She is aiming for a new feat in the Himalayas: Fabienne Sicot from Hérault has arrived in Nepal to challenge Manaslu

Fabienne Sicot est arrivée lundi à Katmandou. Une journée de tourisme… avant de gagner les hautes altitudes. DR

A nurse at the CHU, Fabienne Sicot became, in May 2023, the first woman with a double disability to climb Everest. This time, she is tackling the eighth highest peak in the world, Manaslu, and dreams of conquering it without the need for oxygen.

In a few days, she will set up her tent for a month at an altitude of 4,750 meters at the foot of Manaslu, the eighth highest peak on the planet, which peaks at 8,163 meters. Fabienne Sicot from Hérault arrived in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, on Monday for a new challenge that could make her enter the very closed circle of mountaineers who have conquered a peak of more than 8,000 meters without oxygen.

In the spring of 2023, the Montpellier nurse achieved her first feat: reaching the summit of Everest after long days of climbing. The fourteenth French woman to walk on the roof of the world, she was also the first to suffer from a double handicap: brittle bone disease and ankylosing spondylitis. It was to realize her mountain dream, before one day being condemned to using a wheelchair, that Fabienne Sicot embarked on this extraordinary adventure.“I wanted to show that we are all capable of moving mountains if we give ourselves the means. This project is a cry to life that everything is possible”, she confided to Midi Libre back in France.

Fabienne Sicot and all her equipment, before flying to Nepal. DR

“There was a before and after Everest”, she told us a few days before flying back to Nepal. Justifying”: “After having lived an expedition on an 8,000 (meters) with all the incredible, rich, painful, sincere situations, life takes on an even more intense flavor“. Fabienne Sicot wanted to relive these sensations, adding the additional difficulty of defying the death zone without the help of oxygen and in winter conditions. A long preparation in recent weeks, including efforts under hypoxia reproducing the low oxygen content, allowed her to fly to Nepal with confidence. “But always with humility”. To be continued.