Liliane Barrard
Acting
Biography
Liliane Barrard discovered mountaineering at the age of thirteen, in the Chamonix valley. In 1973, she met her future husband Maurice while organizing an expedition to Peru. But not knowing his abilities in the mountains, and although his freshly graduated physiotherapist diploma could be useful, Maurice declines his collaboration, offering Liliane to participate in a less perilous race in the same country but without him. Maurice and Liliane see each other again and their common passion for extreme ascents brings them closer together. They get married and settle in Francourville in 1977. A first success at Gasherbrum II leads the Barrards to set themselves the goal of becoming the highest couple in the world by climbing the Nanga Parbat without oxygen. The obstacle is considerable because, before them, only two expeditions have conquered this summit of Pakistan. Riding with two companions who give up along the way, the couple persists before giving up after 19 days, undermined by bad weather. They lose thirteen and ten kilos respectively, their fingers have frozen and Liliane has to have a toe amputated. A year later, in 1984, after intensified physical and mental preparation, they tried their luck again with two other people, including a doctor. The weather is better than the previous year, the head and the legs too. In four days, the Barrards become the first couple to climb an "8,000" and Liliane the first woman to conquer this summit. A year later, it was at Makalu that the Barrards attacked. After fourteen days of approach to base camp at 6,700 m, they keep their crampons in favor of skis. They thus confirm and improve their denomination of the highest couple in the world. More than Everest, it is the mountain of mountains, K2, which the Barrards now dream of. In 1986, the Barrards set their sights on K2. Faced with the enthusiasm for the second highest mountain in the world, you have to wait your turn to climb the southern slope: Maurice and Liliane will team up with Polish Wanda Rutkiewicz and RTL reporter Michel Parmentier. After five days of extreme effort, exhausted, they reach 8,400 meters. For the last 211 meters remaining to climb, the bivouac group in a single tent, without down, without sleeping given the cold and the lack of oxygen. At noon the next day, they reach the summit. During the descent, Parmentier, the least exhausted is in the lead and ahead of the others. Then Wanda arrives at camp, thinking the pair are following. But the storm rises on K2 and the Barrards do not arrive. At the first light of day, Parmentier, worried, resumed the ascent, braved hell to meet his friends who had probably been forced to bivouac. The snow has covered all human traces. In radio contact with Benoît Chamoux, from an Italian expedition, the latter finally convinced him, not without difficulty, to come back down on June 26, two days later. On July 30, an expedition finds the body of Liliane Barrard, she was 38 years old. Maurice Barrard's body was not found until July 1998, at the foot of K2, in a crevasse, he was 45 years old.
Known For
Les Carnets de l'Aventure is a cult French television program of adventure and extreme sports documentaries broadcast on Saturday afternoons on Antenne 2 (France 2) between 1980 and 1989. At the beginning of the 80s, in full transformation of mountain activities into high level sports, Les Carnets de L'Aventure revealed from to the country that invented alpinism to the whole world the "French-Touch" of these talents of the new approach to the mountains and its new disciplines. Patrick Edlinger and solo free climbing with the film La Vie au Bout des Doigts, directed by Jean-Paul Janssen in 1982. But also his brother in arms Patrick Berhault, Christophe Profit in the solo ascent of Les Drus, the trilogies of Jean-Marc Boivin in hang-gliding, the Himalayan expoits of Marc Batard but also those of Patrick Gabarrou, opener of routes in the Alps and elsewhere, Patrick Vallencant and his extreme skiing, Paul-Émile Victor and many others...
Les Carnets De L'Aventure
On some peaks in 2003, the statistics are impressive. For the K2 dubbed "wild mountain" or "ruthless mountain", only 240 reached the summit and more than 60 perished in the ascent. An unimaginable rate of one death in four to survive. And these statistics are even worse At the start of the 2004 climbing season, only five talented and determined women had reached the 8,616-meter summit of K2, but only two made it out alive. , they too perished while climbing other peaks of 8000 meters, these five women all disappeared in the mountains.
Women of K2
Chris Bonington and Jim Curran trace the history of K2 expeditions from 1903 to the disastrous loss of life in the summer of 1986, when 13 climbers died on K2, climbing tragedies that aggressively carved the epithet the 'savage mountain' into the public consciousness. Jim Curran was hired by the British 'Fuller’s K2' team to document their attempt on the unclimbed NW Ridge, so he was at the mountain, all summer. Inevitably, his documentary ended up drifting into a gripping narrative from the front line of the disastrous and tragic summer that killed 13 climbers on K2.
K2 - Triumph And Tragedy On The Savage Mountain
Maurice Barrard and Liliane Bontemps met in 1973 in Peru. Four years later, they are married and start their life together in the Loire Valley. She is a physiotherapist, he is an educator. For them, although settled not far from Chartres, the mountains are never far away. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, they embark on high-altitude expeditions. First individually, then together. In 1982, they were at the top of Gasherbrum 2, an ascent filmed in this documentary prelude to other future ascents including the Nanga Parbat in 1984, after an aborted attempt a year earlier, which made Liliane Barrardi the first woman to climb this mountain. of Karakoram. The "tallest couple in the world" will not stop there. After the Makalu in 1985, in the spring of 1986 they will attempt the ascent of K2 and its 8,611 meters... Un Homme, Une Femme, Un 8000 was broadcast in the program Les Carnets de L'Aventure in 1983.
A Man, A Woman, An 8000
In 1986, Kurt Diemberger and his companion Julie Tullis came back to the K2, after two failed expeditions, in order to finally stand on the summit of the mountain of all mountains. Their dream comes true. They reach the summit of K2. However, on the way down, Julie and four other mountaineers die. They were caught by a horrible storm which forced them to stay at an altitude of 8.000m for several days, all because they had lost one important day during their ascent. Kurt Diemberger and Willi Bauer were the only ones who were able to survive this inferno on the second highest mountain on earth - merely with serious frostbites.