Edited by:
Massimo Martini
French mountaineer, mountain guide, writer, photographer and filmmaker, the first person to climb all six of the great north faces of the Alps.
Personal details
Name: Gaston Rébuffat
Date of birth: 7 May 1921 – Marseille
Date of death: 31 May 1985 – Bobigny (Paris area)
Nationality: French
Occupation: mountaineer, mountain guide, writer, photographer and filmmaker
Affiliation: Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix
Biography
Gaston Rébuffat was born in Marseille and discoveredclimbing at the age of fifteen on the limestone cliffs of the Calanques, where Henri Moulin, a few years his senior, introduced him to roping up. He went on to climb the rock faces of Provence, including Sainte-Victoire, and at the age of sixteen he joined the French Alpine Club, Provence section. From there he moved on to high-altitude mountaineering, in the Écrins massif and the Mont Blanc range.
During the war, he was a member of ‘Jeunesse et Montagne’, a French organisation for youth training in mountaineering, and met Lionel Terray, who became his main climbing partner: the Terray family put him up at their farm in Les Houches, the base for his first high-altitude expeditions. In 1942, he obtained his guide’s certificate at the age of twenty-one – despite the minimum age requirement at the time being twenty-three – thanks to a special dispensation, and served as a mountaineering instructor for the French army. He then settled in Chamonix and joined the Compagnie des Guides, traditionally reserved for natives of the valley: Rébuffat, like others before him, came from outside the area. The profession of mountain guide was not merely a side venture alongside his major ascents, but the foundation upon which he built his career.
His name remains associated with the six great north faces of the Alps. He did not open any of the six routes, but he was the first mountaineer to climb them all, in just over seven years, concluding the series on the Eiger. In 1950, he was part of the French expedition to Annapurna led by Maurice Herzog, which resulted in the first ascent of a peak over 8,000 metres. Rébuffat did not reach the summit: together with Terray, he helped his companions who had reached it, during a descent marked by frostbite and bad weather. For this reason, he should be remembered as a member of the expedition, not as a climber of Annapurna.
By the end of his career, he had completed over 1,200 ascents classified as difficult or very difficult, including numerous first ascents in the Mont Blanc massif. Alongside his mountaineering, he produced books, photographs, films and gave lectures. *Étoiles et tempêtes*, published in 1954 and dedicated to the six north faces, was adapted into a film that won an award at the Trento Film Festival in 1955. In 1961, the film Entre terre et ciel, made with the photographer Pierre Tairraz, won the Grand Prix at the tenth edition of the festival. In his writings, he portrayed mountaineering as an experience shared with his climbing partner, and openly opposed the competitive spirit that led to national flags being planted on summits.
A photograph of him, taken by Georges Tairraz, standing on a narrow rocky pinnacle with ropes in his hands and the Mont Blanc massif behind him, was included on the Voyager Golden Record, the disc sent into space with the Voyager probes in 1977. The location pictured is the Pic du Roc, a secondary summit, often referred to as the Aiguille du Roc. In 1984, Rébuffat was appointed an Officer of the Legion of Honour. He died the following year, having suffered from cancer, at the age of sixty-four.
Mountaineering achievements
Grandes Jorasses – 1945 – repeat ascent of the north face, Walker Spur (Cassin route), with Édouard Frendo
Petit Dru - 1946 – repeat ascent of the north face, Allain-Leininger route, with René Mallieux
Pizzo Badile – 1948 – repeat ascent of the north-east face, Cassin route, with Bernard Pierre
Matterhorn - 1949 - repeat ascent of the north face, Schmid route, with Raymond Simond
Cima Grande di Lavaredo - 1949 – repeat ascent of the north face, via Comici-Dimai, with Gino Soldà
Annapurna I (Himalayas, Nepal) - 1950 – Member of the French expedition led by Maurice Herzog, first ascent of an eight-thousander, summit reached by Herzog and Louis Lachenal
Eiger - 1952 – Repeat ascent of the north face, via Heckmair, with Jean Bruneau, Paul Habran, Pierre Leroux and Guido Magnone, in the same week that the parties led by Hermann Buhl and Sepp Jöchler and by the brothers Otto and Sepp Maag also climbed the face; the last of the six great north faces of the Alps
Aiguille du Midi - 1956 – first ascent of the south face (Rébuffat-Baquet route), with Maurice Baquet, on 13 July
Cosmiques Spur - 1956 – first ascent, with Bernard Pierre
Works
L’apprenti montagnard. Les cinquante plus belles courses graduées du massif du Mont-Blanc, Paris, Vasco, 1946
Calanques, with Gabriel M. Ollive, Grenoble, Arthaud, 1949
Étoiles et tempêtes. Six North Faces, Paris–Grenoble, Arthaud, 1954 – Italian ed. Stars and Storms. The Great North Faces of the Alps, Alpine Studio, 2020
From Mont Blanc to theHimalayas, Paris, Arthaud, 1955
Snow and Rock, Paris, Hachette, 1959
Mont Blanc, an Enchanted Garden, Paris, Hachette, 1962
Between Earth and Sky, with Pierre Tairraz, Paris, Arthaud, 1962 – Italian ed. Between Earth and Sky, Bietti, 1965
The Matterhorn, an Exemplary Peak, Paris, Hachette, 1965 – Italian ed. The Matterhorn: An Exemplary Peak, Zanichelli, 1966
Ice, Snow and Rock, Paris, Hachette, 1970 – Italian ed. Ice, Snow and Rock, Zanichelli, 1972
The Mont Blanc Massif. The 100 Most Beautiful Climbs, Paris, Denoël, 1973 – Italian ed. Mont Blanc. The 100 Most Beautiful Ascents, edited by Piero Carlesi, Vallardi, 2000
The Écrins Massif. The 100 Most Beautiful Climbs and Hikes, Paris, Denoël, 1974
Conquered Horizons, Paris, Denoël, 1975 – Italian ed. Conquered Horizons, Zanichelli, 1976
Calanques, Sainte-Baume, Sainte-Victoire. The 400 Most Beautiful Climbs and Hikes, Paris, Denoël, 1980
The Mountains Are My Domain, Paris, Hoëbeke, 1994 (posthumous, compiled by his widow Françoise Rébuffat) – Italian ed. The Mountain Is My World, CDA & Vivalda, 1996
Bibliography
As a writer
Valeria Milanesio, The Mountain, Literature and Life: A Journey in the Footsteps of Gaston Rébuffat, undergraduate thesis, University of the Aosta Valley,Aosta, 2025
As a key reference
Arthur King Peters, Gaston Rébuffat, 1921–1985, American Alpine Journal, 1986
Yves Ballu, Gaston Rébuffat: a life for the mountains, Paris, Hoëbeke, 1996