Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Other climbers would have been content to specialize in the alpine big-wall routes
that quickly became Couzy's specialty. Yet despite his unhappy experience on An-
napurna, Couzy returned twice to the Himalaya, in 1954 and 1955. On the reconnais-
sance of Makalu, the world's fifth-highest mountain, the first year, and on its suc-
cessful ascent the following, Couzy became the “motor”—the strongest climber, driv-
ing his teammates to triumph, even though Terray, by then the finest expeditionary
mountaineer in France and maybe the world, was along on both expeditions.
In
Conquistadors,
Terray acknowledged what may have been Couzy's stellar deed in
the mountains, the lightning-strike first ascent of Chomolonzo in 1954, after the team
had run out of time on Makalu. This subsidiary peak, which stood only 200 meters be-
low the prestigious 8,000-meter line, was a major challenge in its own right.
Throughout the whole of the previous night we had been battered by the most violent tem-
pest I have ever known in the Himalayas. Our tent seemed likely to rip in two at any mo-
ment, and some of the seams did in fact yield under the sledge-hammer blows of the wind.
At dawn the temperature was -27° Centigrade inside the tent. . . . [P]ersonally I had no
thought but to get down out of it all as quickly as possible. Only Jean's magnetic personality
constrained me to follow him like one condemned to the scaffold. There were tears in the
Sherpas' eyes when they saw us preparing to set out, so little hope had they of seeing us
again!
The following year, Couzy and Terray were the first pair to reach the summit of
Makalu, on a French expedition so strong that all nine climbers eventually reached the
top. None of the other thirteen 8,000-meter peaks would first succumb to such a clock-
work victory.
On November 2, 1958, Couzy was attempting a new route on the Roc des Bergers
in the Alps with his friend Jean Puiseux. Couzy was leading. Puiseux heard a noise he
knew all too well—that of a rock falling from high above. He yelled, “Watch out!” The
stone struck the wall and caromed wildly. Couzy never had time to move. The rock
struck him square in the head, killing him at once.
Somehow Puiseux soloed up the rest of the wall, then accomplished an arduous des-
cent. The recovery of Couzy's body took a crack team two days of perilous toil.
Eight men, including Schatz, carried Couzy's bier to his grave near Montmaur, in
the Hautes-Alpes. Two years later, a commemorative plaque was mounted on the forest
hut where Couzy had bivouacked the night before the fatal climb. Its legend reads:
JEAN COUZY
1923-1958
