Some mountains draw alpinists like magnets. Summits whose very name is enough to conjure images of immense walls, extreme altitude and stories that have become legend.
Nanga Parbat, rising to 8,126 meters, is one of them.
For my first expedition to a peak above 8,000 meters, I was lucky enough to accompany Mathéo Jacquemoud on a project as ambitious as it is rare: attempting the speed ascent record on Nanga Parbat, from base camp to the summit, without oxygen, on the normal route.
My role was many things: moving with him in the mountains, documenting the adventure and making the film that would tell the story of this expedition. For almost a month, we shared the same days, the same doubts and the same obsession: being ready when the mountain gave us a chance.
Why Nanga Parbat?
Nanga Parbat is not like other 8,000ers.
Located in the Pakistani Himalaya, it is one of the peaks with the greatest elevation gain between base camp and summit. More than 3,900 meters of climbing separate the camp, set at around 4,200 meters, from the highest point.
For an athlete like Mathéo, a specialist in ski mountaineering and very long efforts, it was an exceptional playground.
But attempting a record on a mountain of this scale is not just about running fast.
First, you have to manage to live there.
Months of preparation before departure
When Mathéo told me about this project, I immediately understood that it went far beyond a film shoot.
To film an attempt like this, I had to be able to follow one of the best athletes in the world up into the 7,000-meter zone.
So for several months, I prepared for this expedition the way an athlete prepares for a major event.
Daily training, long days in the mountains, sessions in a hypoxic tent to start acclimatizing even before leaving Chamonix...
But the hardest preparation was not physical, in the end.
Organizing an expedition to Pakistan is a real challenge: permits, transporting dozens of kilos of equipment, cameras, batteries, food, tents, local logistics, budget...
Before I even set foot on the glacier, a large part of my energy had already been spent.
Pakistan, an almost empty mountain
The image many people have of the big 8,000ers is one of long lines of climbers.
On Nanga Parbat, we lived exactly the opposite.
The year before, nearly a hundred alpinists occupied base camp.
That season, there were about a dozen of us.
This low turnout profoundly changed the face of the expedition.
Fewer people also meant fewer resources to equip the mountain.
Beyond camp 3, the route was practically no longer prepared.
Yet a speed record attempt without oxygen requires a secured route so the athlete can move quickly without losing precious time breaking trail.
That reality was going to shape our entire expedition.
Living for several weeks on an 8,000er
Most of the time, an expedition is nothing spectacular.
It is made of waiting.
You climb up to sleep higher.
You come back down to recover.
You watch the weather.
You monitor the snowfall.
You listen to the wind.
Then you start again.
We set up several high camps to continue our acclimatization.
Each rotation helped us understand the mountain a little better.
Little by little, Nanga Parbat stopped being an immense, intimidating face and became terrain we were learning to know.
Between rotations, the days stretched slowly at base camp.
Conversations replaced action.
Weather maps became our daily reading.
And everyone waited for that famous window when everything could finally line up.
Another way of living alpinism
What struck me most during this expedition was the gap between our approach and that of more traditional expeditions.
Our goal was not simply to reach the summit.
We wanted to move fast, light and self-sufficiently.
Every kilo carried counted.
Every decision had to save energy.
This philosophy demands an enormous amount of preparation beforehand but offers an incredible feeling of freedom once you are committed on the mountain.
It is probably this vision of alpinism that inspires me most today.
The weather window we were waiting for
After several weeks of waiting, a short window of good weather finally appears.
We know it will probably be our only chance.
We decide to try our luck.
The climb begins in a particular atmosphere.
There is no euphoria.
Only concentration.
As we progress, a problem becomes obvious.
The mountain is still not equipped beyond about 7,100 meters.
Mathéo continues alone.
I stay lower down, unable to ensure his safety if an incident occurs.
A few hundred meters higher, he reaches about 7,300 meters.
Ahead of him, no more fixed ropes.
No more tracks.
Continuing would mean turning a record attempt into opening a new route.
It was no longer the same project.
Turning back is not failure
From the valley, it is easy to think that a missed summit is a failure.
At altitude, things are very different.
True success is often knowing when to turn around.
Mathéo chooses to go down.
Because a record is never worth more than a life.
Because a mountain will always be there the following year.
And because there was a little girl waiting for her father at home.
This moment probably sums up this expedition best.
Performance matters.
But it must never take precedence over the reasons that make us come back.
Telling the story rather than the result
When I started editing the film, one thing became obvious.
The subject was no longer the record.
The real story lay elsewhere.
It was about patience.
About preparation.
About commitment.
About a different way of approaching the very high mountains.
I had gathered hundreds of hours of footage from Pakistan, of bivouacs hanging above 6,000 meters, of paragliding flights facing Nanga Parbat, of moments of doubt and fatigue, but also of camaraderie.
The film became the portrait of a man ready to devote years to a goal that may never be achieved.
And that is precisely what makes this project so beautiful.
What Nanga Parbat taught me
I arrived in Pakistan wanting to film a record attempt.
I left with much more than that.
I discovered very high altitude.
I learned that big expeditions are mostly made of waiting.
That the hardest decisions are often the ones that mean giving up.
And that behind every performance lie months, sometimes years, of invisible effort.
The record was not broken.
But this adventure will remain one of the most defining experiences of my life.
Because some mountains offer far more than a summit.
They change, for good, the way we see alpinism.
The press covered it
The magazine Mokaddict told the story of this expedition and how my film evolved along the way. Find all the articles about my work in my press coverage.
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