Jean-Christophe Lafaille 2003: Broad Peak
 

 Current Pakistan Time

In French Jean Christophe Lafaille

The descent

Jean Christophe has finally got back to Broad Peak base camp after a few anxious hours. He got to the summit at 10h45 with Ed Viesturs on the 15th July. He left the top at 11hr30.

Jean Christophe contacted me on the radio at midday to give me his position, but also to let me know that he felt ill and was getting worse. He was at 7500m, advancing slowly, very slowly, and he wasn’t losing much height. He was having difficulty breathing, his ribcage was tight and he didn’t have any energy in his legs, due to the lack of oxygen.

At about 18h, he told me that would stay at Camp 3 at 7,000m for the night. I told him what he knew better than me, that at that height, he would risk not waking up in the morning.

He didn’t want to listen, but happily, on getting into his tent he has a feeling of suffocation and he decided to come down with the help of Ed Viesturs and a Kazakh climber, Denis Urubko who gave up his summit attempt to help Jean-Christophe to get down. He began the long descent.

10 hours later, at dawn on the 16th July, he finally got back to Base Camp. He was very tired, and was still having difficulty breathing. After a few hours he started to feel better. After the first medical test results it seems that having climbed 3 8,000m peaks in 2 months could have provoked pulmonary oedema. On our return to France he will have a full check up.

The main thing is that he is much better today, even though he is tired after such an excellent effort in the Himalayas.

Best regards, Katia Lafaille.

[Note the above is the delayed report of the descent, they report now that Jean-Christophe is "fine and in great condition".]

Dispatches

Jean-Christophe Lafaille, has now summited Dhaulagiri and Nanga Parbat and Broad Peak in the last few weeks!!!

His dispatches from Dhaulagiri this year are here.

His dispatches from Nanga Parbat this year are here.