Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
been slow to melt: above 4,000 feet, the forest still lay blanketed in wet drifts. Slushy
streams coursed everywhere through drab fields.
In the square at the center of the sleepy perched village of Prélenfrey, Michel spot-
ted an inconspicuous plaque affixed to a limestone boulder. We got out to read it.
To Lionel TERRAY
Dead on the mountain, with Marc Martinetti, 25 years ago.
His comrades in the S.E.S., of the Compagnie STEPHANE
(1/15th BCA) 19 September 1990
The S.E.S., Michel explained, was the Section des Eclaireurs et Skieurs—the Section
of Scouts and Skiers; the BCA was the Bataillon de Chasseurs Alpins—the Battallion
of Alpine Soldiers. Thus, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death, the survivors
of Terray's doughty Compagnie Stéphane, with whom he had played his absurd and
perilous games in World War II, had assembled in this obscure plaza to commemorate
their comrade's passing. I wondered how often even the stray hiker came across this
quiet memorial, or paused as we did to ponder it.
Where the dirt road plunged into snowdrift, we parked, got out, and started hiking
up the slope. Mats of soggy dead leaves lay in the patches of clearing; birches leaned
toward the higher drifts. Soon our feet were completely soaked. In the crisp air, there
was only the faintest hint of a late spring.
The route we sought was in the center of a long wall called the Gerbier; its name
was the Fissure en Arc de Cercle. With fog covering the upper two thirds of the cliff, I
could see only a gray, featureless precipice; but Michel had soon picked out the route.
Pointing, he indicated landmarks he remembered from his own youthful ascent.
“The route was put up by Serge Coupé, who was on Makalu with Terray in 1955,”
said Michel. “Coupé did a lot of new routes in the Vercors and the Chartreuse. Every-
where you go around here, there's a
voie Coupé.
”
We stopped to gaze at what we could see of the route. “You go up six or seven
pitches there,” said Michel, suddenly animated, waving his hands in the eternal panto-
mime of climbers recalling routes, “then there's a big traverse, then five more pitches.
On the top, there are these razor-thin arêtes you have to traverse. Maybe that's why
they didn't unrope.” Later I read a route description of the fissure. In the accompa-
nying diagram, the top of the cliff was reduced to a pair of stylized horizontal lines,
marked “terraces—very easy.”
Michel stared at the cliff, as fog drifted in and out, and speculated out loud: “Poss-
ibly the accident was due to a competition between the young, very good climber run-
ning ahead, with the older, heavier climber still trying to prove he could keep up. Or
