Gil Bodin

He was one of those mountain figures whose eloquence took us back to the epics of the 1960s. Originally from Indre-et-Loire, it was during his teenage years in Paris that Gil Bodin discovered the joys of vertical climbing, awakening on the boulders of Fontainebleau. A classic adventurer's journey that would lead him and his brother, Patrice, to the Chamonix Valley, where he earned his mountain guide diploma and pursued his passion at the foot of Mont Blanc.

In 1966, Gil Bodin was one of the sniper gang who, ahead of the Chamonix guides, the soldiers from the EMHM (French Mountains Management Agency), and the instructors from the National Ski and Mountaineering School, succeeded in freeing the two Germans trapped on their narrow ledge by the Drus. Along with Gary Hemming, François Guillot, Lothar Mauch, René Desmaison, and others, Bodin had ignored the institutions to bring the two shipwrecked men back alive. The happy ending, set against a backdrop of controversy, would contribute to the evolution of rescue work in the Mont Blanc massif. "At the time," says Jean Blanchard, a high mountain guide, "there weren't many people of that level, even in the Compagnie des Guides. They roped together out of friendship, climbed the west route, and brought them back safe and sound. (...) You could say that mountain rescue was born from the rescue of the Drus. It was after this rescue that the State established the PGHM system."

In 1968, he was at the foot of the Linceul in the Grandes Jorasses, with Desmaison and Flematti, when the latter made their first winter ascent live on RTL. A great guide with gypsy blood bubbling in his veins, Bodin was the first to take a client up the terrifying Nose, a 900-meter face of El Capitan in Yosemite (USA). Deep down, he had the look and free spirit of Californian climbers. This form of independence led him to create the "Independent Association of Mont Blanc Guides" in 1975, along with three other guides: Patrice Bodin, Patrick Cordier, and Jean Afanassieff, breaking the monopoly of the venerable Chamonix company, whose statutes date back to 1821. Today, the International Association of Mont Blanc Guides, located on Rue des Moulins, has in turn become an institution.

Gil Bodin passed on this love of summits to one of his three sons, Kim, who like him became a guide, while Gregory, a computer scientist, and Titouan, an actor, had forged other career paths of which he was proud. Also a grandfather of four, his children were the other passion that occupied and filled his heart.

Gil Bodin passed away on October 7, 2019, in Lyon, at the age of 80, from cancer. A family ceremony bringing together his friends took place the following Saturday at the Maison de la Montagne in Chamonix.