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TOP50
Sam Anthamatten: Best supporting role TOP 50 skiing
The youngest member of the Anthamatten clan, now retired from the Freeride World Tour, teamed up with Jérémie Heitz to make the highly anticipated sequel to He... Read More...
Dani Arnold: against the clock TOP 50 mountaineering
He’d promised himself he would break the speed records for all six of the Alps’ legendary north faces. After the Cima Grande in Italy, the Grandes Jorasses in ... Read More...
Chantel Astorga : Miss Denali TOP 50 mountaineering
Chantel Astorga made her name in 2017, when she won the Piolet d’Or with Anne Gilbert Chase for their ascent of Nilkantha. She hit the headlines again in 2021 f... Read More...
Filip Babicz: a man in a hurry TOP 50 mountaineering
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abicz earned himself the nickname Peuterey Man in 2020 when he added a record-breaking solo traverse of Mont Blanc’s longest ridge (completed in 17 hours... Read More...
Andrzej Bargiel: Steep skiing, himalayan style TOP 50 skiing
Where can you go to push yourself after climbing K2 extremely fast without oxygen and then doing the first ever ski descent (2018)? Not necessarily to another ... Read More...
Marc Batard : Everest veteran TOP 50 mountaineering
Marc Batard could star in one of those heist films where the hero comes out of retirement to do one last job. We thought he’d hung up his crampons, but, at the ... Read More...
Léo Billon : Dru story TOP 50 mountaineering
Corporal Léo Billon is currently one of the driving forces within France’s elite mountain regiment, the Groupe Militaire de Haute Montagne, specialising in rout... Read More...
Christian Maurer: The King of the X-Alps TOP 50 paragliding
Maurer has reigned supreme over the world’s most prestigious paragliding competition since his first victory in 2009. He has now won the biannual X-Alps race a... Read More...
Paul Bonhomme: X Skier TOP 50 skiing
Paul Bonhomme’s 10X Project to ski ten new lines in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps in just five months was the soap opera of 2021. Spoiler alert: the guide... Read More...
Conrad Anker: Mountaineer with a big heart TOP 50 mountaineering
Conrad Anker has had an incredible life. Now approaching 60, his life has been so intense, even a Hollywood scriptwriter would find it far-fetched. A mountainee... Read More...
Vivian Bruchez: sage of the steeps TOP 50 skiing
Vivian Bruchez does not consider himself an extreme skier, just someone who skis steep slopes. A distinction that most of us will struggle to grasp, given the ... Read More...
François Cazzanelli: fast is safe TOP 50 mountaineering
Another Italian rocket, but one whose motor is just as efficient on the high peaks of the Himalaya. Cazzanelli made his name in 2019 by climbing Mont Blanc via... Read More...
Julia Chanourdie: pure talent TOP 50 climbing
Julia Chanourdie is one of only three women in the world to have climbed 9b outside. She achieved this major milestone in 2020, when she followed her ascent of... Read More...
Ines Papert: Mountaineering with the family TOP 50 mountaineering
The multiple world champion ice climber, who stopped competing in 2006, still climbs and does so with her family. When she is not out with her son Emanuel, wh... Read More...
Carlos Soria: pensioner of the extreme TOP 50 mountaineering
When some people retire, they buy themselves a campervan. Not Carlos Soria. He has spent his retirement flitting between basecamps in Pakistan, Tibet and Nepal... Read More...
Brooke Raboutou : In the blood TOP 50 climbing
It could be said that Brooke Raboutou has climbing in her blood. Her father, France’s Didier Raboutou, won three world cups; her mother, America’s Robyn Erbesf... Read More...
Catherine Destivelle: Mont Blanc’s publisher TOP 50 literature
In 2020, Catherine Destivelle became the first woman to be awarded a Piolet d’Or for her lifetime achievements. Indeed, her impressive climbing record across t... Read More...
Charles Dubouloz : The happy mountaineer TOP 50 mountaineering
2021 was a fantastic and very busy year for Charles Dubouloz. His greatest prize was the highly coveted north face of Chamlang (7,319 m), in the Himalayas, clim... Read More...
Mattéo Eydallin: Forever young TOP 50 skiing
The Italian ski-mountaineer Matteo Eydallin, who now lives near Gap (France), has always been a master of individual ski mountaineering racing. Last year he ca... Read More...
Nicolas Favresse : grade 8 humour TOP 50 climbing
Nicolas Favresse has such a gift for making people laugh — just watch the films of his adventures on the world’s big walls — he could easily have gone into com... Read More...
Jost Kobush: Everest far from the crowds TOP 50 mountaineering
This atypical mountaineer first came to the public’s attention a few years ago thanks to a documentary broadcast by the Franco-German TV channel Arte. He had j... Read More...
Marek Holecek: Miracle survivor TOP 50 mountaineering
Marek Holecek has already won two Piolet d’Ors for his first ascents on Gasherbrum (2017) and Chamlang (2019). His epic descent of Baruntse with his partner Ra... Read More...
Janja Garnbret : Forever first TOP 50 climbing
Garnbret made sporting history in Tokyo by adding the first Olympic gold medal in climbing to the six world championship titles she had won over the previous fi... Read More...
Hillary Gerardi: suffer with a smile TOP 50 skiing
Gerardi, who left her native Vermont for France 10 years ago, added a wonderful page to the history of ski mountaineering in April 2021 when she and Valentine ... Read More...
Antoine Girard: higher and higher TOP 50 paragliding
The paragliding altitude record which Antoine Girard set when he flew over Broad Peak in 2016 stood for five years. Then, in July 2021, François Ragolski overt... Read More...
Mingma Gyalje Sherpa : Words and deeds TOP 50 mountaineering
Mingma Gyalje was a key figure in the first winter ascent of K2, one of the biggest events of 2021. He also helped initiate the project that led to the highly s... Read More...
Yasushi Yamanoi: a life to mountaineering TOP 50 mountaineering
Japan’s Yasushi Yamanoi, who has dedicated his life to mountaineering, succeeded Catherine Destivelle in being awarded the 2021 Piolet d’Or Carrière.
He starte... Read More...
Brette Harrington: partners in solo TOP 50 climbing
When we interviewed Kilian Jornet, he named Brette Harrington as one of the climbers who inspired him the most. We did a quick search to find out more about th... Read More...
Quentin Roberts: Alone on Torre Egger TOP 50 mountaineering
At the beginning of 2022 Roberts became the third person to solo from Punta Herron to Torre Egger, following in the footsteps of Colin Haley in 2016 and Marc-A... Read More...
Stefano Ghisolfi: One of the best climber of the world TOP 50 climbing
After having completed Bibliographie in Céüse, the six-time world champion Italian found the 9c rating of Migos a little too high and downgraded it to "only" 9... Read More...
Alex Honnold : An American in Chamonix TOP 50 climbing
Where can you go next after doing the solo of the century on El Capitan? To France, of course. Alex Honnold was sighted soloing the American Direct on the Peti... Read More...
Kilian Jornet: ever stronger TOP 50 trail running
Killian Jornet has spent less time on the competition circuit in recent years, but when he does enter a race, he nails it. With a nine-out-of-nine success rate... Read More...
Eliza Kubarska: a different regard TOP 50 image
Eliza Kubarska’s latest film, The Wall of Shadows, offers a very different take on Himalayan climbing to the heroics highlighted by most previous films.
Focusi... Read More...
Sophie Lavaud : 8000 collector TOP 50 mountaineering
After three unsuccessful attempts, Sophie Lavaud finally reached the summit of Dhaulagiri last autumn, thereby becoming the first Frenchwoman to climb twelve 8,... Read More...
Tom Livingstone: the english job TOP 50 mountaineering
Livingstone first made headlines in 2019 with his ascent of Latok I with Aleš Česen and Luka Stražar, which earned the team a Piolet d’Or. In 2021, he was agai... Read More...
Tamara Lunger : Farewell to winter TOP 50 mountaineering
After being introduced to winter climbing by her fellow Italian Simone Moro (who, 12 years ago, became the youngest woman to climb Lhotse), Tamara Lunger decide... Read More...
Bernadette McDonald : Mountaineering historian TOP 50 literature
Bernadette McDonald is one of North America’s greatest mountaineering writers. Her twelfth and latest book, Winter 8000, is a masterful account of this major as... Read More...
Alex Megos: step back to step up TOP 50 climbing
Alex Megos burst into the climbing saloon in 2013, when he became the first person to onsight 9a. After a six-year break from competitions, he got back in the ... Read More...
Matteo Della Bordella: The Italian of Patagonia TOP 50 mountaineering
It took three expeditions and 150 days of climbing for Matteo Della Bordella to climb the west face of Torre Egger, in Patagonia. He finally succeeded on the r... Read More...
Nouria Newman : The flying kayaker TOP 50 kayaking
Having just received her fifth consecutive Rider of the Year trophy at the Whitewater Awards, Newman is unarguably the world’s leading extreme kayaker. As is of... Read More...
Adam Ondra : frustrated king TOP 50 climbing
In August 2021 Ondra once again became the only person to have climbed 9c (Silence at Flatanger, climbed in 2017), when Stefano Ghisolfi downgraded Alex Megos’... Read More...
Nirmal Purja: nepalese revolution TOP 50 mountaineering
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n just two years he overturned everything in his path. First by climbing all fourteen 8,000ers in six months in 2019, and then by leading... Read More...
Elisabeth Revol : Resilient TOP 50 mountaineering
Elisabeth Revol dropped out of sight after promoting her book To Live (published in 2019), which recounts her winter ascent of Nanga Parbat and subsequent drama... Read More...
Candide Thovex: Freeride superstar TOP 50 skiing
Tricks and back flips galore… Candide Thovex has been bounding and summersaulting down mountains for 20 years, shocking and twisting his body every which way. ... Read More...
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi : from Free Solo to 14 peaks TOP 50 image
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is one of the biggest names in the mountain film world, especially since she won the Oscar for Best Documentary for Free Solo in 2019,... Read More...
Benjamin Védrines : Super fast TOP 50 mountaineering
4hours 38 mins to traverse the Meije, solo, starting and finishing in La Grave, that is, 3,100 metres of climbing. It can’t be possible, or so you might think. ... Read More...
Silvia Vidal : Alone in the world TOP 50 climbing
The 2021 Piolets d’Or very deservedly gave a special mention to the Catalan climber, who has been tackling big walls in Pakistan, Patagonia, Alaska and Mali alo... Read More...
Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll: Fitz Roy integrale TOP 50 mountaineering
The most Patagonian of Belgians caused a stir in the climbing world in February 2021 by completing the first solo south-north traverse of the Fitz Roy range in... Read More...
Symon Welfringer : Hurricane TOP 50 mountaineering
Symon Welfringer’s mixed route on the hitherto virgin south face of Sani Pakush, climbed with Pierrick Fine in 2020, is a masterpiece that fully deserves its Pi... Read More...
Tomás Aguiló: Survivor TOP 50 mountaineering
Tomàs Aguiló and Corrado Pesce were descending the north face of Cerro Torre after topping out on a new route (La Norte, 1,200 m, 90°, 7a, A2) when they were s... Read More...