Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, conquerors of the impossible.

Several mountains of legend became accessible to a greater number of people. The access roads to certain summits are even true motorways: it is the case of the Mount Blanc by the way of the Cristalliers, of Kilimandjaro by the Naremoru way, Aconcagua by North, even if some their faces can be climbed only by experienced mountaineers .
It is not the case of the Fitz Roy. Only a few tens of ropes arrived at the summit of this mythical mountain.
Deified by the Indian tribes of the area, “el Chalten” (its original name ), in the opinion of the rare explorers to have seen it, was considered inaccessible, due to its 1600 meters of vertical wall.
1952: since 20 days already, although it chose the period of the southern summer to try the rise of it, a particularly trained mountaineers expedition suffer with the attacks of the cold and the biting wind come from the area of the large Chilean glaciers, on the other side of the mountain. In tents transformed into igloo by the successive snowstorms, they wait the favorable moment. They have time to choose their way and to decipher it. They will choose the south-eastern way.

The last bivouac is installed at the place called “the breach of the Italians”. This morning when 2 men decide to leave, the conditions seem favorable.
Quickly however the rise becomes nightmarish and invites them to surpass themselves. Extreme technical difficulties (of level 6 of free climbing and A3 level of artificial climbing) push them to renounce. At the cost of a will out of the ordinary and of an unimaginable effort, Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone spend 2 days to arrive at the summit. We are the 2nd of February, 1952.

Lionel Terray (Fr.1921-1965) winner of the Northern face of Grandes Jorasses in 1946, the Northern face of Eiger in 1947, Annapurna in 1950 (with Maurice Herzog), of Makalu in 1955 ,
Author of the “conquerors of the useless" Ed. Guérin
Guido Magnone (It.1917- ) northern face of Eiger in 1952, first of the western face of the Drus, Makalu in 1955