Patrick Berhault

One of the greatest rock climbers of the end of the twentieth century, Patrick Berhault helped to push the boundaries of the sport to limits previously thought to be impossible, thanks to immense skill, physical resistance, and the first-ever systematization of specialized physical training applied to rock climbing. At the beginning of the 80s almost overnight he became a popular figure even outside the rock climbing scene, as his acrobatic exploits on some of Europe most difficult walls often were reported by mainstream media. When he felt that the "scene" was becoming too competitive and narrow minded (he was somehow critical of rock climbing competitions), Patrick turned his attention to alpine climbing, beginning a ten year exploration of the most awesome routes of the Alps, especially in winter, with speed and precision almost unrivaled. This culminated in his "Grand Voyage Alpine" in winter 2000-2001, when, traversing on feet the entire Alpine arc from east to west from Slovenia to Southern France, in 167 days he enchained 22 of the major climbing routes of the Alps, traversing a total height gain of 140,000 meters, and climbing in total more than 22km of mountain walls. Among these lines was included the fearsome "Gousseault" route on the north wall of Grandes Jorasses (Mt. Blanc massif), climbed only twice in 30 years and considered the most difficult "mixed" route in Europe. Patrick was a well loved figure among climbers, and wrote several popular books and magazine articles. Very safety-conscious his exploits notwithstanding, he nevertheless died in untimely fashion in 2004 during a relatively easy altitude hike in Switzerland, when the snow "cornice" he was traversing collapsed.