Among the host of Everest ascents and a list of increasingly various records, there remains one never-before-done climb that really deserves attention. It meets four criteria that can only be described as ultimate: solo, in winter, without supplementary oxygen and by a route other than the normal one. Although climbs have already been made in each of these categories, the combination of the four...

It’s a popular drawing by French artist Samivel published in his collection Sous l’oeil des choucas in 1937. The first box of the strip shows two mountaineers climbing a small, debonair peak in bright sunshine, one of them with his hands in his pockets. In the second and last box, the same two climbers are grappling with a tapering pinnacle under a threatening sky. Subtitle: Their...

No, they’re not window cleaners or lost rope access technicians. On Saturday, however, two dots quickly caught the eye of passers-by on one of Paris’ tallest towers, culminating 187 meters (600 feet !) above the concrete. The two men started off in parallel, before one climbed above the other. No rope, no gear, no harness. Free solo. One is a regular: Alain Robert, the man who has...

It’s not Reinhold’s boot, it’s his brother Gunther’s boot. It spent thirty-four years on the slopes of Nanga Parbat before being discovered on the Diamir glacier in 2022. The boot has just been brought to Reinhold Messner’s home in South Tyrol. It’s a 1970 model boot, with a huge Vibram sole and a lining that’s probably too thin, Reinhold having suffered...

Whether we like it or not, our gaze remains constrained by borders. The ones that separated us from Evgeni Glazunov can be counted in dozens, piling up like opaque filters from our base camp in the French Alps to the far reaches of Siberia. These filters are all the more powerful because Russia is not the most transparent of states, especially in wartime. Yet Glazunov was one of his...

On July 27, 2023, Mohammed Hassan, a Pakistani porter, died while crossing the Bottleneck on K2, at around 8,200m. This was his first ascent as a high-altitude porter (HAP). The reasons for his fall remain unclear. Hassan may have slipped, been destabilized by a small plate at the edge of the track, or suffered some other physical problem that unbalanced him. Attached to the fixed rope, the...