Jean-François Tardif: milkweed silk at 7,000 m on Everest

South face of Everest, Nepal27°59′ N7,000 m

Opening photo: Jean-François Tardif, at the foot of Everest, in spring 2016.

It all starts in a back shop in Granby, in 2014. Jean-François Tardif, an amateur climber from Quebec, has already done Aconcagua and Cho Oyu, and he dreams of Everest. He meets François Simard, who processes the fibre of a weed. He describes the scene:

In March 2015, he takes a first prototype up Mount Lafayette, in New Hampshire, with Marc Tremblay of Chlorophylle, who designed it. Sixteen hundred metres, minus thirty, winds of 25 to 30 kilometres an hour. His verdict will follow the fibre everywhere.

He trains the following winter on Mont Mégantic. Radio-Canada reports that he sometimes hikes seventeen hours straight and goes thirty hours without sleep.

In spring 2016, he leaves for two months with a one-piece suit, an anorak and a blanket insulated with milkweed silk, orange like monarch butterflies. He wants to climb above seven thousand metres without oxygen. Every gram counts.

The 2016 season is the first full season after two disasters. On April 18, 2014, an avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall killed sixteen Sherpas. On April 25, 2015, the Nepal earthquake set off an avalanche onto base camp, and the season was cancelled. In spring 2016, at least 456 climbers reach the summit from the Nepal side (The Himalayan Times). The summit stands at 8,848.86 metres, according to the measurement announced by Nepal and China in 2020. The first Quebecer to reach it, Yves Laforest, got there on May 15, 1991.

The route leaves base camp, around 5,300 metres, crosses the icefall, climbs the Western Cwm to Camp 2, around 6,400 metres, then takes on the Lhotse Face toward Camp 3. At 7,000 metres, air pressure drops to about 43% of what it is at sea level. Each breath brings in less than half the oxygen.

The report from the time, published by Monark Insulation.

May was warm on the mountain. Minus twenty-two at the coldest, twenty-five in the sun, at seven thousand metres. The snow of the Western Cwm throws the sun back from every side, and the maker of the fibre ends up with a rare problem.

The discovery came while he slept on a milkweed blanket crushed under his weight.

It's the property every mitten we have made since rests on. Quilting gets crushed, in a palm, around a ski pole, at the bottom of a bag. Crushed down stops keeping you warm. Milkweed silk keeps going.

There was another scene up there. A crampon tore the sleeve of his anorak.

The fibre came from Protec-Style, in Granby, which went bankrupt in 2017. The suit came from LM Uniforme. The 2015 prototype had been designed by Chlorophylle. Marketing was Monark's job.

Lasclay was born in 2020, out of what was left of that supply chain. We picked up a torch others had dropped, and we took their discovery seriously.

Jean-François Tardif

Quebec amateur climber

Before Everest, he had climbed Aconcagua and Cho Oyu. In 2015, he took the first prototype insulated with milkweed silk up Mount Lafayette, then wore it on Everest in 2016, up to seven thousand metres. He is the one who noticed that the fibre keeps its warmth even when crushed.