Jean-Marie Choffat

Biography

Born in 1956 in Belfort, Jean-Marie Choffat is a French mountaineer. "I started the mountain at the age of 14 and fell ill at the age of 33. When I learned that I had a very rare cancer - at the beginning the doctors gave me a three-month expectation of life – I thought about everything I had been through in the mountains, especially the difficult situations. So I fought with my favorite weapon: passion. I continued to climb and live as usual knowing although all life has an end. Of course, nothing was easy, but nothing is ever simple. I only had a handful of friends who still agreed to go to the mountains with me, among them: Yannick Lord and Pascal Laheurte. It's a lot thanks to their friendship that I didn't let go of the ramp." He has climbed many of the great routes of modern mountaineering and his race diary includes more than 1,200 ascents, including many "firsts" - new, solitary or winter routes - in various Alpine or extra-European massifs. He also participated in the filming of a dozen mountaineering reports for television, as well as Damien Roz's film "The Story of an Exceptional Man" in 2018. Member of the Alpine Club (Alpine Climbing Group) and the High Mountain Group (G.H.M), he was its secretary from 1993 to 1999 and vice-president in the year 2000). He was also secretary of the committee for the Himalayas and distant expeditions of the F.F.M.E (2001-2005). Jean-Marie Choffat has climbed or participated in expeditions with great names in mountaineering such as Yannick Seigneur, Patrick Gabarrou, Louis Audoubert, René Desmaison, Louis Dubost, Gaston Rebuffat; Jean-Marc Boivin, Maurice Barrard, Patrick Vallancéd , Bernard Domenech, Patrick Cordier, Stephane Schaffter… Jean-Marie Choffat went through ten long years of chemotherapy which ended in a complete liver transplant in 2001. His transplant generated serious post-operative complications requiring the fitting of a diaphragmatic prosthesis. With only one lung and 48% respiratory volume, he had to give up the high mountain. Jean-Marie Choffat published his first book at the age of 27, he is now the author of around fifteen books, several of which have won awards. He is now a member of the Society of People of Letters, a member of the Society of Writers of Alsace, Lorraine and Territory of Belfort (delegated to the territory of Belfort) and a member of the Comtoise Association of Independent Authors (A.C.A.I) . A lecturer, he has given numerous conferences in France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Italy. In early 2020, the Ministry of Culture elevated him to the rank of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. He is a follower of truancy who has not pushed his studies very far. He to whom a teacher, in primary school, once told his classmates that he would never do anything good in life.