the more extraordinary, as the ascent in solo requires to carry out twice the course uphill and once while descending between the two. The first climb allows you to position the next relay and the second to take back the protective equipment in the event of a fall.
► The round trip of Kilimanjaro, the women’s record held by a French woman
She had almost broken the record in 2019. It was finally in August 2021 that Vanessa Morales, a nurse from Perpignan, shattered the women’s record for climbing Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa which culminates at 5,895 meters, in 11 hours and 33 minutes, against the previous record: 13 hours and 30 minutes.
For practice, she had already done it three times the previous week. In 2019, she had swallowed the 5,895 meters of altitude in 9 hours 58 minutes and 49 seconds, a chrono stopped several times to come to the aid of her guide who suffered from altitude sickness. The time was ultimately not approved. But the Toulouse mountaineer managed to break the record, two years later, in 2021.
► The first ascent of Everest in 1953
New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay are the first to achieve the feat of climbing Everest, the highest peak in the world: 8,849 m. On May 29, 1953, they climbed the Nepalese side and braved strong winds, a snowstorm and temperatures of -28 ºC to reach the summit.
Britons were the first to attempt to climb the roof of the world in 1921, without success. The first three French Jean Afanassieff, Nicolas Jaeger and Pierre Mazeaud, overcome Everest in 1978.
► 4 hours and 57 minutes for the Mont Blanc round trip in 2013
Kilian Jornet, 25-year-old ski mountaineering and ultra-trail world champion, had climbed Mont Blanc and reached Chamonix in 4 hours and 57 minutes on July 11, 2013. Swallowing the 3,773 meters of vertical drop towards the mountain White in 3 hours and 30 minutes, the Spaniard was accompanied by Frenchman Mathéo Jacquemoud, also a young ski mountaineering world champion. The 22-year-old had to stop on the way down, injured.
It was therefore alone that Kilian Jornet had beaten the previous record set in 1990 by Pierre-André Gobet who had made the round trip of 5 hours 10 minutes and 44 seconds.
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