When the financial crisis ruined her business, Sophie Lavaud turned to the highest mountains. Her big goal, which only three women have achieved, she pursues with the same dedication as when she was a girl, the dream of a career as a ballerina.
Rue in the canton of Friborg, the last evening of February. It’s a big church hall for a small village, and it’s almost full. Sophie Lavaud gives a lecture, “K2 – a dream, a project, a summit”. Lavaud, 54, is from Geneva and a high-altitude climber, the K2 in the Karakoram is a notorious mountain, the second highest in the world, 8611 meters high. Lavaud tells how an avalanche swept away Camp III during her first expedition on the most difficult eight-thousander in 2016. How she returned to the K2 in 2018 and was the first Swiss woman to make it to the summit, 1400 meters of ascent and 3600 meters of descent in one go, 39 hours without sleep.