Gaston Rébuffat

He is well known as a member of the first expedition to summit Annapurna 1 in 1950 and the first man to climb all six of the great north faces of the Alps.

A photo of Rébuffat atop the Aiguille du Roc in the French Alps is on the Voyager Golden Records.

There he met Lionel Terray, a French mountaineer who would join Rébuffat on the 1950 Annapurna ascent.

[5] During World War II, Gaston Rébuffat attended Jeunesse et Montagne, a French youth training organization.

In 1943, Rébuffat made his first attempt at the summit but was not successful due to poor weather conditions.

He returned to the mountain in July 1945 and successfully climbed the north face with the assistance of Édouard Frendo.

Over the next several years, he guided mountaineers, both new and experienced, up the remaining great north faces, the Petit Dru, the Matterhorn, the Cima Grande di Lavaredo, and the Eiger.

[6] The expedition was led by Maurice Herzog and also included French mountaineers Louis Lachenal and Lionel Terray.

[1] His most famous written work is Etoiles et Tempêtes (Starlight and Storm), first published in French in 1954, and in English in 1956.