Biography

Jean Ravier and his twin brother Pierre Ravier, born in Paris on October 20, 1933 to Olympe and Albert Ravier, are French climbers and Pyrenees climbers. They have an older sister and will be followed by four other sisters and two brothers. In 1936, the family moved to Bordeaux where Albert took over a business selling spare parts for automobiles during the Somme. In 1940, mobilized, he was taken prisoner and remained so for a year. Olympe and her children retreated to Tuzaguet, in the Hautes-Pyrénées. Turbulent and quarrelsome, the twins climbed trees and explored the many caves in the region. With their aunt Line, the "free electron" of the family, they listened to Radio London. After the Allied landings of June 6, 1944, they made a huge Lorraine cross out of fabric and unfurled it from the top of a large magnolia. In 1946, they discovered the mountain during a family excursion to Néouvielle. In 1950, they made their first climbs alone. After climbing the north face of the Petit Pic du Midi d'Ossau, they climbed the Gaube couloir in Vignemale in 1951, their first ice climb which was then the most difficult in the Pyrenees. From then on, they formed an almost inseparable rope team that collected many first ascents in the Pyrenees during the 1950s and 1960s. The Ravier brothers were the main figures in the post-war revival of Pyreneism and climbed with other mountaineers such as Guy Santamaria, Raymond Despiau, Claude Dufourmantelle and especially with Pierre Bouchet. They also sometimes climbed abroad, in Spain, in the Caucasus or in Algeria in the Hoggar. Jean Ravier was selected to participate in 1962, along with Lionel Terray, Robert Paragot, René Desmaison and Guido Magnone, in the French expedition to Jannu (7,710 m), the summit of which he reached on April 28, the day after the success of the first expedition team. The Ravier brothers continued to climb until the early 2000s. Jean Ravier died on September 23, 2022.