Latest news with #Chamonix
National Post
2 days ago
- Sport
- National Post
Canadian ultramarathoner stopped to breastfeed daughter and still won
Mothers know how to juggle tasks, but one mom showed how she can juggle the needs of her newborn — and win a race. Article content Stephanie Case, 42, a Canadian who lives in Chamonix, France, entered the 100-km Ultra-Trail Snowdonia in Eryri National Park in Wales on May 17 with 'no expectations,' so when she won, it was 'a surprise,' she wrote on Instagram. Article content Article content The runner had her daughter just six months ago and is still breastfeeding. Article content Article content She also hadn't entered a race in three years due to 'recurrent miscarriages and IVF failures,' Case shared, but wanted it to serve as a 'warmup' to another event — next month's 165-km Hardrock Hundred Mile Endurance Run in Colorado. Article content 'My goals were to enjoy myself and make sure Pepper was fed at aid stations,' she continued. Article content Case noted that she started in the 'last wave,' giving the leaders a 30-minute head start. Article content 'Sure, I had hundreds of runners in front of me, but I could go at my own pace in blissful ignorance of my placing,' the mom explained. Article content View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stephanie Case (@theultrarunnergirl) Article content Article content Case described it like riding a bike, and said it was a reminder that she 'hadn't lost a thing' over the past three years of not racing. Article content She said that her partner carried their baby to the 20-, 50- and 80-kilometre checkpoints and handed the little one over for a few minutes to feed before going back to running. Article content Case told the outlet that she was more concerned with her fuel intake and feeding schedule than her race time. Article content View this post on Instagram A post shared by Peignée Verticale (@peigneeverticale)
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
The 75th Anniversary of The First Ascent Of An 8,000m Peak: Annapurna I
Seventy-five years ago, on June 3, 1950, French mountaineers Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal achieved what no climber had done before: summit an 8,000m peak. Herzog and Lachenal topped out on 8,091m Annapurna I, the 10th highest peak in the world, via the North Face and without supplemental oxygen. In west-central Nepal, Annapurna I is the highest peak in the Annapurna massif. The name Annapurna originates from Sanskrit, combining "Anna" (meaning food or grain) and "Purna" (meaning full or abundant). It translates to "the giver of food," or "she who is full of food." In Hindu mythology, Annapurna is a goddess of nourishment and abundance, an incarnation of Parvati, Shiva's consort, revered for sustaining life. There are no registered attempts to climb Annapurna I before 1950. Its first ascent was not just a climb, but a race against time, weather, and human limits, marked by unparalleled courage and harrowing consequences. The expedition, organized by the French Alpine Club and approved by the Nepalese government — the first such permission in over a century — included Maurice Herzog (leader), Louis Lachenal (a skilled Chamonix guide), Lionel Terray (a powerful, experienced alpinist), Gaston Rebuffat (another Chamonix guide known for his technical prowess), Jean Couzy and Marcel Schatz (both strong climbers), Francis de Noyelle (a diplomat facilitating logistics), Jacques Oudot (the expedition doctor), and Marcel Ichac (a filmmaker documenting the expedition). The Sherpa team, which provided critical support during the expedition, included Ang Tharkay Sherpa (sirdar), Ajiba Sherpa, Ang Dawa Sherpa, Ang Tshering Sherpa, Dawa Thondup Sherpa, Ila Sherpa, Phu Tharkey Sherpa, and Sarki Sherpa. The expedition began in mid-April 1950, with the team traveling from India to Nepal's Kali Gandaki Valley. Originally, Herzog's team had climbing permits for both Dhaulagiri I and Annapurna I. The climbers first set their sights on Dhaulagiri I. From their base in Tukucha at 3,000m in the Kali Gandaki Valley, they explored the area around Miristi Khola river and the east of Dhaulagiri Glacier for potential routes. However, after making a reconnaissance of Dhaulagiri I's Southeast Ridge and northern side, Dhaulagiri I seemed too difficult, especially with not much time before the monsoon season arrived. Instead, the team decided to shift to Annapurna I. "As to Annapurna, we knew the northern slopes were accessible, but apart from that, although we had hopes, we could not be sure that the expedition could find a way up. We thought there were three possible routes, but only the glacier route proved practicable," Herzog wrote in the Alpine Journal. Time was short. The expedition had to explore, scout, and climb the mountain in a single season, an unprecedented feat. The distance between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna is approximately 35 to 40km, and the two peaks are separated by the Kali Gandaki Gorge, one of the deepest gorges in the world. Herzog's party arrived in the Annapurna region in early May. The approach offered them several challenges: dense forests and treacherous moraines. The team initially explored the North and East faces of Annapurna I, but the complex terrain and lack of viable routes forced them to reconsider. Herzog, with input from Terray and Rebuffat, decided to focus on the North Face, which offered a feasible but difficult way to the summit. According to Herzog's report, the other possibility, the East Glacier route, would have been technically more demanding. Their final decision was critical, as the monsoon's approach left no room for further delays. The team adopted a siege-style approach, establishing a series of camps to support the ascent and abandoning their initial idea of carrying out a lighter, alpine-style climb. The route reconnaissance involved significant exploration, with key contributions from Terray and Rebuffat, who helped identify a viable line through the complex terrain of seracs, crevasses, and ice walls. The route up Annapurna's North Face began with the establishment of Base Camp at 4,500m on May 18. From there, the team set up five further camps. Camp 1 was at 5,000m, at the base of the North Face. Camp 2 was at 5,500m, below a sickle-shaped glacier full of crevasses and steep ice slopes. This camp served as a key logistical point, stocked with supplies for the upper camps. They set up Camp 3 at around 6,000m on a windy snowfield, offering a starting point toward the upper slopes. This was followed by Camp 4, at 6,800m, situated above the rock band on a narrow ledge. Their small, exposed Camp 5 at 7,400m would be the climbers' last stop before the summit attempt. The ascent was grueling. Snowstorms, avalanches, and bitter cold tested the team. The Sherpas, led by Ang Tharkay, hauled heavy loads to stock the camps, while Herzog, Lachenal, Terray, and Rebuffat scouted routes and fixed ropes. The terrain was treacherous, with steep ice, loose rock, and deep snow. Crevasses and avalanches were constant threats. Teamwork kept them going, though exhaustion and altitude strained their spirits. On June 2, Herzog and Lachenal, supported by Terray and Rebuffat, reached Camp 5. Herzog invited Ang Tharkay Sherpa to be in the summit party, but Ang Tharkay declined, explaining that his feet were starting to freeze. On June 3, Herzog and Lachenal launched their summit bid from Camp 5. They started at dawn, climbing without oxygen, through deep snow and fierce winds. Each step of the last 700m was a battle, and the thin air consumed their strength. Lachenal, wary of frostbite, hesitated near the top, but Herzog, driven to reach the summit, urged them onward. At around 2 pm, Herzog and Lachenal topped out in -40°C, becoming the first people to summit an 8,000m peak. "I hardly knew if I were in heaven or on Earth, and my mind kept turning to all those men who had died on high mountains and to friends in France. Our moments up there were quite indescribable, with the realization before us that we were standing on the highest peak in the world to be conquered by man," Herzog wrote in the Alpine Journal. Herzog took photographs at the summit, planting a French tricolor in worsening conditions. Lachenal, more pragmatic, urged a swift descent as the storm was about to arrive. The way down from the summit was where triumph almost turned to tragedy. As Herzog and Lachenal descended, a storm hit the mountain. Herzog lost his gloves, and both climbers suffered severe frostbite on their feet. At Camp 5, Terray and Rebuffat met them. Herzog's hands and Lachenal's feet were already severely frostbitten. Rebuffat and Terray warmed them overnight. On June 4, in a whiteout, the snowblind Rebuffat and Terray tried to descend to Camp 4. Unable to find it, the four spent a harrowing night in a crevasse, sharing a single sleeping bag in freezing temperatures. On June 5, during their descent to Camp 2, Rebuffat helped rescue Herzog and two Sherpas from an avalanche. By the afternoon, the team reached Camp 2. Finally, everyone reached Base Camp alive. "We had beaten it, and I could lie back and think: the job has been finished, the struggle is over," Herzog wrote. Herzog and Lachenal, unable to walk because of their injuries, were carried by Sherpas across the moraines. Dr. Oudot began treating their frostbite in camp, making multiple amputations without anesthesia to combat gangrene. Oudot saved their lives but at great cost; Herzog lost all his toes and most of his fingers, and Lachenal lost his toes. They left Base Camp on June 10, reaching Kathmandu a month later and returning to Paris on July 17. Herzog, Lachenal, and Ang Tharkay were awarded the Legion of Honor, and Marcel Ichac's film, Victoire sur l'Annapurna, premiered to acclaim. Herzog's book, Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8000-Meter Peak, became a mountaineering classic. The book ends with the classic line: "There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men," which inspired generations of climbers. However, controversies later emerged. Rebuffat felt Herzog downplayed his contributions, particularly in route-finding, and was dismayed by the expedition's hierarchical structure. Lachenal's posthumously published journals (1996) revealed tensions, including his frustration with Herzog's prolonged summit photography and the official narrative's omissions. In his book True Summit, David Roberts revealed that the expedition was marred by internal discord. Herzog's book portrayed a unified, heroic effort, but Lachenal's diary and Rebuffat's writings exposed tensions, including Herzog's capricious leadership, and the marginalization of Lachenal, Terray, and Rebuffat's contributions. In his 1954 memoirs, Ang Tharkay Sherpa wrote that the French members of the expedition treated him with friendship and equality. The 1950 Annapurna expedition remains a landmark in mountaineering history, a testament to human endurance, but also the price of ambition.
The Guardian
01-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘I'm open about how hard it is': Stephanie Case breastfed her baby in 100km race and still won
In Chamonix Stephanie Case is swaying the sway of a new mother. Pepper, her baby, is cocooned in a sling, defying sleep and gurgling politely over the video call. They became viral sensations last month when ultrarunner Stephanie won the women's section of the Snowdonia ultra-trail, a 100km race with 21,000ft of ascent, while stopping to breastfeed Pepper en route. It was an extraordinary achievement six months after giving birth and slots into an extraordinary life – on the one hand, a human rights lawyer, working in warzones around the world; on the other, an ultrarunner, whose charity, Free to Run, empowers young women and girls in areas of conflict. Case is desperate the race is not held up as something to beat new mothers with. 'The response has been so positive, but there has been a negative cohort,' she says. 'Part of those are just misogynists, but the others are exhausted mums who look at this story and think, oh my God, I could never do that. Now there's even more pressure on us to be able to have a baby and work and run races and now breastfeed during races. 'I don't want anyone to feel badly about themselves out of a story like this. I'm quite open about how hard it is and how much support I have, and the messy parts of it. At 95k I was done, dry heaving and peeing all over myself. I ran with devices internally. It's not all rainbows and bunnies and a lot of things have to come together for something like that to happen.' She praises French maternal healthcare – a week in hospital and then 10 sessions with the midwife doing pelvic floor rehab 'which is weird and intimate but so helpful. Luckily, people who are in the health field around Chamonix are used to dealing with athletes so I have lots of tricks to help me.' Case was running six weeks after Pepper's birth, but everything had changed. She now had to fit her schedule around a baby, circling back to slot in a feed. 'When you exercise, lactic acid gets into your breast milk. It doesn't change the nutritional value, but it does change the taste. I think she just got used to it and dealing with me being sweaty. 'It was more learning how to calm myself down and not come in anxious because then she'd pick up on that energy. I had to shut off that I was in the middle of a training block. I had to do the same in the race and just focus on trying to feed her.' Despite the photos from Snowdonia of a beaming Case and a bonny Pepper, the road to conception has been hard. The 42-year-old had two miscarriages, then two egg retrievals and three rounds of IVF. The process confused her relationship with running, something she had come to rely on to cope with the stress of her job. 'It can be very difficult to process some of the things I witness and the stories I hear. I find the best way to deal with those situations is to process it through movement. When I'm out on the trails, I can see black garbage coming out of my head and littering the trails behind me and then it's done.' After the first miscarriage, well-meaning friends questioned whether running could have played a part and it planted a seed of doubt in her head that became impossible to budge. Desperate to become pregnant, she started to pull back from running. 'It was very destabilising because that was a core part of my identity. Not just who I am, but how I lived my life. 'My year was structured around my race calendar and suddenly there was no race calendar. When I got pregnant and miscarried the second time, people questioned whether it was the stress of my job that caused the miscarriage. I used to use running to deal with stress so I felt like I couldn't win.' Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Before returning to her home in Chamonix for the last trimester of her pregnancy, Case had been based in Jerusalem for the three and a half years, covering Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. She spent the beginning of 2024 in Gaza as part of the humanitarian response, meeting women who had just given birth on the floor of a shelter and were living in tents without proper nutrition. 'It was quite hard for me to ask my body to produce a life and that's exactly what I was trying to do. It felt impossible.' But, against all odds, the vagaries of IVF worked and Pepper was born in November. Snowdonia was Case's first race in three years. It will not come a surprise to learn that Case is not planning on taking it easy any time soon. As part of the North Face explorer team, she has made a documentary film about fertility and running, due out in the autumn, is running in the Hard Rock 100 in Colorado in July and a return to work beckons. All pretty extraordinary, especially for a self-confessed school nerd who played in the wind band and was so embarrassed after doing well in a cross-country race as a nine-year-old that she went bright red and withdrew from sport for a decade.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Benjamin Vedrines Climbs Mont Blanc in Five Hours From Chamonix and Back
The average climber does Mont Blanc in two days, using a cable car from Chamonix to the Aiguille de Midi. They then spend a night in a hut and then another 10-14 hours to summit. Yesterday, Benjamin Vedrines set off from the church in Chamonix and made it back to town in less than five hours. His return trip took exactly 4 hours, 54 minutes, and 41 seconds and edged the previous speed record, set by Kilian Jornet in 2013, of 4:57:40. The challenge involved nearly 3,800 vertical meters of gain between Chamonix, located 1,000m above sea level, and the 4,806m summit. "I honestly didn't believe it was possible," Vedrines admitted. Neither did this writer. But we are starting to get used to the French prodigy redefining what is possible in mountaineering speed. It doesn't matter whether it's the roof of Europe or K2, the roof of Pakistan, which he climbed in 11 hours without supplementary oxygen or porters. Vedrines used skis at some point during the ascent and supposedly paraglided down. He mentioned an intense experience that included broken ankles, frozen eyes, and snapped poles, but he withheld further details in order to share a complete report in the next few days.
CTV News
25-05-2025
- Sport
- CTV News
Canadian runner wins ultramarathon 6-months postpartum while making time to breastfeed during race
A Canadian human rights lawyer and ultrarunner is hoping her latest racing achievement will inspire new moms do things that 'make them feel human again.' Stephanie Case competed in and won her first ultramarathon in three years this past weekend at the Ultra-Trail Snowdonia race in Eryri, Wales, and she did it while taking time to breastfeed her six-month-old daughter. 'I signed up for this race after I had already given birth to my daughter, Pepper,' Case told CTV News Toronto in an interview. 'I am scheduled to do a 100-mile race in Colorado in July, and because I haven't raced in so many years, I thought I should do a practice run to shake out the cobwebs and make sure that I knew how to put one foot in front of the other and also practice doing the breastfeeding stops for my daughter midrace.' Case was born in Kingston, Ont., and grew up in Toronto and Oakville. She now lives in Chamonix, France and is a self-described 'ultrarunner' a passion that keeps her 'sane and slightly insane' alongside her job as a human rights lawyer. 'I was never very sporty growing up – I was a total school nerd. I remember I did one running race when I was about nine years old, but I was so embarrassed and shy because my face had turned red at the end. I just didn't really have the confidence to keep running after that, so I didn't come back to running until quite a bit later in life,' she said. Despite setting records and reaching the podium at the Hardrock 100 in 2022– the race she's running again this July – Case spent three years away from running after struggling with fertility issues. 'I suffered two miscarriages and then went through three rounds of IVF in order to be able to get to the stage of having a successful pregnancy,' said Case. 'It was quite difficult during that time, because there were a lot of questions from well-meaning people about whether the running had potentially impacted my ability to carry a child, or whether it had caused the miscarriages. While there's no research that shows that [running impacted my fertility], it did change my relationship with it. I ended up feeling quite guilty and was filled with doubt every time I put on my running shoes.' Stephanie Case Case started the 100K race 30 minutes behind the first group of elite runners and ended up winning with a time of 16:53:22. (Stephanie Case) Case said she didn't want to put any pressure on herself to come back to running after having her baby, so she didn't originally strive for any specific performance metrics in the races she signed up for. But her surprise win in Wales has since made Case the subject of international media attention. She was even featured in a story in People Magazine. 'As I started to run again postpartum at about six weeks, I started to get those benefits from being out on the trails again,' she said. 'I realized that actually, yeah, I can set a higher goal for myself. Why not try to do well in these races? Why not try to shoot for something that seems impossible? Why do I have to set the bar low at just participating? If I fail, I fail, but at least I will have tried.' While utilizing her two aid checkpoints to breastfeed Pepper – plus an extra one granted specially to Case solely for breastfeeding with no aid – she finished the 100-kilometre Ultra-Trail Snowdonia race in 16 hours, 53 minutes, and 22 seconds and she did it starting 30 minutes behind the first group of elite runners. 'When you run and you complete races, you get a score – an index – and often, when you are signing up for races, your score will indicate where you can start in the field,' Case explained. 'Because I haven't raced in quite a while, I had no index, so it was like I was starting from ground zero. I was in the third and last starting wave, which meant that there were hundreds of runners in front of me already out on the trail that I needed to pick my way through.' Stephanie Case Case takes a selfie in the midst of racing the 100K Ultra-Trail Snowdonia race in Eryri, Wales. (Stephanie Case) Case says she's still not sure what her plan is for racing the Hardrock 100 next month alongside breastfeeding Pepper, but she's just happy the interest in her recent achievement is shining a spotlight on what new moms are capable of – in any shape or form. 'I'm incredibly happy if what I did this past weekend has helped to inspire other new moms, but I just want to make sure it doesn't feed into this narrative that moms have to and should be doing it all,' Case said. 'Doing it all means keeping yourself healthy and happy and keeping your baby healthy and happy. Whether you are chilling out on the couch or running a 100-kilometre race, it's different for every person. So, I just want to make sure I'm not setting an impossible standard. I think it's important to set big goals if that's what you want to do but also give yourself a break if that's what you need.'
