Jean-Christophe Lafaille (31 March 1965 – 27 January 2006 [presumed]) was a French mountaineer noted for a number of difficult ascents in the Alps and Himalaya, and 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-thousand-metre peaks, many of them alone or by previously unclimbed routes, but disappeared during a solo attempt to make the first winter ascent of Makalu, the world's fifth highest mountain. Early career Born in Gap, Hautes-Alpes, Lafaille's background was in sport climbing, and as a teenager he climbed extensively at Céüse and played a part in turning it into one of the world's best known climbing venues. In 1989 he became the first Frenchman to solo a climb graded 7c+, and one of the first to climb 8c graded routes. In the early 1990s, Lafaille qualified as a mountain guide and began mountaineering in the Alps. He made a number of difficult ascents on the Mont Blanc massif, including the first solo climb of Divine Providence on the Grand Pilier d'Angle, one of the hardest routes on the massif. Self-rescue on Annapurna On the strength of his climbs in the Alps, Lafaille was invited on an expedition to Annapurna by Pierre Béghin, one of the leading French climbers of the day. The pair attempted the mountain's vast South Face following the monsoon season in October 1992 in Alpine style, with no Sherpa support, pre-stocked campsites or fixed ropes on the upper mountain. They had reached a height of 7,400 metres when bad weather forced them to descend. The pair made a series of abseils down the face, but due to their lightweight approach they had little protective equipment and were often forced to abseil from a single piece of protection to conserve equipment. On the fourth or fifth abseil, Béghin fell to his death when the single cam he was using as an anchor became dislodged from the rock. Béghin had been carrying most of the pair's technical equipment, including all the ropes, and Lafaille was left alone on the face, a vertical mile above safety. With great difficulty, Lafaille managed to climb down the 75 degree face to the pair's last bivouac site, where