Catherine Destivelle in Australia (Rock Mag 1997)
Written by Kirsty Robertson for Rock Magazine in 1997, this piece captures Catherine Destivelle on an understated Australian honeymoon—climbing again after injury, joking with photographers, and reflecting on fame during the peak of her career.
It is not often one gets the opportunity to meet one’s hero and the Blackheath pub on a weary Sunday night isn’t a very likely place for this to happen. Late last year, however, I nervously extricated myself from behind potted ferns and empty schooner glasses to be introduced to French climbing superstar Catherine Destivelle. She and Eric Decamp were in Australia on their honeymoon. It was her second visit.
The first had been a brief trip to the Blue Mountains in 1995 as the star attraction of Escalade. It was impressive to meet the woman who has completed some of Europe’s most famous and arduous routes in breathtaking style; who has ascended the North Face of the Eiger, soloed the Bonatti Pillar on the South-west Pillar of the Dru and spent three days on the Walker Spur. That day, Destivelle had been out at the comparatively humble crag of Shipley Lower in the Blue Mountains. It was the first time she had climbed in nine months; she had broken a leg in a fall from the summit of an extremely remote Antarctic peak.
Two things struck me immediately upon meeting Destivelle; the steadiness of her gaze and the respect with which she greeted me and my friends. Her manner was unassuming and down to earth and it quickly became apparent that she is not impressed by the glamour of her own fame. In France the media love her-she is frequently recognised in the street-yet she finds it difficult to identify with the images of
herself that have inspired audiences around the world. That is not me’, she says, ‘that is just something I do to make money’. In an interview, it is hard to find a question that hasn’t been asked a thousand times before and for which she will obligingly roll out the standard answer.
Since landing a role in the film E Pericoloso Sporgersi at the age of 25 she has become a veteran at playing the celebrity game. It is her livelihood but nevertheless one gets the impression that she is a very private person who tries to guard her ‘self’ from the insatiable curiosity of the public.
Left: Destivelle slips it down a cog on Thunderbirds are Bogged (23) Point Perpendicular, NSW Right: Evert overseas rock star, simply has to meet the local roos. Images by Simon Carter
Destivelle began to climb when she was 14 years old and attributes much of her success to the experience she acquired in her mid to late teens. ‘I used to run around the mountains, from one climb to another, so that I could do two routes in a day.’ After a five-year break from climbing-to further her career in physiotherapy-she appeared on the competition scene. For three consecutive years she won at Bardonecchia, Italy, but after competing in the second Snowbird Cup in 1989 she retired from competitions to focus on mountaineering. In the following year Destivelle teamed up with Jeff Lowe to
do a multiday free ascent of Trango Tower in the Karakoram Range, Pakistan. This climb entailed some of the greatest technical difficulties yet achieved at altitude.
A few months later, after soloing his route on the South-west Pillar of the Dru in four hours, she wasbeing compared with the legendary Italian alpinist Bonatti. Feeling that the comparison was too generous, Destivelle decided to put up her own route on the Dru in the following July to draw attention to the difficulty of establishing as opposed to repeating-a route of this nature. A solid month of aid climbing in the USA was needed in preparation for the 11-day ordeal. She damaged her hands so badly that she feared they would never recover, but she proved her point.
In March 1992 she was the first woman, summer or winter, to solo the Eiger-she took the classic 1938 first-ascent route-an achievement closely followed by her solo of the classic Walker Spur of the Grandes
Jorasses. It was another first for a woman in winter.
Left: Destivelle’s iconic advertising shot for Cassin Right: Destivelle on Clockwork Orange (20) Shipley Lower, Blue Mountains, NSW. Image by Simon Carter
With Eric Decamp, Destivelle has made several attempts at Himalayan peaks including the South Face of Annapurna and the West Pillar of Makalu. In 1994 they reached the summit arete of Shisha Pangma’s South Face and although they did not attain the summit they were not disappointed with their climb. ‘When it is a peak of 8000 metres most people want you to reach the summit but we were very
happy just to be there.’
‘It is safer to be together’, she says of climbing with husband Eric, ‘as you realise that life is not in the mountains, it is down below, at home. It is not easy, though, because you are scared for the other one, for your friend, you are more conscious. I would take more risks if I was alone.’
Destivelle’s sponsors require her to provide substantial documentation of all her climbs and she employs friends to do the camera work that way she feels free and in control. ‘They stay only five or ten minutes on the top. I don’t want them to land on the face or to disturb me on my climb.’ Even her holiday in Australia is preserved on film and romantic shots were taken of the newly-weds walking hand in hand along a beach at Jervis Bay, and smiling into the sunset after a day at Hanging Rock. They laugh at themselves and at the poses they set up for the paparazzi and it seems that fame is just part of a job they have to do.
‘It is nice when kids come up and want to talk to me’, she says. ‘It only feels weird when an adult wants my autograph. I guess I don’t understand-I don’t have heroes myself.’
Kirsty Robertson is a compulsive wanderer with an attraction to high places, who is at present completing a degree in creative writing. She loves to ride her bike even in Sydney traffic-and is often heard to declare that she is going to start climbing seriously again…soon.
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