Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
than Mont Blanc, and simply to get to the peak required a lengthy journey through
forest and foothills.
The climb was exhausting for Lachenal, but to his great joy he and a Swiss alpinist
named Coquoz reached the summit. There, he discovered and retrieved an ice axe left
by the legendary Duke of the Abruzzi (leader of the second expedition to attempt K2,
in 1909), who had made the first ascent of the mountain forty-six years earlier. Lachen-
al became the first Frenchman to reach the highest point in the Ruwenzori.
In a piece he wrote about the climb for a Lyon newspaper, Lachenal reveals a pen-
chant for hijinks and whimsy of which Herzog gives no hint in Annapurna. In the
jungle, the team meets a local man reputed to be a cannibal.
We must not have seemed very appetizing to him. He let us photograph him like a regular
chap on salary from the Tourism Office. So I asked him how we could meet tribes of true
cannibals. I wanted to see them, to get to know them!
“They certainly exist,” he answered.
“But where?”
“We don't know. No one knows. But they're nothing special. Nothing distinguishes them
from other blacks.”
“I want to eat a man. I want to know the taste. Oh, just to taste!”
At the foot of the Stanley Glacier, the team approaches a sign. Writes Lachenal:
The text ought to be pondered in France: “It is forbidden to venture onto the glacier or on
the mountain without being accompanied by a guide.” Since that was what we were, we
continued.
On the mountain, Lachenal savors a unique experience: “Coquoz took the lead on the
rope, and I found it marvelous to play for once at being the 'client.' ”
By the end of the hike out, Lachenal's feet were in excruciating pain. He had to be
helped by the natives to stagger the last few yards to his hotel. Yet the success deeply
heartened him: for the first time in two years, he began to think it possible to return to
alpinism.
Privately and alone, Lachenal began to hike up to the Col des Montets, where he
soloed short cliffs, developing a technique appropriate to his abbreviated feet. Gradu-
ally his confidence blossomed. One day, leading a group of students in a beginner's
course with his friend André Contamine—one of the best climbers among his fellow
Chamonix guides, himself a maverick individualist—Lachenal stunned the group by
challenging Contamine to a race up the cliff. Arriving neck and neck at the top, the two
guides gasped with the effort and laughed out loud with joy.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search