Jean Couzy

Jean Couzy is a French mountaineer, born on July 9, 1923 in Nérac in Lot-et-Garonne and died on November 2, 1958 in Dévoluy. Amateur mountaineer, both absolute glacier and high-level climber, he participated in 1950 in the victorious expedition of the Annapurnas, the first 8,000 m in the history of mountaineering, and in 1955 he made the first ascent of Makalu (8,463 m), also in the Himalayas.

Jean Couzy was born in 1923 in Nérac in Lot-et-Garonne. As a teenager, he frequented the Pyrenees but his studies – he entered the École polytechnique with the promotion of 1942 – and the Second World War did not allow him to devote himself entirely to mountain activities. Settled in Paris for his studies, he frequents the Parisian mountaineers and practices climbing in Fontainebleau and in the Saussois. There he meets Marcel Schatz who will become his climbing partner.

For his first climbing season, Jean Couzy chose in 1946 to go to the Austrian Alps. In 1948, he returned to the Pyrenees where he made the Pic des Crabioules for the first time. The same year and the following years, he assiduously frequented the Dolomites where he repeated renowned routes or made first ascents. It also repeats great races and opens up new routes in the Western Alps. Jean Couzy is also one of the first to open difficult routes on the limestone walls of the Pre-Alps.

Jean Couzy takes part in several expeditions in the Himalayas. In 1955, he made with Lionel Terray the first ascent of Makalu, the fifth highest peak in the world (8,463 m). Five years earlier, Jean Couzy had already been part of the French expedition led by Maurice Herzog to Annapurna, the first of fourteen peaks over 8,000 meters climbed.

In 1954, Jean Couzy met René Desmaison in Fontainebleau and in the Saussois. They therefore form a common rope: after a few prestigious events in the Alps, they achieve many difficult firsts (notably the NW face of the Olan, the winter of the W face of the Drus, the Marguerite spur of the north face of the Grandes Jorasses). In 1958, Jean Couzy and René Desmaison went to the Dolomites with the intention of establishing a direct route, which they had imagined the previous summer, on the Cima Ovest by artificial climbing. But they can not carry out their project for lack of material in sufficient quantity.

Jean Couzy pursues his career as an amateur mountaineer while continuing his professional career in the Air Force and without sacrificing his family life (he is married and has four children). He is interested in the classification of difficulties and the history of mountaineering; he is in charge of the Alpine Chronicle which presents the new climbs in the Club Alpin Français magazine, “La Montagne”. Jean Couzy’s approach to the risks inherent in the mountains is rational. He wants to be careful and refuses, for example, to go mountaineering alone.

On November 2, 1958, while clearing his way with Jean Puiseux on the south face of the Bergers ridge (southern edge of the Bure plateau) in the Dévoluy massif, Jean Couzy was hit in the head by a rockslide. . he. He is buried in the Montmaur cemetery at the foot of the mountain where his accident occurred.