Joëlle Brupbacher

Joëlle Catherine Brupbacher (3 August 1978 – 22 May 2011) was a Swiss mountaineer.

Joëlle Brupbacher
Born	(1978-08-03)August 3, 1978
Died	(2011-05-22)May 22, 2011 Makalu
Cause of death	Altitude sickness, exhaustion
Burial place	Makalu
Occupation	IT Specialist
Known for	First Swiss woman to summit 5 eight-thousanders
Spouse(s)	Jorge Egocheaga (Spanish summiter of all 14 eight-thousanders), 2011

Brupbacher lived in Muri bei Bern and was employed as an IT specialist with Swiss Federal Railways.^[1] Before she turned to mountaineering, she was a sport climber. She would go on to be the first Swiss woman to climb five of the fourteen eight-thousanders, without using supplementary oxygen.^[2]

Makalu, the destination for the final climb

Final climb

Brupbacher was climbing Makalu with a small expedition team on the mountain that day, including her husband, Jorge Egocheaga and Oscar Fernandez.^[3] Brupabacher and Egocheaga were married only a month before the climb.^[4] It was her second attempt at Makalu, after an attempt in the previous season that was aborted at 7800m.^[5] Brupacher was climbing with a cold, and making slower progress than the others. Egocheaga summitted first, meeting Brupbacher on the descent, where he encouraged her to turn around.^[6] According to the expedition report, she refused and continued to the summit alongside her sherpa, Pasang Gyalzen Sherpa.^[7]

After reaching the summit of Makalu, and descending to Camp 4 on 21 May, Brupbacher died of acute mountain sickness (AMS) in her tent at Camp 3 at an altitude of 7400 m on the 22 May 2011.^[1][8][7] Egocheaga was already in base camp.^[9] On May 21, before Brupbacher died, Egocheaga and Ramos tried to organize a rescue, however efforts were unsuccessful.^[10][11] After her death, her body was left in the tent at camp 3. Fabrizio Zangrilli, a climber from the team sent to render aid to Brupbacher before she died, went up, collapsed the tent over her, and packed snow over the tent to bury her body.^[5]

After her death, her family started Joëlle Ayuda, a Nepalese non-profit organization to help disadvantaged children with education and medical care in Nepal's Makalu Valley.^[12][13]

Notable ascents

• 2006: Broad Peak, 8051  m, Pakistan-China^[14]
• 2007: Dhaulagiri, 8167  m, Nepal^[15]
• 2007: Cho Oyu, 8188  m, Nepal-China^[14]
• Gasherbrum II, 8035  m, Pakistan-China^[14]
• 2010: Ama Dablam 6814 m, Nepal - summit disputed^[5]
• 2011: Makalu, 8485  m, Nepal-China - summit disputed^[8]