Jean-Christophe Lafaille

Jean-Christophe Lafaille (31 March 1965 – 27 January 2006 [presumed]) was a French mountaineer, alpinist and rock climber who was noted for difficult first ascents, and first solo and first solo winter ascents, in the Alps and in the Himalaya, as well as setting new milestones in free solo climbing. Considered one of the strongest alpinists of his generation, he is also remembered for what has been described as "perhaps the finest self-rescue ever performed in the Himalaya", when he was forced to descend the mile-high south face of Annapurna alone with a broken arm after his climbing partner had been killed in a fall. He climbed eleven of the fourteen eight-thousanders, many of them alone or by new climbing routes. He disappeared during a solo attempt to make the first winter ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain.

Early career

Born in Gap, Hautes-Alpes, Lafaille's background was in sport climbing, and as a teenager he climbed extensively at Céüse and played a part in turning it into one of the world's best known sport climbing venues, this included his 1989 bolting of Realization/Biographie, which would become of the most notable routes in rock climbing history when Chris Sharma ascented it in 2001. In 1987, he became the first-ever climber to free solo an graded route in history with Rêve de gosse, and he redpointed routes up to grade .

In the early 1990s, Lafaille qualified as a mountain guide and began mountaineering and alpine climbing in the Alps. He made a number of difficult ascents on the Mont Blanc massif, including the first solo ascent of Divine Providence (900m, ED4, 7b+), on the Grand Pilier d'Angle, considered one of the hardest alpine climbing routes on the massif.

Self-rescue on Annapurna

On the strength of his climbs in the Alps, Lafaille was invited on an expedition to Annapurna by Pierre Béghin, one of the leading French climbers of the day. The pair attempted the mountain's vast South Face following the monsoon season in October 1992 in Alpine style, with no Sherpa support, pre-stocked campsites or fixed ropes on the upper mountain. They had reached a height of 7,400 metres when bad weather forced them to descend.thumb|right|The South Face of AnnapurnaWith great difficulty, Lafaille managed to climb down the 75 degree face to the pair's last bivouac site, where he found 20 metres of thin rope, allowing him to make short abseils down some of the hardest parts. With no technical equipment to use as anchors he was forced to entrust his weight to tent pegs or, on one occasion, a plastic bottle. He finally reached what should have been the relative safety of the top of a fixed rope which he and Beghin had installed on a steep rock band, but almost immediately he was struck by a falling rock, which broke his right arm. Disabled and helpless, he lay on a ledge for two days in the hope that other climbers would rescue him. However, while there was a Slovenian team attempting a route on a different part of the South Face, they judged that a rescue attempt would be too dangerous to undertake, so help never came. The cruelest thing about the ordeal, Lafaille said, was being able to see life in the valley below, and by night, the flashbulbs of trekkers' cameras. In spite of this, he later agreed that the Slovenians had made the right decision in not trying to save him. Reinhold Messner later said that the survival instinct he showed was of the sort which defines the best mountaineers.

Subsequent career

thumb|right|upright|[[Les Drus, where Lafaille made his hardest Alpine climb]]

After Annapurna, Lafaille resolved never to climb again, but during his long physical and psychological recovery he began scrambling in the foothills of the Alps, and eventually returned to extreme climbing. and made the first ascent of the Lafaille Route on the Petit Dru, which at the time was considered the hardest route in the Alps, but his most important climbs were in the Himalaya.

A year after his accident on Annapurna, he climbed Cho Oyu, and then in 1994 he climbed a new route, again solo, on the north face of Shishapangma. It was the first of many solo climbing ascents of eight-thousander peaks, including consecutive ascents of Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II in four days in 1996, and Manaslu in 2001. He returned to the mountain three times. The first time he made a solo attempt on the British line on the South Face, which failed due to poor snow conditions. In 1998 he returned to the same route with a larger team, but the expedition was abandoned when a team member was killed in an avalanche.

In December 2004, he made a solo ascent of Shishapangma. It was intended to be the first winter ascent of the mountain, but he reached the summit on 11 December which was seen as too early to be classed as a true winter ascent. and has returned to his father's routes in the Himalayas. In 2023, Tom Lafaille made the first successful French ski descent from Broad Peak.

References

External links

Lafaille References