One of the greatest mountaineers of all time, Lionel Terray was born in Grenoble in 1921. Drawn to the mountains, he was climbing by the age of twelve (against the wishes of his mother, who said 'I shall be happy for you to go into any sport except motor-cycling and climbing.') and competing in national skiing competitions by twenty. He would go on to climb with mountaineering legends Gaston Rebuffat, Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal and become involved with major first ascents across the globe. These included the of Annapurna - the first 8,000-metre peak to be climbed - and Makalu in the Himalaya, and FitzRoy and Huantsam in South America. He also spent time working in Canada and became a major pioneer in North American climbing, making the first ascent of Alaska's Mount Huntington. Closer to home, he made the second ascent of the North Face of the Eiger and was noted for the speed of his climbs, making quick ascents of some of the most notorious routes in the Alps, including the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses, and the north-east face of Piz Badile.
Terray died in 1965, in a climbing accident in the Vercors with his Mount Huntington partner Marc Martinetti. He is buried in Chamonix.
