In July 1956, together with the mountaineer Gaston Rébuffat, the actor and cellist Maurice Baquet made the first ascent of the south face of the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m/12,606 ft), a magnificent wall of red granite soaring up like a rampart above the Vallée Blanche (the White Valley) in the Mont-Blanc Massif. Thirty-two years later, as if to pay tribute to the memory of his friend Gaston, now deceased, Maurice Baquet once again climbed this mighty crag, suspended between sky and earth, behind Christophe Profit.