Jean-Christophe Lafaille

Jean-Christophe Lafaille was a French mountaineer, alpinist and rock climber who was noted for difficult first ascents and first solo winter ascents, in the Alps and in the Himalaya, as well as setting new milestones in free solo climbing. Considered one of the strongest alpinists of his generation, he is also remembered for what has been described as "perhaps the finest self-rescue ever performed in the Himalaya", when he was forced to descend the mile-high south face of Annapurna alone with a broken arm after his climbing partner had been killed in a fall. He climbed eleven of the fourteen eight-thousanders, many of them alone or by new climbing routes. He disappeared during a solo attempt to make the first winter ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain.