An experienced skier, Jean-Christian MICHEL, during a summer ski training course, struck up a friendship with a Chamonix guide: Henri LEBLANC.

The following January, Yannick SEIGNEUR was looking for a doctor for his expedition. Henri LEBLANC, who was going to be the expedition photographer suggested Doctor Jean-Christian MICHEL.

But the former surgeon hesitated. Withdrawn into the country in his house in Aix en Provence to had dedicated himself to musical composition, he had not practised medicine for years.

On the other hand, if it is true that he had made numerous difficult ascents in the Alps during his childhood and even Mont Blanc when he was 13. Due to his musical career, he had not done any serious climbing for a long time. In addition, the Himalayas are a very different matter from the Alps! The previous expeditions had often left sad souvenirs. Who remembers the suffering of Maurice Herzog...

High forbidden places do not forgive the weakness of their "intruding visitors". A merciless hand-to-hand struggle with cliffs and ice, where each gesture proceeds from an irreproachable technique and an implacable will to succeed. Where the least error can plunge you into the abyss. Where the icy cold can freeze hands. And for a clarinettist, are not fingers fairly vital ?

All the same, after a fortnights consideration Jean-Christian MICHEL eventually accepted this fantastic opportunity. An adventure such as this does not admit refusal.

From then on, his days were shared between a medical and surgical retraining, the study of clinical observations made during Himalayan expeditions and very hard sports training. Climbing, walking, bike riding, skiing and snowboarding were the order of the day…

Departure took place at Orly in the second half of March. Jean-Christian MICHEL met for the first time all the members of the expedition. Yannick SEIGNEUR, conqueror of the western pillar of the MAKALU, hero of the north face of the GRANDES JORASSES. One of the top 4 or 5 international climbers. Serge CACHAT, the fantastic specialist lane skier, Henri LEBLANC Chamonix guide and photographer, and the veterans of himalayan climbing, Paul GENDRE, Louis DUBOST and Jacques BRUGIRARD. Finally, two French film-makers specializing in high mountains : Jacques ERTAUD and René VERNADET, who would afterwards realize a magnificent film "PREMIER DE CORDEE" ( First in Line ). Fourteen people who have decided to go all the way.

The Boeing 750 stopped over in Tel Aviv, Teheran, New-Dehli...

KATHMANDU IN NEPAL

on a plain surrounded with hills sculptured by their "restanques" sculptured in contour lines. The river BAGMATI, the sacred river, lazily stretches in long meanders. It is a fabulous city smelling of dust, where forests of giant bamboo and eucalyptus stand out against the intense blue of the sky.

A busy and mysterious city with its spice-laden markets, prayer flags, temples hidden by the jungle; the swarming multitudes who haggle over a few rupees. A magma of flesh and bone, people and animals muddled together. A world indifferent to life and death, with its cremations usual, but always moving. A city where hashish is freely sold, but from which the junkies have gradually been banished...

TEMPLES AT NIGHT - Kids accompany the team everywhere and guide it through the maze of Kathmandu's streets. One of them manages to speak in six different languages and plays marvelously of a kind of little violin.

Nepalese people adore music.

At night, Jean-Christian MICHEL goes to listen to Nepalese musicians, in their strange temples : "They play with their eyes closed and the face tightly concentrated on listening to life… mystic incantation, always the same and never monotonous. A prayer which seems to regenerate perpetually as if by a reflection from the borders of heaven... "

Too bad, he left with an ice axe and crampons but did not think of bringing his clarinet...

 APPROACH - HALT AT NAMCHE BAZAR IN THE EVEREST VALLEY

The long approach trek

Very early one morning the team flew towards LUKLA ( 2800 metres ) in small single-engined aircraft. The crew landed at a handkerchief-sized airport. The Sherpa Leader, TENSING Sirdar, was waiting for them with his bearers' caravan.

It was a long walk to climb up the Everest valley, by steep paths, between huge rhododendrons, through steep-sided gorges with torrents of turquoise waters. The roads were marked by religious signs, the "mani" sometimes sculptured from pebbles as big as buildings and the "chortens", prayer mills - water-powered ! We came across monsteries and picturesque villages : NAMCHE BAZAR, TANG BOCHE, KUMJUNG then through fields of grass and fields of stones always in the direction of TAWESCHE. ( or TABOCHE ).