Laurence de la Ferrière (born 1957) is a French mountaineer, explorer and writer. After breaking the woman's world record for altitude without oxygen on

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

in 1992, in 1997 she became the first French woman to reach the South Pole alone, covering some 1,400 km (870 miles) in 57 days. More recently she has coordinated work at the French Antarctic station

Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his name ...

Biography

Born in

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

, Morocco, on 16 March 1957, de la Ferrière came from a well-established French family. Her great-grandfather had been a banker, her grandfather an engineer and her father a salesman for a brick company. In 1965, as a result of upsets in Morocco, she and her family moved to the

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

region in France. On qualifying from secondary school, she went on an Alpine mountaineering course in

Courmayeur Courmayeur (; ; Valdôtain: ) is a town and ''comune'' in northern Italy, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley. History The toponym ''Courmayeur'' has been mentioned as ''Curia majori'' (1233–1381), ''Corte Maggiore'' (1620), ''Cormoyeu'' (1 ...

where she met her husband, Bernard Muller a seasoned climber. Together they climbed some of the world's highest mountains. In 1984, she broke the woman's record for altitude without oxygen on Nepal's Yalung Kang. After giving birth to two daughters, Céline and Charlotte, two years later she again broke the altitude record, climbing Mount Everest. During the European winter of 1996–97, de la Ferrière became the first French woman to reach the South Pole unassisted, covering the distance from the

Weddell Sea The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha C ...

to the Amundsen-Scott base at temperatures around -40 C while dragging a 150 kg (310 lb) sledge behind her. It was the moment she had always waited for. In her own words:

It's as if you have infinity in front of you, the infinitely large, the infinitely beautiful, the infinitely white, infinite freedom. For me, it's the greatest sense of freedom a human being can experience. As I walked along, I would turn around, look at my tracks, they were endless, it was wonderful.

De la Ferrière returned to Antarctica in 2009, this time to head the French

Dumont d'Urville Station The Dumont d'Urville Station () is a French scientific station in Antarctica on Île des Pétrels, Géologie Archipelago, archipelago of Pointe-Géologie in Adélie Land. It is named after exploration, explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville, whose expe ...

for a period of 15 months. With a team of 25 scientists and technicians, of whom a third were women, the objective was to measure the thickness of the

ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the a ...

and analyse residues in the ice. In 2012, she coordinated renovation work at the Dumont d'Urville Station which had been built in the 1950s. No longer interested in feats of endurance or exploration, she now spends the remainder of her time lecturing in France and Europe, explaining how important it is to study the Antarctic in order to improve understanding of climate change.

Publications

In early 2000, de la Ferrière published an account of her Antarctic experiences in ''Seule dans le vent des glaces'' (Alone in the glacial wind).

References

External links

Laurence de la Ferrière's website
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferriere, Laurence de la 1957 births Living people People from Casablanca French female climbers Female polar explorers French women writers 20th-century French explorers 21st-century French explorers French summiters of Mount Everest Women Antarctic scientists 20th-century French sportswomen