Lucien Bérardini

Lucien Bérardini, born September 24, 1930 in Martigues and died October 13, 2005 in Montpellier, was a French mountaineer. Lucien Bérardini learned the art of climbing on the rocks of the forest of Fontainebleau then on the cliffs of Saussois. Faced with aristocratic mountaineering with personalities such as Henri de Ségogne, and professional mountaineering of which the guides are the emblematic figure, a new form of amateur mountaineering stemming from the Parisian popular circles is developing: "rogue" mountaineering. ". The Robert Paragot-Lucien Bérardini team is the most striking illustration of this. Insolent, iconoclastic, non-conformist, they symbolize the post-war climbers of modest origin who, making fun of conventions and rules, overthrew the stereotypes of the “perfect mountaineer”. Bold, tenacious, driven by a tremendous desire to be and to surpass themselves, Lucien Bérardini and Robert Paragot have found in climbing the way to release their energy. He entered the circle of great mountaineers by making the first ascent of the west face of Les Drus on July 19, 1952 in the company of Guido Magnone, Adrien Dagory and Marcel Lainé, with intensive use of artificial climbing. The same year he completed the first route without a bivouac on the Walker spur (4,208 m, the highest point of the Grandes Jorasses), in the company of Michel Dufranc. In 1953 he opened a route to the south-east face of Mont Mallet, then the following year he was part of a French expedition to t…