Sophie Lavaud: Hers the eternal snows

She is the first French woman to have climbed the fourteen peaks of more than 8,000 meters. There's nothing hotheaded about this fifty-year-old. Conquering the sky. Step by step, summit after summit, Sophie Lavaud won a title that many have paid for with their lives. She is not proud of it. “Being the first” has never been the main motivation for this former entrepreneur, who climbs more for pleasure than for fame, and who always reminds us that no victory, “up there”, can be won alone. A newcomer to mountaineering, she knows everything she owes to the first “conquerors of the useless”, to the guides and to the Sherpas. She is characterized by two words: determination, humility. The ascent of Nanga Parbat on Monday 26 June was his last major Himalayan challenge