On Monday 26 June, Sophie Lavaud became the first French mountaineer to climb all fourteen summits over 8,000 metres: she climbed Nanga Parbat 8,127 metres. Accompanied by several sherpas, Sophie Lavaud reached the summit of the Pakistani giant with François Damilano and Ulysse Lefebvre, from Alpine Mag, who came to film the expedition. Kristin Harila and Tenjen Sherpa reach the summit the same day, and Tunc Findik from Turkey also completed his 14 x 8000 quest.
It’s a GPS track that confirms the posts on the social networks. It’s that of Ulysse Lefebvre, co-editor of Alpine Mag, who on the morning of 26 June reached the summit of Nanga Parbat 8127 metres, with the group made up of Sophie Lavaud, Dawa Sangay, François Damilano but also Kristin Harila Tunc Findik and othersherpas from various teams. The first summiters of the season numbered twenty: just over half were sherpas, and a little over half were clients. Among them was Sophie Lavaud, who became the first French woman of any gender to climb all fourteen 8000m summits. A quest she began eleven years ago! Sophie Lavaud is also Canadian and Swiss, but never until now a French succeded.
“It’s a long way. You don’t just wake up one morning and throw yourself into the 14 8000 adventure. It’s a great progression, with something that clicked in 2004 on Mont Blanc. Then 5,000s, 6,000s in South America… and finally, the Shishapangma in 2012”, Sophie Lavaud told us in 2021. She had