Christophe Profit

Christophe Profit, originally from Normandy, started climbing at the age of 16. In 1980, he did his military service in Chamonix with the GMHM, before obtaining his mountain guide diploma in 1986. To date, he has climbed the North face of the Eiger 10 times, including Heinrich Harrer - even said that a “man [who would make the ascent twice] does not exist and will doubtless never exist. A mountaineering giant, his words on the mountain invariably evoke the happiness of being up there, the commitment, the need to chart his course. In the summer of 1982, Christophe Profit stunned the mountaineering community with his full solo ascent (and the cannon time of three hours ten) of the mythical American Direct. “When I was a kid, I had imagined going up the west face of Les Drus at the speed of a walker”. One thousand two hundred meters of plumbline vertical cracks of the impressive granite spire. Seeing the images of the athlete in a red tank top chaining movements in the immense dihedrals of granite twists the guts and gives a feeling of absolute vertigo. The chroniclers do not yet speak of speed-climbing but Christophe Profit atomizes all the timetables: two and a half hours for the n...