Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The testimonies about Lachenal's mental state during these years vary greatly. Ac-
cording to Herzog (In
L'Autre Annapurna
), Lachenal was inconsolable about his loss,
and “ceaselessly bewailed” the fact that he might never climb or ski again.
If that testimony is suspect—Herzog would forever portray himself as the uncom-
plaining survivor, Lachenal as the hypochondriac—so too may be the more sanguine
witness of some of Lachenal's closest Chamonix friends, who were at pains to emphas-
ize the positive. Jean-Pierre Payot, fellow guide and climber, remembers that Lachen-
al “was not so terribly anguished. We laughed all the time together.” According to
Mauricette Couttet, widow of one of Lachenal's best friends, “He joked a lot about
losing his feet.” Payot recalls Lachenal returning a pair of special shoes he had com-
missioned, sneering at the shoemaker, “These are good only for spreading manure.”
Several friends testify that Lachenal plunged himself into town meetings, conferences,
and guides' affairs.
Yet Terray, who knew him as well as anyone, later wrote of these years:
In the end he recovered sufficiently to work as a mountaineering instructor, but he could
never recover his genius. This curtailment profoundly changed his character. Once he had
seemed magically immune from the ordinary clumsiness and weight of humankind, and the
contrast was like wearing a ball and chain.
Too poor to own a car, Lachenal had never learned to drive. As a surprise present,
late in 1950 Adèle bought him a Citroën 2 CV. A shaky driver herself, she taught her
husband how to operate an automobile. (On the driver's license Lachenal received in
January 1951, an official has written across the top, “Amputation of all the toes of the
2 feet.”)
Driving quickly became a consuming passion for Lachenal. Behind the wheel, his
lost toes made little difference. Speed on the road took the place of his legendary speed
on the cliff. He quickly taught himself all the maneuvers of a driver at Le Mans. Wrote
Terray, “I have driven with quite a number of notorious drivers, and if some of them
perhaps showed more judgment I have never known one to equal him for daring and
natural skill.”
There are many stories about Lachenal's wild driving, with enough concurrence
among the versions to keep them this side of the apocryphal. Jean-Pierre Payot was
riding with his friend once when they came to a hazardous junction. A road sign
warned: “Danger. Slow Down.” Instead, Lachenal sped up, explaining, “You have to
accelerate to avoid the danger here.”
On the highway, Lachenal would pass on blind corners, and even cut across fields
to get the jump on poky traffic. In one persistent story, as he drove with Adèle, his
