Following in the footsteps of Frison Roche, 7 climbers explore the main Hoggar massifs in Algeria. Their main objective is the ascent of the Garet El Djenoun summit via the north ridge, a long climb symbolic of a certain difficulty and a significant commitment, due to its location in the desert. They also attempt the Diedre Agresti, a daring route from the 70s, opened in around ten days on artificial, and unequipped; it is a path that has never been repeated; the objective is to do it free and almost only on wedges, with difficulties up to 7b/c in a sometimes very delicate rock... Excerpts from the film shot in 1970 by Henri Agresti on this same route, allow us to compare the technical and material means of the time to those of today. They also discover the beauty of the Algerian desert, its silence, its rock paintings, the customs of the Tuaregs, etc... a fascinating journey.
After reading the book "Guide to Hoggar Climbing," guide Pierre Agresti and his wife Isabelle Agresti set off into the Hoggar massif in the Algerian Sahara and tackled the west face of Garet El Djenoun. After a first attempt in 1967, they successfully reached the summit in 1970 and, with an old camera, made a film that remained unused for 25 years. In 1996, they decided to bring the past back to life through the ascent and encounters with the Tuaregs in the rock salt mines of Amadror. The film was shown in competition at the Trento Film Festival in 1997.
Henri Agresti is a French mountain guide, linguist, filmmaker and teacher at ENSA. With his wife, Isabelle, professor of classics, they formed a high-level mountaineering team to conquer the peaks of the Alps but also around the world and achieved many firsts in the 1970s. They have four children including Blaise Agresti, also a mountaineer and mountain advisor to the General Directorate of the Gendarmerie. Henri Agresti and his wife Isabelle went to Afghanistan twice, in 1966 with Poles, and in 1968 (first entirely French expedition) where they spent more than two months. Two months there, but three and a half months of expedition in total since they went there in 4L, crossing Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Italy! They carried out several firsts, some of which will never be repeated and which gave rise to a film and a 41-page booklet, “Arid Mountains of Wakhan”. In the 1970s, they developed a passion for the mountains of the Hoggar massif in Algeria and opened several routes including the Agresti dihedral, a daring route from the 1970s, opened in around ten days by artificial means. The couple published numerous books and mountain guides and gave numerous conferences throughout their lives.
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