Gasherbrum II. Ours was the first commercial French expedition to an 8000er. We had three guides: Michel Vincent, Alberto Re and me. On July 11 Vincent, Re, Olivier Paulin, Theo Mayer, Pierre Gévaux, André Molinaire, Christian Frémont, all French except for Italian Re and American Mayer, and high-altitude porters Ghulam Hassan and Ibrahim reached the summit of Gasherbrum II (8035 meters, 26,362 feet). Gévaux descended in five minutes by parachute to Camp I at 6000 meters. That same day Italians Renato Casarotto, his wife Goretta, Gabriel Slovina Ubaldini and high-altitude porter Mohammed Ali also reached the summit. She was the first Italian woman to climb an 8000er. Tragically shortly thereafter Jean-Pierre Bouygues died on the descent from Camp IV from cerebral edema. With us was also the team of Jean-Marc Boivin. He had reached the summit on July 8 in the company of Bernard Prudhomme, Laurent Chevallier, Michel Poencet, François Diaféria, Gérard Vionnet-Fuassé and Pakistani porter Little Karim, who carried a hang-glider. They had continued on despite the death on June 24 of their Japanese photographer, Taru Nakano. He was jümaring between Camps I and II. Because the fixed rope was buried in new snow, he released his Jümars to try to climb the final ten meters to a terrace. The snow collapsed under his feet and he fell 400 meters to his death. On July 13 Boivin set out from Camp I with porter Ghulam Hassan and climbed to Camp IV at 7400 meters. After climbing solo to the summit on July 14, he descended to Camp I in the hang-glider. All these ascents were by the normal (Moravec) route.

Claude Jaccoux, Club Alpin Français