Kathmandu:

Who goes to the hills, goes to his mother. — Kim Kipling

In 1996, Chantal Mauduit, a French national, made brilliant lighting twin ascents of Lhotse (8,501m) on May 10, and Manaslu (8,163 m) on May 26. It was a remarkable climb — she became the first woman to climb Lhotse without oxygen and in a light style.

Born in Paris in 1964, Chantal embraced climbing and the mountains at the age of 15 years, the same time she lost her mother.

Experiencing death, she focused on the importance of life. Bohemian and rebellious, she lived at a rhythm of fantastic and irrepressible vitality.

At 28 years of age Chantal became one of Europe’s most experienced climbers. But the Himalayas became her passion from 1992. Then came an invitation to join an expedition in the Himalayas. It was to be a turning point, the opportunity to test the limits of her courage and skill.

When men and mountains meet, big things happen.

In the mountaineering slang, the mountain’s ‘line’ is the route that unlocks the summit. The line of Chantal’s life, that line that unlocks and defines her, is unquestionably an expedition on K2, Pakistan, in 1992. K2, or Chogori (8,611 m) is second of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks and deserved its name “Savage mountain”.

Chantal became the first woman to climb K2 without oxygen and in the light style.

The ascent of K2 started her remarkable high-altitude climbing career with a bang — she went on to climb five more 8,000-metre peaks becoming in 1997 the first woman to climb six 8,000-metre peaks without oxygen in Alpine-style.

Chantal climbed down to tell the story in her poetic narrative — a book I live in the Paradise. For her climbing K2 was like a march to the Moon.

The resulting coverage attracted sponsors and climbing partners who helped her to get to the highest mountains. Chantal became really famous during the spring of 1996, when she made the lighting twin ascents of Lhotse and Manaslu in May.

However, 1996 was a sad year on Everest. In 1995, Chantal reached South Summit (8,748 m) of Everest without oxygen. Extremely tired she was guided down by Rob Hall, noted New Zealand climber. On 10 May, when Chantal summited Lhotse, her friends Scott Fisher and Hall perished on Everest.

She took part in 18 expedItions, participated in hundreds of well-known ascents throughout the world in 18 years. She was not a “superstar,” but a quiet, highly intelligent, sensitive woman who cared little for glamour or publicity. Chantal was not a person who climbed only to relate their epics at cocktail parties in Snowville. She was led be her generous heart, which dictated her acts without thinking, eager above all to progress as an individual.

Always a vagabond, she considered herself a pilgrim with ice axe instead of wooden stuff. Chantal stocked her tent with her lovely books and read, between the ropes, Chinese fables, Camus, Zweig, and named her expeditions after flowers.

She discovered that she was continuously energised by reciting uplifting poems. They kept her pumped and efficient and gave tremendous endurance. Her poetry was a secret weapon.

With a great adventurous spirit, inspired by spiritual and aesthetic search, with her sense of land, aesthetics and passion for the mountains, she preferred small mobile expeditions. “It means to discover another planet, go on the spiritual path where you enrich your soul,” she had explained once to Figaro.

Chantal was in harmonic relations with Nepali people and decided to form a team with Ang Tshering Sherpa as her rope companion. For her friends in Nepal, she was ‘Suntala Didi’, a great heart, who adopted a small Sherpa boy Lapka and financed his education. A few years ago the friends of Chantal founded the Chantal Mauduit Association to help in the education of Ang Tshering’s two children and Lapka. Today it is a great association that looks after 90 Nepali children.

I had the great privilege of meeting and climb with Chantal in the Himalayas. Everybody in our teams held her in great esteem and all remember the enchantment of the days spent with her while climbing Annapurna South Face and Dhaulagiri in 1996 and 1997.

We can testify that Chantal was optimistic, adventurous, strong and determined, but her master word was ‘prudence’. She believed “No peak is worth dying

for it,” as too many other things interested her and incited her to come back down alive and take off for alternate horizons.

Chantal was captivated by the beauty of the world and she looked for it everywhere, everyday. Up there, she expressed herself in the kingdom which she had made her own. She was sincerely happy there, in perfect harmony with nature and extremely at ease.

She also knew how to look out for and anticipate danger in order to avoid it. She possessed a rare intelligence and an unquestionable experience, which she learned in the Himalayas.

In 1998, at the age of 34, Chantal together with Ang Tsering, was caught in an avalanche on Dhaulagiri North Face. This time Dhaulagiri was extremely cruel. Chantal paid the highest price for it. She went to paradise — her paradise, on the high mountains of the Himalayas in Nepal, her lovely country. Chantal helped many climbers find more than a mountain, showing an extraordinary route filled with light, happiness and tolerance.

Every mountaineer will share Cjistophe Profit’s words said at end of the mass for Chantal, “Above all, she showed that there was a beautiful way to get to the top.”