Lionel Terray

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Lionel Terray (born July 25, 1921 in Grenoble , † September 19, 1965 in the Vercors massif) was one of the best French mountaineers . His name is associated with many extreme routes in the Alps (2nd ascent of the Eiger north face ), but also with first ascents of famous mountains such as the Makalu (8485 m), the Jannu (7710 m) or the Fitz Roy (3406 m).

Terray's grave in Chamonix

Life

Lionel Terray started mountain sports early in his life: he was three and a half years old when he skied for the first time. In his school days he went mountaineering as often as he could, even when his parents forbade him. In the 1940s he settled in the Chamonix valley and earned his living as a farmer in summer and as a ski instructor in winter.

In 1941 he joined the "Jeunesse et Montagne", a military unit founded in 1940, where he met Gaston Rébuffat , who had a strong influence on his alpine development.

In 1942 he married a teacher from Saint-Gervais-les-Bains . During the Second World War , Terray took part with a ski battalion on the Maurienne front.

After the war, Lionel Terray dedicated himself entirely to mountaineering and also became an official mountain guide . Together with Louis Lachenal , he succeeded in numerous tours which at the time were among the most difficult things an extreme mountaineer could manage, e.g. B. the Eiger or the Grandes Jorasses north face. In 1946 Terray became a ski instructor and left his home country for a few years to work in Québec as a supervisor for the national ski team.

In 1950 Terray took part in the famous French expedition to Annapurna (8091 m), in which Maurice Herzog , Louis Lachenal , Gaston Rébuffat , Marcel Schatz , Jean Couzy , Jacques Oudot and Marcel Ichac were also involved and which for the first time ever climbed one Eight-thousander led.

In 1952, together with Guido Magnone, he managed the first ascent of Fitz Roy in Patagonia, and in 1955 that of Makalu with Jean Couzy .

In 1959 Terray was a member of an expedition that set itself the goal of the first ascent of Jannu (7710 m). This failed, but Terray returned to Jannu in 1962 with his own expedition, was able to book the first ascent by René Desmaison , Paul Kellar and Robert Paragot on April 28 and finally reached the summit himself a day later.

In 1965, Terray and his friend Marc Martinetti fatally fell on the Arêtes du Gerbier in the Vercors massif in the French Prealps.

The title of a book by Lionel Terray, which is quoted again and again and seen as the defining definition of mountaineering, is very well known: "The conquest of the useless". (The original title of the book is Les Conquérants de l'inutile , actually The Conquerors of the Useless .)

Special alpine achievements

Fonts

  • Les Conquérants de l'inutile . German Translated by Herbert Stifter: Before the gates of heaven. From the Alps to Annapurna . Munich, Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1965.
    New edition (with an introduction by Luis Trenker) under the title: Große Bergfahrten . Munich, Nymphenburger Verlag 1975. ISBN 3485017590
    Engl. Transl .: Conquistadors of the Useless . Baton Wicks Publications. ISBN 1898573387 ; Mountaineers Books, ISBN 0898867789

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Stephen Venables: To the Limit . Bruckmann Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7654-4819-5 , p. 66 .
personal data
SURNAME Terray, Lionel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French climber
DATE OF BIRTH July 25, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Grenoble
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1965
Place of death Vercors massif