Jean-Christophe Lafaille

Jean-Christophe Lafaille, born on 31 March 1965 in Gap in the French Hautes-Alpes, was a French mountaineer, alpinist and rock climber known for difficult first ascents and first solo winter ascents in the Alps and Himalaya. He began in sport climbing at Ceuse, where in 1987 he became the first climber to free solo a route graded 8a+, and later qualified as a mountain guide and soloed hard lines on the Mont Blanc massif. In 1992 on the south face of Annapurna his partner Pierre Beghin fell to his death and Lafaille descended alone with a broken arm, a self-rescue described as perhaps the finest ever performed in the Himalaya. He climbed eleven of the fourteen eight-thousanders and disappeared in January 2006 during a solo winter attempt on Makalu.