Career
A climbing guide and ski instructor, Terray was active in mountain combat against Germany during World World War World War II After the war, he became well known as one of the best Chamonix climbers and guides, noted for his speedy ascents of some of the most notorious climbs in the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps: the Walker Spur of the Grandes Jorasses, the south face of the Aiguille Noire de Peuterey, the north-east face of Piz Badile, and the north face of the Eiger. Terray did not reach the summit of Annapurna, but together with the Sherpa Adjiba he aided summitteers Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal down from the mountain. Both Herzog and Lachenal experienced extreme frostbite and subsequently underwent amputations.
Despite these events, the French team returned to Paris to huge public acclaim, and Herzog"s expedition book Annapurna became an international bestseller.
Terray was also one of the main participants in the great attempt to rescue four climbers trapped on the north face of the Eiger in 1957. This mission forms the subject of Jack Olsen"s famous book The Climb Up To Hell, in which Terray"s skill and bravery receive special mention.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Terray made a number of first ascents in Peru, including the highest unclimbed peak in the central Andes at the time, 20,981-foot Huantsan. He also made first ascents of lower but more difficult peaks, including Willka Wiqi, Soray, Tawllirahu, and Chakrarahu, possibly the hardest peak in the Peruvian Andes and considered unclimbable at the time.
He also climbed the Nilgiris near Annapurna, and led the successful 1964 first ascent of 12,240 foot Mount Huntington, in the Alaska Range, by the northwest ridge.
Terray died on a rock climb in the Vercors, south of Grenoble, on 19 September 1965, several years after the publication of his climbing memoir, His grave is situated in Chamonix, France. A traffic circle is named for him in Chamonix, WSW of town.