• Première de ropée

    , autobiography of Martine Rolland (72 years old), will be released this Wednesday by Glénat editions.

  • The mountaineer explains how she had to change mentalities in France at the end of the 1970s in order to become the first woman to obtain her high mountain guide diploma in Chamonix (Haute-Savoie).

  • Martine Rolland has participated in prestigious expeditions, such as Broad Peak (8,047 m) in 1984.

“I will go to the end of my dreams, where reason ends, to the very end of my dreams. Martine Rolland (72) opens her autobiography 

Première de cordée

, published this Wednesday by Glénat editions, citing the 1982 hit by Jean-Jacques Goldman. At this time, this mountaineering fan is just 30 years old and she is not at all sure that she can practice the profession of her dreams. Quite simply because if there are a thousand recognized high mountain guides in France, no woman has yet obtained this diploma from the national ski and mountaineering school of Chamonix (Haute-Savoie).

“Even though I had ten years of mountaineering and climbing behind me, I knew very well that more would be asked of me than men during these four years of exams and courses [ from 1979 to 1983], says Martine Rolland.

Some examiners have tried everything until the last day to block my way and prevent me from becoming a guide.

Maybe because I was going to destroy the image they wanted to give of this profession, namely strong, virile men, the only ones capable of facing the mountain.

"

"I was clearly seen as a city dweller"

Despite the support of her husband Jean-Jacques, a high-level mountaineer who obtained a high mountain guide diploma in 1971, this former top-level cross-country skier had to face two difficulties in particular: being a mother and coming from Grenoble. “I wanted to prove that even by raising a child, I could make it my job,” she explains. In this small Chamonix environment, I was clearly seen as a city dweller. From the post-war period, the profession was largely reserved for the Alpine valleys. If she noted "a societal change for women" between 1979 and 1983, Martine Rolland has until the validation of her diploma suffered contemptuous remarks.

"Professors kept repeating:" Anyway, she will never have clients, no one will agree to entrust their life to a woman, "she reveals.

In fact, clients were convinced of my capabilities much faster than they were.

»The first female high mountain guide in France in 1983, she then went on high altitude adventures.

Like this expedition in 1984 to Broad Peak, where she became one of the first five women in the world to climb this 8,047-meter summit located between China and Pakistan.

Repatriated from K2 with the Pakistani army helicopter

In 1987, Martine Rolland even found herself as expedition leader of the legendary K2 (8,611 m).

But an open fracture of her hand, crushed by a falling stone, forces her to give up aboard a Pakistani army helicopter.

“With my husband, we then felt that the risk was becoming clearer,” she recalls.

We have therefore chosen to no longer embark on such committed expeditions.

"

This does not prevent the Rolland couple from regularly doing big climbing climbs, until they are 55, in Yosemite Park (United States), in Madagascar or in Jordan.

Until 2010, Martine also continued to supervise groups.

During all these years, her children Yann and Jonathan were "quickly put in the bath" of the high mountains.

"I do not carry a feminist fight anymore"

Yann was just 10 years old when he climbed with his parents up to 6,000 meters during an internship in Pakistan. Jonathan went to school every winter, skis on, from the age of 5, when the family lived in a small refuge 2,000 meters above sea level in Puy-Saint-Vincent (Hautes-Alpes). If they became researchers in geology and biology respectively, Yann in turn obtained the diploma of high mountain guide and Jonathan was part of the French ski mountaineering team. In the wake of the “pioneer” mother Martine Rolland, it took seven years for another woman to become a mountain guide. And still today, there are only about thirty in France.

“I certainly opened a door but I did not try to make it a feminist fight,” she explains.

It was perceived that way at the time and I was in great demand by the media.

But I just wanted to be treated like all the candidates and be able to live in the mountains like the men did.

I've been mountaineering and rock climbing for 50 years and I don't wear a feminist fight any more now than I did then, although I know it's back in fashion.

This "pioneer" simply intends to deliver her "testimony", at 72, of a fascinating life at altitude.

“Première de cordée” by Martine Rolland, Glénat editions, € 19.95.

Available here.

Sport

Ultra-trail: "Angel of the mountain", "the carefree" Michel Lanne loops ten seasons at the top

Sport

Coronavirus: “Discover the mountain differently” in ski touring, a strong trend beyond this special winter?

  • Society

  • Sport

  • Mountaineering

  • Novel

  • Mountain

  • Alps