Jean-Christophe Lafaille - Subsequent Career

Subsequent Career

After Annapurna, Lafaille resolved never to climb again, but during his long physical and psychological recovery he began scrambling in the foothills of the Alps, and eventually returned to extreme climbing. In the Alps he carried out an enchainment of nine north faces in fifteen days, skiing from mountain to mountain, and made the first ascent of the Lafaille Route on the Petit Dru, which at the time was considered the hardest route in the Alps, but his most important climbs were in the Himalaya.

A year after his accident on Annapurna, he climbed Cho Oyu, and then in 1994 he climbed a new route, solo, on the north face of Shisha Pangma. It was the first of many solo ascents of 8000 meter peaks, including consecutive ascents of Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II in four days in 1996, and Manaslu in 2001.

Annapurna remained an obsession for Lafaille, and he would later call his autobiography Prisoner of Annapurna. He returned to the mountain three times. The first time he made a solo attempt on the British line on the South Face, which failed due to poor snow conditions. In 1998 he returned to the same route with a larger team, but the expedition was abandoned when a team member was killed in an avalanche. He finally reached the summit in 2002 with Alberto Iñurrategi via the long, committing east ridge.

By 2003 Lafaille had decided to try to climb all fourteen 8000-metre peaks; but unlike many of the mountaineers who take on this goal, he had no desire simply to climb them by well established routes, in large expeditions and with bottled oxygen. He preferred to continue trying to achieve new routes or solo ascents, or to climb in the more demanding winter season. In 2003 he climbed Nanga Parbat, Dhaulagiri (solo) and Broad Peak in a two-month period. The last of these nearly killed him when he fell into a crevasse and then developed high altitude pulmonary edema. He was rescued by Ed Viesturs and Denis Urubko.

In December 2004 he made a solo ascent of Shisha Pangma. It was intended to be the first winter ascent of the mountain, but he reached the summit on 11 December which was seen as too early to be classed as a true winter ascent. By this point he had completed eleven of the fourteen peaks, and needed only Everest, Kanchenjunga and Makalu to complete his goal.