Sophie Lavaud at Nanga Parbat (Pakistan), in July
” Summit ! » Pre-recorded before the start of the ascent of the last Himalayan giant that was missing from her collection, these six letters flew from Sophie Lavaud’s mini-satellite phone, Monday June 26, at 6:15 a.m. (Paris time), from the summit of Nanga Parbat (8,126 meters above sea level), in Pakistan. In front of her bowl of tea, in Haute-Savoie, Christine Lamarche, the faithful friend of the 55-year-old mountaineer, responsible for distilling the news of his ascents, welcomed them with relief.
Read also: Sophie Lavaud, first French mountaineer, all genres combined, to climb the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters on the planet
” Summit. This very simple word introduces Sophie Lavaud into the annals of the Himalayas. She is now the first French climber, of all genres, the first Swiss and the first Canadian, to have climbed the fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters on the planet: a “club” of a few dozen people, of whom only six women (and even only three, according to experts who dispute the validity of certain ascents made to the anterior summits).
Clumsy like cosmonauts in their down suits, Sophie Lavaud and the Nepalese Dawa Sangay Sherpa, who has paved the way for her on most of the Himalayan peaks in recent years, have certainly hugged each other, in tears. And, at -18°C and in a 50 km/h westerly wind, she must have stammered with incredulous joy, facing François Damilano’s camera. Since their meeting at Cho Oyu (8,201 m), in 2012, the filmmaker and Chamonix guide has filmed Sophie Lavaud on the flanks of Everest (8,848 m), in 2014, then on those of the dreaded K2 (8,611 m ), in 2016. And he wouldn’t have missed the “last step” of this quest that began eleven years ago.
After more than twelve hours of exhausting progression, at night, over almost 1,500 meters of elevation gain leading from camp 3 (6,646 m) to the summit, the friends were undoubtedly briefly intoxicated by the 360-degree panorama, before hunting the euphoria likely to turn the great adventure into tragedy, during the descent. Monday at midday (Paris time), they were back at camp 3, but Sophie Lavaud then reported significant amounts of snow imposing an indefinite break. A few hours later, she was able to resume the descent to base camp, which she reached on Tuesday morning.
The “killer mountain”
The Nanga Parbat (“naked mountain”) or Diamir (“king of the mountains”) is tricky. A gust of wind, and its bucolic base camp, dotted with forget-me-nots and buttercups, turns into a field of snowdrifts. Its most classic route – the Kinshofer route, taken by Sophie Lavaud – climbs vertiginous slopes interspersed with avalanche corridors and exposed to falling rocks. Dozens of climbers have lost their lives on its flanks since its first ascent in July 1953, earning it the nickname “killer mountain”. So many elements known to Sophie Lavaud, who, victim of food poisoning and adverse weather on the spot, in the summer of 2022, had to give up.
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