The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc鈥攁ka UTMB鈥攊sn鈥檛 just one thing. It鈥檚 the Spandex Superbowl, wrapped in Gore-Tex Mardi Gras with a dash of Chafing World Cup. It鈥檚 a week-long festival of mountain racing that attracts thousands of runners to Chamonix, France.

What started as a stand-alone 171K (106-mile) race in 2003 has transformed into a weeklong acronym circus under the banner of UTMB Mont-Blanc. The alphabet soup of race names reference the tiny alpine villages in France, Italy, and Switzerland the races pass through. The epicenter is in Chamonix, France (elevation 3,400 feet) at the base of Mont Blanc鈥攖he highest summit in the Alps at 15,781 feet鈥攚here some of the races begin but all finish amid hordes of enthusiastic fans.

Beginning on August 24, the French village鈥檚 cobblestone streets will teem with compression-sock-clad competitors who will line up at one of the six events throughout the week. The six smaller races (perhaps in prestige, rather than mileage, as in the case of PTL) lead up to UTMB, considered by many to be the sport鈥檚 crown jewel.

But if you鈥檙e in Chamonix, the races are just the tip of the glacier. Walk through town during the last week of August and you鈥檒l find numerous fun runs, brand activations, parties, film releases, and new trail running shoe drops. If you鈥檙e a fan of the sport, it鈥檚 a who鈥檚 who of trail running athletes and personalities. And even if you鈥檙e not running one of the seven races, it鈥檚 still a fun time to be in Chamonix because there are hundreds of miles of trails to be run in between bouts of spectating, cheers, and chasing the races.

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Here is a rundown of the week鈥檚 races.

Spanish ultra trail star Kilian Jornet en route to a fourth victory at the fourth Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), where he set a new record time of under twenty hours. (Photo: Photo by JEFF PACHOUD/AFP via Getty Images)

UTMB: The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc

The marquee and last event of the week-long series, UTMB completely circles its namesake summit in just over 100 miles with a whopping 32,808 feet of vertical gain鈥攎ore than it would take to summit Everest from sea level. About 2,300 runners will attempt to traverse the course鈥檚 10 alpine summits in under 46 hours 30 minutes.

Jim Walmsley became the first American man to win UTMB in 2023, but American women have crushed it in Chamonix since its inception. Krissy Moehl won the inaugural event in 2003, and again in 2009. Rory Bosio racked up two consecutive victories in 2013 and 2014, and Nikki Kimball claimed the title in 2007. Courtney Dauwalter won it in 2019, 2021, and 2023鈥攖he latter of which capped off an epic summer that also included wins at the Western States 100 and the Hardrock 100.

Other UTMB Mont-Blanc Races

PTL: Petite Trotte 脿 L茅on

Perhaps UTMB鈥檚 most distinctive event, the PTL takes teams of two to three runners over 300K (186 miles) of rugged, unmarked terrain around Mont Blanc. Named for an adventurous French baker and hardcore volunteer, it takes many teams the allowed 151 hours to get to the finish line in Chamonix. The PTL begins on the morning of August 26 in Chamonix and the final cutoff is September 1 just before UTMB officially ends. The course changes every year and there is no official winner. The event is so challenging that finishing is judged as a win.

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MCC: Martigny-Combe-Chamonix

The MCC is a 40K (24.8-mile) race for the 鈥渂茅n茅voles鈥� and 鈥済ens du pays,鈥� the volunteers and locals who help with UTMB. The shortest of the races, it provides an accessible yet surprisingly challenging (7,500 feet of elevation gain) glimpse into the French Alps. This year鈥檚 MCC begins in Martigny on the morning of August 26.

TDS: Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie

The extra-technical TDS is the 鈥渃ool-kids鈥� race, historically attracting a who鈥檚 who of mountain runners from around the world. With the advent of the UTMB World Series in 2022, which does not officially include TDS, this race has diminished in competitiveness and prestige a bit. However, it remains just as rugged. TDS traverses 148K (92 miles) from Courmayeur, Italy, to Chamonix around the Mont Blanc massif. This 鈥渕id-distance鈥� (by UTMB standards) event hosts 1,600 runners, and has a 42-hour cutoff. The TDS begins on the afternoon on August 26 and the first finishers will arrive in Chamonix on the morning of August 27. No American has ever won TDS, but Hillary Allen ran a ferocious race and finished second in 2019.

ETC: Experience Trail Courmayeur

The newest race to UTMB week, the ETC is a grueling 15K (9.3-mile) race from iconic village of Courmayeur, Italy, that includes a beastly 3,937 feet of total elevation gain in the heart of the Italian Alps. This year鈥檚 ETC will begin on the afternoon of August 27 and runners will have four and and a half hours to complete the race.

OCC: Orsi猫res-Champex-Chamonix

Probably the closest thing UTMB has to an entry-level race, this 55K (34-mile) race is a testing ground for many future UTMB competitors. It sends runners from Orsi猫res, Switzerland, to Chamonix during the daylight hours. The route climbs over 11,000 feet as it winds through the Swiss Valais region with a 14-hour-30-minute cutoff. The OCC begins on the morning of August 29 and the first finishers will arrive in Chamonix by early afternoon.

CCC: Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix

Previously seen as the 鈥渓ittle sister of the UTMB,鈥� CCC has become a respected race in its own right with a demanding 101-kilometer course that ascends over 20,000 feet. It just about covers the last 100K (62 miles) of the UTMB course, which offers an in-depth preview for many runners with UTMB dreams. Historically, Americans have been successful at CCC, with notable American victories by Clare Gallagher, Hayden Hawks, and Zach Miller. This year鈥檚 CCC will begin at 9 A.M. local time on August 30 in Courmayeur, Italy, and the first runners are expected to arrive in Chamonix later that evening, just a few hours after the UTMB runners depart from downtown.

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The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) isn鈥檛 just one thing. It鈥檚 the Spandex Superbowl, wrapped in Gore-Tex Mardi Gras with a dash of Chafing World Cup. It鈥檚 a weeklong festival of mountain running that attracts thousands of runners to Chamonix, France.

Mountain runner Hillary Allen is excited to be back in Chamonix. 鈥淔or me, running UTMB is the ultimate test of mental strength and endurance. It鈥檚 the chance to challenge myself with the best athletes in some of the most challenging mountains. I鈥檓 really grateful to have the chance to compete at UTMB and try my best. I鈥檓 looking forward to the atmosphere on race day and running through the night,鈥� Allen says.

The alphabet soup of race names references the tiny alpine villages in France, Italy, and Switzerland that surround Mont Blanc, or in the case of PTL, one very intrepid baker (see below). Chamonix (3,400 feet) is located at the base of Mont Blanc, the highest summit in the Alps at 15,781 feet.

To me, racing UTMB means that I am taking part in the most competitive ultra-trail race in the world. It is an iconic and logical route that provides 360-degree views of Mont Blanc on some of the most beautiful mountain trails I鈥檝e ever experienced,鈥� says runner Sage Canaday. 鈥淭he magnitude of the event in terms of runner participation, crowd support, and media coverage is really exciting. Just being able to toe the starting line again is a real privilege and honor. I feel very fortunate to be able to test myself on the course again this year.鈥�

Two-time Hardrock Champion Sabrina Stanley says she鈥檚 been dreaming of competing in a race this big for her entire life as a competitive runner. 鈥淯TMB brings together the best runners in the world. It is the largest field in terms of talent and experience,鈥� she says.

Stanley has been training for the race all summer, and she鈥檚 excited to let her legs attack the trails.

The petit French cobblestone streets will teem with compression-sock-clad competitors who will be competing in one of the six events throughout the week. The five smaller races (perhaps in prestige, rather than mileage, as in the case of PTL) lead up to UTMB, considered by many to be the sport鈥檚 crown jewel. This is our breakdown of the week鈥檚 events.

Stories We鈥檙e Watching

Jim Versus Kilian

With a deep men鈥檚 field, it will be exciting to see two of the sports legends go head to head in this race. Jim Walmsley has been living and training in France for the last four months, forgoing Western States and jumping into European mountain races. Will he be the first American man to claim the title? 鈥淭his will be his 4th time racing UTMB. In the previous 3 attempts, he either DNF鈥檈d or raced below expectations. This time around, he鈥檚 putting all the chips on UTMB. So, what happens on race day with all that emphasis? Even with Spanish running star Kilian Jornet in the field and the opportunity to podium, I imagine it鈥檚 win or bust for him in terms of satisfaction. It鈥檚 incredibly exciting.鈥� says Finn Melanson, host of the Singletrack Podcast.

Pau Cappell Is Back

The 2019 UTMB champion had knee surgery during the pandemic and has been on the mend. Can he still hang with the world鈥檚 greatest?

American Women Bring the Heat

Even with Courtney Dauwalter absent from the roster, there鈥檚 a slew of strong American women in contention for UTMB鈥檚 top spot. 鈥淚 predict we will have 3-5 Americans in the Women’s top-10,鈥� says Dylan Bowman, mountain athlete and UTMB commentator.听 A top contender? Sabrina Stanley.听 鈥淪he鈥檚 been all-in since her Hardrock victory last year, and she has a history of rising to the occasion and following through on her goals when she takes this approach. That said, this is the most competitive event she’s ever toed the line for (far more competitive than 2017 Western States, for example), so she will be tested more so than ever before,鈥� says Melanson.

Chinese Athletes Take the Lead

鈥淭hey have talented athletes in every race this year, some have been racing in Europe this summer, and will still be relatively unknown names for the North American audience,鈥� says Corinne Malcolm, athlete and UTMB commentator. 鈥淭hey race aggressively and often from the front鈥攚ill it work out for them this year? I think China will take a few podium spots鈥攑articularly in OCC and CCC but UTMB isn’t out of reach for them.鈥�

UTMB: The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc

The marquee and last event of the week-long series, UTMB completely circles its namesake summit in just over 100 miles with a whopping 32,808 feet of vertical gain鈥攎ore than it would take to summit Everest from sea level. About 2,300 runners will attempt to traverse the course鈥檚 ten alpine summits in under 46 hours 30 minutes.
Though an American man has yet to cinch a UTMB win, U.S. women have taken home top honors. Krissy Moehl won the women鈥檚 inaugural event in 2003, and again in 2009. Rory Bosio racked up two consecutive victories in 2013 and 2014, and Nikki Kimball claimed the title in 2007. Courtney Dauwalter won鈥檛 be returning after her back-to-back victories, leaving the top female spot in hot contention.

Runners to watch in the women鈥檚 race include Camille Herron, Ragna Debats, Azara Garcia de los Salmones, Manon Bohard, Beth Pascall, Katie Schide, Augrey Tanguy, Brittney Peterson, Mimi Kotka, Kaytlyn Gerbin, Hillary Allen, Sabrina Stanley and Marianna Hogan.

On the men鈥檚 side, be sure to track Kilian Jornet, Jim Walmsley, Hannes Namberger, Thomas Evans, Pao Cappell, Jaiju Zhao, Tim Tollefson, Jared Hazen, Daniel Jung, Tyler Green, Xavier Thevenard, Jason Schlarb, Scotty Hawker, Anthony Costales, Jimmy Elam, Jeff Mogavero, and Sage Canaday.

UTMB Races

CCC: Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix

Previously seen as the 鈥渓ittle sister of the UTMB鈥�, CCC has become a respected race in its own right with a demanding 62-mile course that ascends over 20,000 feet. It just about covers the last 60 miles of the UTMB course, which offers an in-depth preview for many runners with UTMB dreams. Historically, Americans have been successful at CCC, with notable victories by Clare Gallagher, Hayden Hawks and Zach Miller.

Runners to watch in the men鈥檚 race include Jonathan Albon, David Sinclair, Hayden Hawks, Dakota Jones, Matt Daniels, Mario Mendoza, Adam Merry, Jiasheng Shen, Andreas Reitrerer, Thibaut Baronian, and Stephen Kersh.
On the women鈥檚 side, Blandine L鈥橦irondel, Ruth Croft, Jazmine Lowther, Alisa MacDonald, Hannah Osowski, Abby Hall, Holly Page, Ida Nilsson, Taylor Nowlin, Emily Schmitz, Kaci Lickteig, Erin Clark, Kelly Wolf, Sandi Nypaver, Ladia Albertson-Junkans, Marcela Vasinova and Meg Mackenzie.

PTL: Petite Trotte 脿 L茅on

Perhaps UTMB鈥檚 most distinctive event, the PTL takes teams of two to three runners over 186 miles of rugged, unmarked terrain around Mont Blanc. Named for an adventurous French baker and hardcore volunteer, it takes many teams the allowed 152 hours 30 to complete.

The course changes every year and there is no official winner. The event is so challenging that finishing is judged as a win.

TDS: Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie

The extra-technical TDS is the 鈥渃ool-kids鈥� race, attracting a who鈥檚 who of mountain runners from around the world.听 2019鈥檚 new-and-improved route is even more rugged than previous years. It traverses 90 miles from Courmayeur, Italy, to Chamonix around the Mont Blanc massif. This 鈥渕id-distance鈥� (by UTMB standards) event hosts 1,600 runners, and has a 42-hour cutoff. No American has ever won TDS, but Hillary Allen ran a ferocious race for 2nd in 2019.

In the women鈥檚 race, we鈥檙e watching Agnese Valz Gen, Caldia Tremps, Fiona Porte, Martina Valmossoi, Gwen Rudy, Corinne Malcolm, Alyssa Clark, Esther Fellhofer, and Julia Rezzi.
On the men鈥檚 side, be sure to watch Ivan Camps, Cristofer Clemente, Franco Colle, Martin Kern, Mike Foote, Cordis Hall, and Joaquin Lopez.

OCC: Orsi猫res-Champex-Chamonix

With the consolidation of the new series, we鈥檙e going to see increased competition at OCC, as UTMB looks to turn it into a world-championship-style event. For fans of 鈥渟horter鈥� mountain races, this will be a must-watch.听 The route climbs over 11,000 feet as it winds through the Swiss Valais region with a 14-hour-30-minute cutoff.

The men鈥檚 race will feature Thomas Cardin, Jiri Cipa, Oriol Cardona Coll, Bernard Dematteis, Justin Grunewald, Manuel Merillas, Bart Przedwojewski, Robbie Simpson, and William Boffelli.

The women鈥檚 race will feature Anais Sabrie, Marta Molist Codina, Sara Alonso, Allie McLaughlin, Julia Kessler, Dani Moreno, Ashley Brasovan, Anna Comet Pazua, and Toni McCann.

MCC: Martigny-Combe-Chamonix

The MCC is a 24-mile race for the 鈥渂茅n茅voles鈥� and 鈥済ens du pays,鈥� the volunteers and locals who help with UTMB. The shortest of the races, it provides an accessible surprisingly challenging (7,500 feet of elevation gain) glimpse into the French Alps.

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This article was first published by .

There was sad news coming out of Chamonix, France, early on the morning of August 25.

The Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc race organization reported that a male runner from the Czech Republic competing in the 145-km TDS race died after suffering a bad fall and serious injuries. The accident occurred at the 62.3 km mark on the descent of the Passeur de Pralognan, an 8,421-foot mountain pass west of Chamonix, France.

It is believed to be the first death in the 19-year history of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc races in and around Chamonix.

A spokesperson for the race said the UTMB race organization is deeply saddened and wished the international trail running community to join in offering condolences to the family and friends of the victim.

When the accident occurred at 12:25 a.m. CET, the rescue team stationed on the course responded to the scene immediately and additional emergency personnel was called into action via helicopter support. Despite life-saving treatments, the runner (who is being kept anonymous until all family members have been notified) succumbed to his injuries. Because of the remote and complex nature of the rescue operations, the race was partially halted and the runners located at the Passeur de Pralognan, and further back, were instructed by the race committee to turn around and go back down to Bourg Saint-Maurice, where they were met and transported back to Chamonix.

The race began on Tuesday afternoon in Courmayeur, Italy, and runners experienced clear skies and cool temperatures through the night and into the early morning. The 293 runners who had already run through Passeur de Pralognan were allowed to continue on to finish the race, but the remainder of the approximately 1,200 runners who were turned back will not be able to continue.

, making it back to Chamonix after 18 hours, 49 minutes, 58 seconds. The TDS race, officially known as the听Sur les Traces des Ducs de Savoie, is the most technically challenging race during the UTMB week, with several craggy climbs and descents that require precise footing and balance.

鈥淭his is a tough section of the course,鈥� reports Trail Runner Magazine contributor Doug Mayer, who lives in the Chamonix area. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e just climbed 2,000 meters in about 10 km, then need to hold on to chains on the other side. They have a rescue group right there at this spot, always. It鈥檚 the most technical moment of the race.鈥�

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Immediately after stumbling across the finish line of the 2019 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, the legendarily punishing mountain-ultra-trail event, 56 runners hobbled over to the National Ski and Mountaineering School in the French resort town of Chamonix. Waiting there was a team of scientists with a roomful of lab equipment to measure the precise physiological toll of their exertions. The problem: one of the tests required them to run on a treadmill for four minutes while their breathing was measured. Many of the super-fit ultrarunners couldn鈥檛 stay on the treadmill for that long, so the scientists altered the protocol on the fly and shortened the treadmill run to three minutes.

Running ultras is hard; so is studying them. Can you really get volunteers to run on a laboratory treadmill for 24 hours? Well, yes, you can鈥攁nd Guillaume Millet, a researcher at the Universit茅 Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne in France (and himself an accomplished ultrarunner) has been there, done that, and . But you get more plentiful and realistic data by studying ultrarunners in the wild. So Millet and his colleagues recently published the sixth in a series of studies from that 2019 UTMB.听Here are some of the insights from those studies about what it takes to run through the mountains for hours on end, and how your body responds to the challenge.

Long and Short

This year, about 10,000 runners will participate in seven different UTMB races over the course of a week in late August. The runners studied in 2019 ran one of two 鈥渟hort鈥� distances (25 and 34 miles) or three 鈥渓ong鈥� ones (62, 90, and 105 miles). The distance is just part of the story: the longest race, for example, also includes almost 33,000 feet of climbing and descending. The men鈥檚 winning time in 2019 was over 20 hours.

The range of distances provided a perfect opportunity to test . It鈥檚 pretty obvious that your quadriceps and calves will be weaker right after you run 100 miles. But it鈥檚 less clear where that fatigue originates. Is it your muscles? Your brain? The signaling pathway along your spinal cord that sends messages from the brain to the spinal cord? Millet and his colleagues put the runners through a series of neuromuscular strength tests before and after the races. There was a test of voluntary strength, but they also used magnetic stimulation of the brain and electric stimulation of the nerves to elicit involuntary muscle contractions, in order to tease out exactly where strength was lost.

After the long races, voluntary quad strength decreased by 38 percent, compared to just 27 percent in the short races. Part of the fatigue : even though the subjects were trying to push as hard as possible, the outgoing signal from their brains was smaller. The muscles themselves were also weaker: for a given level of electric stimulation, they produced less force. (The spinal cord played only a minor role.) In the quads, the difference between short and long races was explained by more muscle fatigue, rather than more brain fatigue.

Surprisingly, though, calf strength declined by 28 percent after both the short and long races: in this case, the extra distance didn鈥檛 seem to make a difference. When you compare these results to previous ultrarunning studies, a somewhat confusing picture emerges. Beyond a certain point鈥攁bout 15 hours of racing, the data suggests鈥攍onger races don鈥檛 seem to make your muscles more tired. That may be because you can go faster in shorter races, and intensity is a key cause of fatigue鈥攑articularly if you鈥檙e hammering down quad-busting mountainsides. The scientific picture remains murky, but if you happen to run one of these races, you might want to adopt 鈥淎fter 15 hours, it won鈥檛 get any worse!鈥� as an encouraging mantra.

Men and Women

Ultrarunning is one of the rare sports where top women sometimes beat top men鈥攁 feat that always prompts discussion about the physiological differences between sexes, and whether women have ultra-friendly characteristics that help them overcome the edge in muscle strength and red blood cell count that men get from testosterone. That鈥檚 , but one of the hypotheses is that women鈥檚 muscles fatigue more slowly than men鈥檚. It does appear that women have, on average, a higher proportion of endurance-linked slow-twitch muscle fibers, and better blood flow to feed those fibers.

In , women did indeed seem to show less muscle fatigue after the race. Here, for example, is the individual (dashed lines) and average (solid lines) data for quadriceps strength in men (blue) and women (red), before (PRE) and after (POST) the races:

The men were stronger before the race and stronger after the race鈥攚hich makes sense because they had to propel bigger and heavier bodies through the mountains鈥攂ut they had a bigger strength decline. This fits with previous research showing better muscular endurance in women.

There鈥檚 a twist, though. The researchers also asked each runner to rate their 鈥渃ompetitive intentions鈥� on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 corresponding to 鈥淚 tried to do the best time possible鈥� and 10 corresponding to 鈥淔un mode: my only goal was to finish the race.鈥� Here鈥檚 what those scores looked like in the short and long races:

In this case, the men seemed to be more focused on their time, particularly in the short races鈥攚hich, it turns out, is where the differences in muscle fatigue were most pronounced. This opens a different can of worms regarding . On one hand, this idea seems irrelevant to the question of why top women can compete with top men in ultra races, because the women who win races are clearly not in 鈥渇un mode.鈥� On the other hand, women have repeatedly been shown to in endurance events, an observation that may be linked to overly competitive (or, to use the technical term, 鈥渟tupid鈥�) early pacing by men.

Millet鈥檚 new data can鈥檛 answer these questions, but it adds to the evidence that patterns of fatigue tend to be different in men and women. The elephant in the room, though, is participation rates. Only 257 of the 2,543 starters in 2019 were women. Until the numbers are more even, it鈥檚 risky to draw any general conclusions about sex differences.

Flat and Hilly

There have been numerous attempts to figure out which physiological traits predict how you鈥檒l do in an ultra trail race. For ordinary road marathons, the three key parameters are VO2 max (the size of your aerobic engine), lactate threshold (which roughly tells you how much of your engine capacity you can use over a long period of time), and running economy (the efficiency of the engine). But those three factors are less useful in trail ultras: a study I wrote about a few years ago found that standard lab tests had decent predictive ability over 50K, less value over 80K, and no use at all over 160K.

Two of the things that make trail ultras so different are (as the name suggests) the terrain and the distance. It鈥檚 one thing to measure running economy on a treadmill in the lab. But how much does your running economy change when you鈥檙e climbing a steep hill? Or when your legs are rubberized by 20 hours of running? Millet and his colleagues : they tested running economy on a level treadmill, and also at an uphill gradient of 15 percent, before and immediately after the races.

Here again there was a counterintuitive result: running economy got worse (meaning the runners had to spend more energy to cover a given distance) after the short races, but not the long races. Previous research has shown that both intensity and duration of exercise can hurt running economy, but there seems to be a threshold where if you鈥檙e going slow enough, your running economy won鈥檛 suffer no matter how long you鈥檙e out there. In fact, found that running economy actually improved after the 200-mile Tor des G茅ants race, perhaps because an ordeal that brutal trims any wasted motion from your stride.

As for the effect of slope, previous research has found that the most efficient runners on level ground aren鈥檛 necessarily the most efficient going uphill: running up mountains is a unique and specific skill. But the new data found that post-race changes in efficiency on level ground were strongly correlated with changes in uphill efficiency, which suggests that the underlying cause鈥攎ostly likely stride-altering fatigue in the muscles, rather than changes in your metabolism鈥攁ffects your stride whatever the terrain.

For better or worse, none of this makes UTMB any easier. Millet even co-wrote a whole book called How to Succeed at UTMB (the English translation is unfortunately out of print), collecting the accumulated scientific research and practical wisdom from runners and coaches who specialize in mountain trail ultras. It鈥檚 a hefty read, and drives home the point that, from a physiological point of view, these races are not simply extra-long marathons. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more complicated,鈥� Millet at a conference a few years ago. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 probably why I like it so much: it鈥檚 more interesting.鈥�

For more Sweat Science, join me on and , sign up for the , and check out my book .

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On a partly cloudy afternoon in August 2019, I followed a Spanish mountain guide named Sim贸n El铆as up steep granite terraces on the north face of a peak in the French portion of the Mont Blanc massif. The 12,561-foot summit of the mountain, called , loomed 1,000 feet above where we were climbing, and 2,000 feet below us lay the Argenti猫re glacier, its surface striated with crevasses. We had entered the Argenti猫re basin across a low point in the ridgeline called the Col des Cristaux鈥攚hich in English translates to听Crystal Pass鈥攂efore traversing laterally across the mountainside. On another rope, photographer Nicolas Blandin moved alongside a 66-year-old named Christophe P茅ray.

The topography was complicated: fresh snow stuck to the mountainside, and I periodically lost sight of El铆as ahead of me as he moved behind rocks. Communication with Blandin and P茅ray was only possible through echoing shouts.

I belayed El铆as as he put in a cam before positioning himself on the face to uncover a听four. Four is French for oven,听but in this context, the word refers to cavities in the mountainside that, in the broadest sense, resemble somewhere you could bake bread. English has various equivalent geological terms: alpine-type fissure, alpine cleft, or, most simply, pocket. This one was on a snow-covered ledge, a couple feet wide at its broadest. Unless you were an expert, however, it would be hard to distinguish the site from any of 1,000 other such ledges on the face.

I shouted up, asking if the pocket was large. 鈥淣o, it鈥檚 not enormous,鈥� El铆as鈥檚 voice echoed down in French. 鈥淏ut there are beautiful pieces here. Very beautiful pieces.鈥�

This area contained several similar pockets, which El铆as and P茅ray had discovered a few weeks earlier by rappelling down from the ridge above. It was, until recently, permanently covered by ice and snow, but that had melted out, likely due to climate change.

I scrambled up and joined El铆as on the ledge. Some minutes later,听Blandin and P茅ray听also appeared at the site. The Spaniard sang a wordless melody as he drove in pitons and secured us to the rock face.

Now he and P茅ray began to clear the snow from the ledge and reach into the cavity. The opening expanded as they dug听until it was roughly wide enough to fit a soccer ball. Their tools included a chisel and a green plastic rake that P茅ray had appropriated from his children鈥檚 sandcastle equipment. They also prepared with blowtorches to melt the remaining ice, the gas hissing in the thin, high-altitude air. 鈥淎t the moment, the snow prevents me from seeing properly,鈥� P茅ray said in French. 鈥淎fter clearing the snow and removing some stones, I should reach them very soon.鈥�

We were high, north-facing, and out of the sun. I waited in the cold until eventually El铆as, crouched on his knees, began to pull out chunks of a听dark glassy substance. A few smaller pieces came first, which he held together in his orange-and-gray-gloved hand like oversized, irregular marbles. The block that followed was much larger, the size of a small brick, its surfaces angled听together into a sharp point, like a microcosm of the spiky mountains all around us. It was translucent. This was what we had come for.

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I was working in 国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 basement in the summer of 2012 when a coworker popped his head down and informed me that one of the senior editors was cleaning his office. 鈥淗e鈥檚 getting rid of some really good shit,鈥� he said.

The box of refuse Grayson Schaffer left outside his door had been picked over by fellow junior editors and interns by the time I got to it, but there were still some gems to be had: I scored a severely burned Jetboil pot听and a pair of glacier glasses that Schaffer wore while reporting on the climbing season at听Mount Everest that year. Nine years later, the Explorer is听still an essential part of my spring ski-mountaineering kit.

Harvesting sweet springtime corn snow during long days in the mountains is one of my greatest outdoor joys. The warm sun makes for听great conditions and often a more stable snowpack, but that sun also delivers the challenge of protecting your skin and eyes. I cannot overstate how much it sucks to scorch your peepers looking at bright snow. On really long days, harsh light reflecting off the ice creeps in the corners of normal sunnies and can leave you with a sharp headache or even temporarily impaired vision. That鈥檚 where glacier glasses come in.

Julbo, which is based in Chamonix, France, invented the category in the 1880s. 鈥淏ack then, people who were crossing glaciers to look for minerals were basically wrapping towels around their face and looking through slits to get across the glaciers,鈥� says Julbo North America CEO David Crothers. Mountaineers asked local eyewear maker听Jules Baud听for a solution, and what he came up with was the first pair of glacier glasses.

That legacy has been passed down through the Baud family, says Crothers. While the company has expanded to a wider range of performance eyewear in the past 130 years, its heritage in superior mountain sunglasses听shows in products like the Explorer. This style was the first modernized pair of glacier glasses to hit听the American market, and it is still frequently seen on slopes and peaks听around the world (although the originals were discontinued for ($150) that鈥檚 more breathable and features a better fit).

I love my OG version. The removable soft plastic sides offer complete coverage听yet breathe听exceptionally well, the result of gill-like venting at the bases of the side pieces鈥攖hey don鈥檛 let light in听but do allow air to circulate. They also fit comfortably, thanks to a wide nose bridge and moldable arms, the latter of which keep听the sunglasses听secure during dynamic movements.

The only downside to the Explorer听is its听looks鈥擨 wouldn鈥檛 wear these on date night (there are other options more appropriate for that). They鈥檙e not stylish, but in the mountains, who cares? All that matters is that my eyes are rested and relaxed after I take them off, and in that regard, the Explorer always delivers.

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Mount Everest got a break from human footsteps and media attention last spring as a result of听the coronavirus pandemic, but this month is getting into full swing. While the peak听has been climbed more than 10,000 times now, the closest most of us will ever come to touching its slopes is through听words on a page. If you鈥檙e among that crowd of armchair mountaineers, get ready to devour these new books about Everest鈥檚 most distinctive historical moments, from George Mallory鈥檚 ill-fated ascent in 1924 to the summit traffic jam of 2019.听

鈥楾he Third Pole,鈥� by Mark Synnott

is the latest in a听canon of books exploring the question of whether George Mallory and Andrew 鈥淪andy鈥� Irvine were really听the first men to stand on top of Everest. The duo disappeared on June 8, 1924, during their summit bid via the mountain鈥檚 Northeast Ridge. Mallory鈥檚 body was discovered in 1999, but the search for Irvine continues, fueled by speculation that he was carrying a camera that might contain a photo proving they stood on the summit before their deaths. Climber and writer Mark Synnott听was a member of one such search in 2019. In this book, he deftly weaves together the tale of his own Everest expedition to the Northeast Ridge听with a compelling recounting of the 1924 Mallory and Irvine expedition. In between, he packs in as much Everest history as he can.听

Everest buffs will recognize the bulk of the historical information in the book, as Synnott relies heavily on existing sources (like Wade Davis鈥檚 and Julie Summers鈥檚 ) for that part of his narrative. Still, if you鈥檙e only going to read one Everest book this decade, make it The Third Pole. Synnott鈥檚 prose is crisp, and his story excels at encompassing all that Everest has meant to climbers over the years. He reminds us that, once, 鈥渢he idea of scaling the world鈥檚 highest peak was no less daring than a modern spaceflight to Mars,鈥� while acknowledging how many people today dismiss Everest as less than a serious challenge. Synnott was dismissive of it, too, until his friend Thom Pollard turned him onto the idea of searching for Irvine鈥檚 body. 鈥淭echnically, I鈥檓 not actually climbing the mountain. I鈥檓 doing high-altitude archaeology,鈥� he tells his wife at one point听while听mulling over the idea of joining the 2019 expedition. Soon enough, Synnott is under what he calls the 鈥淓verest spell.鈥�

Synnott ends up both climbing to the summit and doing high-altitude archaeology鈥攁lthough forensic photography听might be a more apt description for the investigative technique that dominated his expedition, complete with drones piloted by climber and filmmaker Renan Ozturk.听The 2019 season proved to be an eventful one听on Everest, from political intrigue on the Chinese side of the mountain to 鈥渢he day Everest broke,鈥� when 11 people died and a viral photograph by Nirmal Purja听drew attention to overcrowding on the summit. Although听he doesn鈥檛 find Irvine鈥檚 body, Synnott鈥檚 experience on Everest is a riveting adventure all by itself.

鈥楽ee You Tomorrow,鈥� by Jeremy Evans

If you鈥檝e never heard of听Marco Siffredi, the first person to descend Mount Everest on a snowboard, you鈥檙e not alone. Before Siffredi听disappeared in 2002 while attempting to snowboard Everest a second time, his fame was limited mostly to his hometown of Chamonix, France. He didn鈥檛听like听interviews with the media and wasn鈥檛 sponsored by any brands. 鈥淗e just wanted to climb and snowboard and didn鈥檛 understand how the sponsorship thing worked,鈥� one source tells听writer听Jeremy Evans in听.听

Siffredi听accomplished his most daring feats in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before freeride snowboarding was really popular. When he disappeared, he was only 23.听鈥淗e was a young punk rock kid going and tagging the most serious lines in the Chamonix valley and doing it real freeride style 鈥� full on bombing lines that traditionally people were hop turning down,鈥� pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones tells Evans in听the book. 鈥淣obody was doing that yet. If he was alive today, he would be this huge name in snowboarding.鈥�

See You Tomorrow is a profile of Chamonix as much as it is of Siffredi. Evans, who is himself a climber and snowboarder, writes of a town marked not only as the birthplace of mountaineering but as a massive graveyard for humanity鈥檚 most adventurous spirits. One chapter of the book, 鈥淒eath Valley,鈥� actually starts at the Chamonix cemetery,听where, Evans writes, 鈥渢he bodies pile up so fast鈥� and the gravestones are 鈥渁dorned with ice axes, skis, and climbing ropes.鈥� Evans argues that the townspeople are collectively traumatized by the constant fact of death in the Alps. Sadly,听Siffredi鈥檚 older brother, Pierre, died in the mountains years before he did.听

The best part of听Evans鈥檚 book听is getting to know Siffredi, whose single-minded focus might remind readers of Alex Honnold. Although Evans鈥檚 prose isn鈥檛 always the smoothest, he writes with obvious affection and reverence for his subject, and you can鈥檛 blame him, given what his sources say about Siffredi: the young man was extremely bold but didn鈥檛 make enemies. Evans asserts that Siffredi鈥檚 disappearance on September 8, 2002, somewhere between the summit of Everest and the Hornbein Couloir on the mountain鈥檚 North Face, is the greatest Everest mystery since the Mallory and Irvine expedition. He makes a good case: very few bodies literally disappear there, since most people die on the well-trafficked summit routes. This book makes clear that the search for Siffredi鈥檚 body has been as thorough as the search for Irvine鈥檚,听to no avail.听

鈥楾he Next Everest,鈥� by Jim Davidson

Jim Davidson was at Camp I on Everest鈥檚 south side in April 2015 when a massive earthquake struck Nepal and ended the Everest climbing season. His description of the chaos that the Everest climbing community experienced during that time, including serious carnage at Everest Base Camp, is the main selling point of his new book,听. (Disclosure: I was at Everest Base Camp during the earthquake and also wrote about .)

But there鈥檚 more to this book than a disaster survival story. Davidson made the same choice as many others who had their Everest expeditions cut short in 2015: to go back to Nepal and try to climb the mountain again. He wrestles with that decision听in an authentic, illuminating way,听writing,听鈥淭he biggest question for me was: Would returning to the mountain make a mess of my life or add meaning to it?鈥� He worries about how the intense memories from his 2015 experience will affect his return, wondering if reexposure to the scene of the disaster is 鈥渉ealing or harmful.鈥� And this isn鈥檛 the first time Davidson has had to confront a painful past by returning to a deadly mountain site.听

The Next Everest听alternates between recounting Davidson鈥檚 time on Everest听and his earlier expeditions in North America. He isn鈥檛 a mountain guide鈥攈e spent most of his career听as an environmental geologist鈥攂ut he鈥檚 assisted with several high-altitude rescues听and racked up an impressive amount of听time in the mountains.听Davidson writes about a failed summit attempt on Denali in 2002, when he assisted a solo climber in need of rescue; finding out that his father had died while he was on Denali;听and the death听of his friend Mike Price, which happened during a climbing incident with Davidson on Mount Rainier in 1992. Price鈥檚 death is the subject of a previous book by Davidson, , but residual trauma from that event is all over the pages of The Next Everest. His description of returning to the glacier where Price was killed is gut-wrenching and dramatic; it also foreshadows the mental challenges he鈥檒l face when going back听to Everest.

Trauma is the real subject of听The Next Everest, though Davidson would likely prefer to say it鈥檚 about resilience: he writes听in the upbeat,听what-can-we-learn-from-this听tone that permeates inspirational speeches by Everest climbers at business conferences听(it鈥檚 no coincidence that Davidson is also a听professional motivational speaker). Readers听won鈥檛 mind this tone throughout the book, however鈥攖hey鈥檒l be too busy rooting for Davidson, who comes across as humble and deserving of his second chance at reaching the top of the world.

The post 3 New Books Explore Mysteries and Trauma on Everest appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

In July, Lorenzo Pernigotti, a seasoned mountain climber who has听summited听over 100 peaks in the Alps, scaled听Aiguilles du Diable鈥斺�渄evil鈥檚 horns鈥� in English鈥攁 set of rock towers on one of 11 major high points听in the Mont Blanc massif, which straddles the border of Italy and France. The climb grew more difficult as he and his partner, Davide Iacchini, neared the top. At 13,000 feet, they reached the final leg, where they would climb out of a narrow corridor and onto the jagged ridge.听

Pernigotti, 30, took the lead on听the wall of the corridor, scanning for knobs and crannies where he could place his hands and feet听while bound to his partner by a short length of rope. Above him, he spied a large rock jutting from the wall, like a handle, that he could use to hoist himself up. He pulled on it with one hand, then two, testing to see if it would hold his weight. After a couple of sharp tugs, he hung from it. But as he dangled there, the rock gave way.听It slid down a few inches, and Pernigotti yelled at Iacchini听to shorten the rope connecting听them. As the rock began听crashing down听into the corridor, Pernigotti听let go, falling 30 feet before the rope went taut,听with other听rocks, snow, and ice tumbling听into the chasm all around him.

He was lucky. Pernigotti听suffered only a ruptured Achilles tendon听and, with his partner鈥檚 help, made it to the crest, where a helicopter came to his rescue. But the experience rattled him. Even the most experienced climbers are now struggling with increasingly perilous conditions in the Alps. Experts say that the problem is climate change. As temperatures rise and the peaks thaw, rocks that were previously held firmly in place by ice are coming loose.

During the 20th century, temperatures in the Alps rose by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, double the amount of warming seen across the Northern Hemisphere on the whole. If humans make only modest cuts to pollution, the Alps are expected to听warm by close to another six听degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, according to a of climate research. Climbers听are already seeing the effects of global warming.

Jacques Mourey, a geographer at the Universit茅 Savoie Mont-Blanc, has听 how rising temperatures have altered climbing conditions on the Mont Blanc mountain range over the past 40 years. He and his colleagues identified 25 changes affecting mountaineering. Among them,听 is melting snow and spurring avalanches; melting ice is producing wider crevasses; and rising temperatures are yielding less snowfall. For a recent听, he focused on one of the most dangerous changes: falling rocks.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 a very tricky condition,鈥� Mourey said. 鈥淵ou think the rock is safe, and then it moves.鈥�

This听mountain range is partly covered by permafrost, areas where the landscape is constantly frozen. Ice within rock fissures acts like cement, keeping parts of the mountain together. But around 20 years ago, the听鈥攖he altitude at which air temperature remains at or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the day鈥攂egan to creep upward. In the 1990s, the summer freezing level was typically around 11,000 feet, but in 2003, it was closer to 13,000 feet, according to听, an organization听supporting research on the Alps. That summer, the permafrost started to thaw. Scientists say it will听 as the climate warms, causing more rocks to come loose, like the one that nearly killed Pernigotti.听

Recent years have seen massive听. From 1990 to 2017,听 and 230 were injured in the听Grand Couloir, on the popular route to the 15,774-foot peak of Mont Blanc, the highest summit听in the range and the tallest mountain in Western Europe. Rockfall accounted for 30 percent of the accidents.

Mourey said that while the number of yearly injuries on the Grand Couloir has remained roughly flat over the past two decades, fewer people are staying overnight on the mountain, a figure that has decreased from 62,000听between听1999 and听2001听to less than 51,000听between 2014 and听2016. In other words, smaller groups of climbers are听racking up the same number of injuries, which means the probability of getting hurt has increased听over time.听

鈥淥n a trafficked route, the rock was previously glued with ice, and mountaineers were using it. That rock had never moved before听but suddenly fell,鈥� Mourey听explained. He believes that at least two deadly accidents in 2018 can be blamed directly on climate change. In听, a climber grabbed a huge stone that slid unexpectedly. It was precisely what happened to Pernigotti, except the听other climber was crushed and killed by a falling rock.

Alpine guides spend most of the year in the mountains, where they see the growing danger firsthand.听, 44, started climbing in the Alps with his parents when he was five and became a guide in 2002, when he was 26. He compared the cold summers of his childhood with the unusual heat he saw last January, 鈥渨hen the sun felt closer and closer.鈥�

鈥淭he day might be fantastic, and you are at 13,000 feet wearing shorts. But how many risks have you taken to get there?鈥� he said. Lately, Rossi has avoided leading听his clients on old-favorite high-mountain routes due to the dangerous, unpredictable changes.听

Rossi has begun fighting to make the mountain more secure by advocating for a forecasting system that can predict the danger of rockfall given the current weather conditions, something similar to the听 ratings available for many mountain environments.听

In Courmayeur, on the Italian side of Mont Blanc, some alpine guides are being trained to take climate change into account while planning trips for their clients. Jean Pierre Fasson, secretary general of听, a foundation dedicated to making mountaineering in the Alps safer, has added a weeklong module on climate change to his organization鈥檚 alpine guide course.

鈥淒isasters are part of nature, and it鈥檚 wrong trying to stop them,鈥� said Fasson, who believes that mountaineering will survive on Mont Blanc, but that climbers will need help navigating the growing risks. Between 1999 and 2017,听 of accident victims were amateurs who attempted to climb Mont Blanc without a guide. Fasson said it鈥檚 up to alpine guides to understand the rapid changes听and avoid routes that might pose greater danger.

Pernigotti said that only those who regularly climb in the Alps can appreciate how warmer weather has made the mountains more treacherous.

鈥淣ot everybody sees what鈥檚 happening. Only people who live daily in strict contact with nature can understand the impact of climate change,鈥� Pernigotti said. 鈥淚f you live in the city, you don鈥檛 see the stars. You don鈥檛 feel the wind. You can鈥檛 understand what鈥檚 happening.鈥�

This story was published in partnership with听.

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For the closing test on ice day, the women went last.

The setting was a streaked, bulbous frozen face on the fractured lower section of the Glacier du Tour, the northernmost ice sheet in the French portion of the Mont Blanc听massif. The Swiss border started at the flanking ridgeline, above the newly renovated Albert Premier Hut. The altitude was around 8,400 feet, a little lower than the peaks of the Aiguilles Rouge, mostly snow-free now in July. A line of anchors and cord ran some 50 feet up the ice.

The test was straightforward enough. Using two leashless axes, candidates would have to climb the 50 feet of vertical ice, then traverse horizontally for another 20 feet, then descend. Time limit: six minutes.

It was around noon, and below the east-facing ice wall the shadow was narrow; it covered some people belaying the climbers but little else. Farther back, in blue quilted jackets supplied by the Japanese apparel firm Onyone to the 鈥擣rance鈥檚 National School for Skiing and Mountaineering, ENSA for short鈥攕tood judges who would assess performance. Other instructors, including a doctor and a nurse, lolled on a higher ice crest in the sun.

Roughly 60 men had already been through this test. Now it was the turn of four women. Among them was M茅lanie Martinot, the 32-year-old daughter of a ski instructor and ski patroller, who worked as the manager of the Refuge de l鈥橭lan, a mountain hut at 7,690 feet in the 脡crins Massif to the south.

Another was Valentine Fabre, a 42-year-old woman, originally from Paris, who had tried and failed to pass this test three times since 2015. 鈥淚鈥檝e been twice to the World Cup for ski mountaineering,鈥� said Fabre, a doctor who works for the French military. 鈥淏ut the only qualification that lets you teach ski mountaineering, if you want to take clients on glaciers, is to be a mountain guide.鈥�

Hulya Vassail, 28, also worked in a mountain hut, though a much closer one: the Albert Premier, perched on the rocks above this very glacier. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a project I鈥檝e had for a long time,鈥� she said, simply, of her desire to become a guide, a profession in which women are vastly outnumbered by men.

Finally there was Aur茅lia Lano毛, a 30-year-old who lived a 鈥減aradisiacal鈥� nomadic existence in a converted ambulance as an accompagnatrice en moyenne montagne, a lower level of qualification than mountain guide, which meant she could take hikers out in summer and snowshoers in winter, but not use ropes or other technical alpine equipment with clients.

鈥淚t鈥檚 certain we鈥檙e in a minority,鈥� she said of the female candidates. 鈥淏ut while the older generation of guides were different, with the new generation it鈥檚 rare to find machismo, and many are very open.鈥�

鈥淧hysiologically, though,鈥� she said of herself and the other women, 鈥渨e are not the same.鈥� Physical differences aside, the question for everybody here was this: Can I find the strength and skill to get through?

The听脡cole听Nationale de Ski et d鈥橝lpin颅isme鈥檚 entrance test, Le Probatoire, translates as 鈥渢he probationary exam,鈥� and the name correctly hints that mountain guiding in Europe is a different trade than in the United States, where guiding concessions are generally given by park authorities to companies who then train their own apprentices. U.S. guiding is becoming more regulated, but the system is still much less formal than in Europe.

The activities of European guides range from basic 茅cole de glace鈥攊ce school, taking groups for their first steps on glaciers in crampons鈥攖o leading people up some of the most famous (and difficult) terrain in the Alps, such as the north face of the Eiger. Much of guiding work concentrates on common bucket-list objectives鈥攃limbing Mont Blanc, or skiing the famous Vall茅e Blanche off-piste descent in Chamonix. But you can hire a guide for anything, and some also work on longer-term gigs with overseas expeditions. Rates in France run between $300 and $525 per guide per day.

The job has its origins in the early stages of alpinism, in the 19th century, when gentlemen climbers鈥攐ften British鈥攚ould engage local French, Italian, or Swiss farmers to take them to the peaks. Through the decades, the good and bad parts of seeking assistance in these mountains have persisted. The situation is pithily summarized by a raunchy joke told by one of the doctors based at ENSA. Question: What do a guide and a condom have in common? Answer: It鈥檚 better without, but it鈥檚 safer with.

To legally take clients out in the four major Alpine countries鈥擣rance, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria鈥攁 guide has to earn qualification from the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations. The process is specialized, an investment of time comparable to obtaining a Ph.D. But while the IFMGA ticket is international and theoretically the same level regardless of where it鈥檚 obtained, the routes to it are national and reflect national proclivities.

In Switzerland, for example, the training rotates among the three cantons鈥攕ubstates of the country鈥攖hat have mountainous terrain: Valais, Berne, and Grisons. It costs roughly $30,000, significantly more than what you鈥檇 pay in Italy or France.听

In France, the process is centralized, and a single institution鈥擟hamonix-based ENSA, which was founded in 1945鈥攖rains every guide. It鈥檚 relatively swift: you can qualify in just over three years, and there are opportunities to work as an 鈥渁spirant鈥� guide before that. The entire program costs under $10,000, with a state subsidy available that covers some of the fees.

These attractive factors, combined with a mountain culture in which the profession of guide is extremely prestigious, means that ENSA gets many applications, between 125 and 160 annually. ENSA insists the selection process is an exam鈥攚ith anyone who reaches the required standard gaining acceptance鈥攔ather than a competition. In reality, ENSA usually advances only 30 to 50 candidates per year.

To this end, ENSA runs the Probatoire, a brutal winnowing exercise that鈥檚 comparable to special-forces selection in the military. Once the initial attrition is complete, few candidates are cut further on, which is a typically French approach: you survive a tough exam and it effectively gives you lifetime entrance to a rarefied club. Pass the Probatoire and you enter the elite corps of guides. Pass the entrance test for the 脡cole Nationale d鈥橝dministration, the institution that educated four recent French presidents, including Emmanuel Macron, and you get to run France. This is the Gallic way.听

The real question with these French methods is whether they produce good results. The Grandes 脡coles system dates from the late 18th century, and the institutions created then were meant to democratize France鈥檚 civil service and wider society. They鈥檙e now viewed as having done the opposite, creating an enclave for the social elite. Macron, under pressure from the yellow-vest protest movement, has promised to close ENA, the institution that made him. Meanwhile, in the Alps, the jury is still out on whether the French training system, for all its attendant prestige, actually produces better and safer mountain leaders.听

In late March of this year, a collection of young athletes gathered in the ENSA lobby in Chamonix. 国产吃瓜黑料, clearly visible six miles to the south and more than 12,000 feet above town, rose the domed, glaciated head of 15,777-foot Mont Blanc, western Europe鈥檚 highest peak. The ENSA compound, with its aging modernist design, inspires near religious devotion as a temple of French alpinism. Written on concrete towers that flank the main block, in blood-red capital letters, are ANNAPURNA and MAKALU, the two 8,000-meter Himalayan peaks climbed first by the French, in 1950 and 1955, respectively.

There was red wine on tap in the cafeteria and classrooms named for Les Drus, La Verte, and other famous Alpine peaks. Upstairs there was a library full of guidebooks and mountaineering periodicals, and a small museum that included the chunky gaiter boots that Franco-Italian alpinist Walter Cecchinel wore on one of his pioneering winter climbs in the seventies. Elsewhere there was a lab where ropes and other equipment could be tested to the point of destruction.

The wider environs of Chamonix reflect the elevated social position of mountain guides in France鈥攖here are car parks and roundabouts named after Louis Lachenal and Lionel Terray, two local guides involved in the Annapurna and Makalu heroics. There鈥檚 a famous statue of Jacques Balmat and Horace B茅n茅dict de Saussure, climbing pioneers who summitted Mont Blanc in the late 1700s.

The 听was formed in 1821鈥攎aking it one of the first organizations of mountain professionals in the world鈥攁nd many of the same old families are still represented in today鈥檚 ENSA programs: Ravanel, Simond, Balmat, Payot. ENSA graduates can expect to earn a low salary, and it鈥檚 recommended that they have a backup job in case of injury. But as Caroline George, a guide who trained in both Switzerland and the U.S., points out: 鈥淕uiding is a very highly respected profession in the Alps, much like to the standard of being a lawyer or a doctor, and it鈥檚 maybe more highly regarded here.鈥�

Pete Mason, an American who passed the Probatoire in 2005, says that growing up, he regarded mountain guides as glorified Boy Scout leaders. After he moved to France, he saw that becoming a guide was something you attempted only if you were a first-class alpinist. 鈥淗ere it felt more like if you鈥檙e into the outdoors and you have a certain level, that鈥檚 where the natural progression is.鈥�

The ENSA candidates stood or sat in armchairs, wearing trail shoes and down coats and vests. To get to this stage, they had to have already completed 39 alpine routes within three years, including various technical challenges and ski-mountaineering routes. This requirement used to be even harder: 55 routes were required, and candidates were expected to have done a number of grandes courses, like the north faces of the Eiger and the Grandes Jorasses. The change was designed to reduce the number of hopefuls getting hurt or killed.

Most of the candidates came from mountainous regions鈥擟hamonix, obviously, but also Grenoble and the Haute-Maurienne. But there were exceptions. Leo Pfitzner, a 27-year-old, hailed from Orl茅ans, on the Loire River in north-central France, well away from any peaks. He started climbing with a local chapter of the French Alpine Club, and his logbook, which he brought to Chamonix, showed his progression. The long descriptions of early climbs鈥斺�淪tart of August 2007, Punta Gniffetti, on Monte Rosa, 4,554m, with a guide 60 years old鈥濃�攇ive way to more staccato prose as he gains experience. In photos, a teenager fills out into a confident young man.

There were also a handful of non-French candidates, from Spain, the Netherlands, and Argentina. Other outsiders have gone through in the past, too, including a number of Brits. The ENSA teaching staff included Neil Brodie, a 52-year-old Scot who, after living in France for 28 years, spoke English with an odd Franco-Scottish accent, and Zoe Hart, an American guide who completed her training in the U.S.

The average age of the candidates was 28, but the spread was considerable. The class included Thomas Krommenacker, a 39-year-old former investment banker from Switzerland who got burned out on spreadsheets in London. Among the younger candidates was Baptiste Obino, a 20-year-old French gendarme鈥攑olice officer鈥攚ho was sleeping in his car. All in all, there were 126 people at this stage, six of them women.

The candidates were aiming to enter a very dangerous profession. Upstairs at ENSA, there鈥檚 a memorial to the teaching staff killed since 1945鈥攚ith 29 names on it, the most recent in 2016. Between 1995 and 2018, a total of 121 French guides died in mountaineering accidents; the worst individual years were 2005 with 11 deaths, and 2009 with ten.

During the 2019 Probatoire, several of the candidates were already well acquainted with risk in the Alps. The contingent included a young man whose girlfriend had been killed in front of him in a ski-颅mountaineering accident just weeks before the winter test began. Valentine Fabre鈥檚 husband died in August 2012, when a rope broke on the Ar锚te des Papillons ridge above Chamonix. Lucien Boucansaud, a blond 23-year-old who at first remained tight-lipped about his family, later explained that in March 2014, his father, a Chamonix guide, was also killed. For good reason, U.S. alpinist Mark Twight once wrote that Chamonix is 鈥渢he death sport capital of the world.鈥�

The atmosphere on the first day, beneath a surface bonhomie, was tense. There鈥檚 a traditional element of interrogation to assess if candidates have really done the routes they claim; outright lying is rare but not unknown, exaggeration more common. There鈥檚 also a new element, a 鈥減ersonal project鈥� in which candidates have to explain their motivation. I was allowed to watch one of these sessions on the condition that I not use the names of the candidates.

Two ENSA instructors, Michel 鈥淭chouky鈥� Fauquet, an older man, and Mathieu D茅trie, a younger guide, probed an eager young man before them, another gendarme.

鈥淚 was born in Chamonix,鈥� he said. 鈥淢y motivation is professional鈥擡NSA has unique expertise. There鈥檚 a quality here. I want to gain specialisms that I can鈥檛 gain with the gendarmes.鈥�

After the preliminaries, individuals were grilled for details. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the first filter for entry into the training,鈥� Fauquet told me afterward. 鈥淲e are looking for people who have experience in the mountains. We can鈥檛 train them from zero颅颅鈥攖here鈥檚 a required level that鈥檚 needed. We look to verify that they are there.鈥�

That evening there was a briefing in a lecture space inside the ENSA complex, run by Fran莽ois Marsigny, head of the alpine department and the animating spirit of this place. Tall and laconic, intimidating, and famously difficult to talk to, Marsigny has run the Probatoire since 2016; before that, he was one of the leading French alpinists of his generation. He was born in Paris and trained as an architect, but he鈥檇 been coming to the Alps for years to climb. Weary of office life, he qualified as a guide in 1989, when he was 29.

In the early 1990s, when Mark Twight blazed a number of savage new routes above Chamonix鈥攏otably There Goes the Neighborhood and Beyond Good and Evil鈥攈e was, in essence, daring the local French climbing establishment to match what he鈥檇 done. It was Marsigny who first repeated these lines. In 1995, he won the Piolet d鈥橭r, alpinism鈥檚 greatest prize, for a new line on Cerro Torre in Patagonia, done with Briton Andy Parkin. In 2007, he and his wife climbed 26,906-foot Cho Oyu, the sixth-highest peak on the planet, without supplemental oxygen.

Now Marsigny stood under posters showing a climber leaping over a crevasse and a tent dug into a snow hole. 鈥淩ight,鈥� he said brusquely. 鈥淲e鈥檒l start with the presentation of the tests for tomorrow.鈥�

In a pattern that was repeated, details about the next day鈥檚 challenge were only revealed the night before, so that candidates couldn鈥檛 go out and do recon. On a large screen, images for the ski test were displayed. The site would be Les Grands Montets, above Argenti猫re, some five miles north up the valley.

鈥淭his is a state exam just like the bac,鈥� the slides warned, referring to the standardized test that French high school students take. 鈥淩espect the rules, the timings, the documents.鈥�

The candidates would have to make a ski-mountaineering ascent of 4,757 feet in two hours 25 minutes. Packs had to contain full avalanche-safety kit鈥攑robe, shovel, and transceiver鈥攁nd had to weigh at least 15.4 pounds for men and 11 pounds for women. Anyone who didn鈥檛 match or beat the required time was out. Two off-piste ski descents would follow, using lifts to go back up after the first.

In a series of workshops, candidates would be assessed on their technical skiing skill. That element was marked on a scale. Here, too, there was an automatic elimination element. Anyone who fell more than once during the ski descents would immediately be sent home.

The next morning, March 19, dawned clear and cold, the sun reddening the granite faces of the Drus above the Mer de Glace glacier. The night before, Obino, the 20-year-old who was sleeping in his car, had cooked a meal of couscous. He left some out, hoping to eat it in the morning. But by then it had frozen hard. He would do the ski climb, dizzy from hunger, on a breakfast bar.

In Argenti猫re, up the valley, a spring balance hung beneath a tree. The ENSA staff weighed the candidates鈥� packs. Most, despite the cold, had stripped down to light fleeces under the numbered white bibs used to identify them; some wore headphones. A line of red plastic pegs with the blue and white ENSA logo marked the course they would take: up a piste and into the woods, on steep ground. The trail was narrow, and the candidates departed in pairs at timed intervals.

The instructors took the gondola. Higher up, the ascent path crossed the groomed ski area, and the candidates zigzagged up the ground below the lifts. The instructors made their way to the top using a chairlift and skis, completing a skin ascent across to a shoulder at 8,600 feet. There they waited for the first arrivals in a cold, isolated world very different from the valley below.

The first candidates arrived in under two hours, and Hulya Vassail clocked in at a strong 2:15. Although the time limits were stiff, only a few failed to make it, but a handful dropped out during the ascent.

For the descent, the candidates formed into small groups, each with two instructors. I went down with Tchouky, who I鈥檇 sat with during the interrogation the previous afternoon. We cut a traverse line down skier鈥檚 left and entered an open powder field.

鈥淥ver there, there are rocks,鈥� Tchouky said when he briefed the group. 鈥淵ou go in front of us, onto the sunny hill, then into the couloir.鈥�

The snow was initially forgiving, and the candidates were capable, but not all were top-notch skiers. One person in my group broke a ski or binding鈥攊t was unclear which. He frantically asked to borrow mine, but my setup wouldn鈥檛 have fit him. He limped off on one ski, eliminated.

The instructors descended first, to be in place as the candidates did their terrain tests. The easier higher slopes gave way below the timberline to defiles lined with tree roots and narrow ravines. The second line, after a swift traverse across the pistes, went down a tall mogul field under a crag, followed by more difficult passages through trees.

Eventually, it was over. 鈥淏reathe, relax,鈥� said Christophe Jacquemoud, the guide who had organized the test, as he stood on a snow-covered hump among the brush. 鈥淕o back to the piste, descend to the bottom.鈥�

That evening, in a ritual that would be repeated throughout the Probatoire, Marsigny walked wordlessly from his office and pinned up a list of names in the ENSA lobby: 75 who would move on to the next stage. After just two days, the Probatoire鈥檚 attrition rate was more than 40 percent.

Before the results were announced, Lu颅cien Boucansaud had been confident. 鈥淚t was super,鈥� he replied when I asked how his day had gone. 鈥淲e had relatively cold conditions. The snow was good. I think it went OK.鈥� He was right: he got through. Thomas Krommenacker also made it, as did Hulya Vassail and Baptiste Obino. Leo Pfitzner, the boy from Orl茅ans with the elaborate journal, was eliminated.

Whether all these theatrics produce good mountain guides is a complex question. It鈥檚 hard to compare France鈥檚 fatality numbers to other countries, because there are no uniform statistics. In France, any accident that involves injury or damage to equipment has to be logged, but reporting rules are different elsewhere. Still, it鈥檚 widely believed, and largely accepted by the French climbing establishment, that French guides have historically suffered more accidents than guides in other alpine countries.

Some attribute this to the complex terrain of the Mont Blanc massif. Christian Tromms颅dorff, a French guide who serves on the international committee of the IFMGA, suggests that the heavily glaciated western Alps present more problems and hazards than, say, the Italian Dolomites.

鈥淭he Dolomites are dry, there鈥檚 no mixed climbing. It鈥檚 rock, it鈥檚 quite solid,鈥� he told me. 鈥淭he level of risk in a hundred days of mountaineering in the Dolomites is fundamentally different from a hundred days here.鈥�

Zoe Hart, the American who teaches at ENSA, also pointed to the local terrain.

鈥淭he accidents in French mountain guiding are more elevated, but it鈥檚 impossible to compare,鈥� she said. 鈥淚magine you鈥檙e a guide in Yosemite, you鈥檙e working on a rock climb that鈥檚 granite, that鈥檚 solid rock, every day. And imagine you鈥檙e a guide in Chamonix, and you鈥檙e taking a lift to high altitude, to ski on the glacier, in climate change.鈥�

Others aren鈥檛 sure about the terrain explanation, pointing out that arguably, the 颅Italian side of Mont Blanc is more topographically complicated than the French side, and yet Italian guides still don鈥檛 have the same accident rate as the French. In this analysis, the difference stems from the testosterone-laced French guiding approach, not the slopes above Chamonix.

In my home country, the UK, British climbers often complain about the behavior of French mountain guides. A perusal of online forums reveals many specific beefs, from a French guide 鈥渇ront-pointing up my rucksack鈥� to guides removing slower climbers鈥� protection so they can move faster.

It isn鈥檛 easy to untangle such anecdotes, especially since the British and French have always been rivals. The French counter that we Brits think we鈥檙e still in Scotland, where you need lots of extra clothing, and we鈥檙e unable to understand that in the Alps, with the objective dangers of rock and serac fall, there鈥檚 safety in speed and merit in placing less protection.

However, the notion that French mountain guides take more risks is accepted closer to France, too. Mario Ravello, an Italian guide based in Morgex鈥攐n the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif鈥攄escribes French guides visiting his region with parties of ski tourers, shooting past at high speeds on avalanche-prone terrain that the Italians ski more conservatively. Fran莽ois Marsigny says that such perceptions about French guides are accurate in some cases but not all, calling them 鈥渟uccinct generalities.鈥� He adds that the French are often more willing than their foreign counterparts to take clients on major routes, such as the north face of the Eiger.

It鈥檚 difficult to avoid linking these takes with the way France selects guides. The overwhelming number of applications means that a cut has to happen, yet the way the Probatoire is structured obviously favors tough young athletes. But for the brief and recently introduced statement of purpose at the start, there鈥檚 no acknowledgement that candidates are looking to enter a client-facing profession.

The combination of a storied past and a tough entrance exam makes change hard to implement. The official history of the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix, a hardbound volume with lavish pictures, is clearly intended as a hagiography, with gushing portraits of guides ancient and modern. But reading between the lines reveals a conservative profession that has, in its time, initially opposed almost every new development in two centuries of alpinism, from attempting any but the easiest summit routes to the admission of non鈥搗alley natives and women to the ranks of guides.

In recent years, however, some change has been forced on the French guiding community, and the impetus has been death. Among the 62 guides killed in the aughts was Karine Ruby, a native of the Chamonix Valley who won a silver medal in snowboarding at the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002. She subsequently trained as a guide, and in 2009, still an aspirant, she died, falling into a crevasse on the Glacier du G茅ant in the Mont Blanc massif. One of the two climbers roped to her was also killed. Nine other guides died in accidents that year.

In 2011鈥�12, ENSA halted the entire guide-training program for a year to reformulate its syllabus. A new course emerged, with updated modules covering psychological stress and client management and, the administration claims, less focus on sheer alpine performance as the sole measure of guiding competence.

But beyond the addition of the personal statement at the beginning, there was no alteration to the Probatoire. While it鈥檚 possible to wash out during the training itself, nowhere near as many do as at the start鈥攖herefore, who becomes a French guide is still largely determined on the same narrow grounds of technical proficiency and performance. While the large number of French guides getting killed did lead to a reassessment of how they鈥檙e trained, selection of the raw material remains the same. And that funnel rewards aggressive young athletes, not careful client managers.

Four months after the Probatoire鈥檚 winter phase, 75 remaining candidates crowded onto a little red train that winds up and down the Chamonix Valley. It was a different world now, the first day of July, with the snow gone, the meadows green, and tourists ambling around town in shorts and sunglasses. The candidates wore a riot of brightly colored French outdoor apparel and trail shoes.听

The first exercise of the summer Probatoire, an orienteering test, was put together by Elodie Le Comte, one of a handful of women on the school鈥檚 staff. Twenty-two orange checkpoints were scattered in a zone of the valley around the Chalets de Charousse, close to the village of Les Houches, about five miles from Chamonix. Each candidate was given one of five separate maps marked with a course of six checkpoints.

鈥淚t鈥檚 different for everyone,鈥� Le Comte explained. 鈥淭hey have to find all the checkpoints in one hour and 30 minutes鈥攊f they miss one, or exceed the time limit, they are eliminated.鈥� The route covered 3.42 miles and 909 feet of ascent. Permitted equipment included compass, map, and altimeter. No GPS.

At the starting line, Fran莽ois Marsigny stood in a baggy blue shirt and shorts, an outfit that looked incongruous on his spare frame, like a tutu on a scarecrow.

Once again, the candidates set off in a staggered fashion and were soon spread out. The checkpoints were sited clearly, at road junctions or other obvious map points. You were not expected to cut through bush to find them. Here, too, as with the climb during the ski test, attrition was designed to be limited.

鈥淚 found it quite easy,鈥� Hulya Vassail said at the end of the exercise. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just simple map reading.鈥� I asked which tests were harder for her. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 personal,鈥� she said, then answered: 鈥淔or me, the climbing is the hardest.鈥�

Krommenacker, who also made it, pointed out another candidate to watch, a young man with light brown hair named Ga毛l Marty, who had pursued sport climbing to a competition standard before giving that up, though he still worked as an instructor.

鈥淚 think 300 days a year to train in the climbing gym, it鈥檚 hard,鈥� Marty would tell me later, explaining his change of direction. 鈥淚 want to ski, climb ice, and not do the same thing every day.鈥澨�

That night, there were 66 names left when Marsigny posted his list. The real winnowing would happen the following day: on the ice.

In the past, when the current generation of senior guides were doing their Probatoires, the ice test took place on the Bossons Glacier, the tumbling expanse of steep ice that falls from the north face of Mont Blanc towards Chamonix. In the eighties, the Bossons reached down to within a few minutes鈥� walk of the road, but no longer. Climate change has withered the ice fields, and the Bossons has retreated up the hillside. This has left a scrubbed moraine landscape, edged with trees, whose exposed rock and lack of vegetation make it look like land scarred by industry.听

In response, ENSA moved the exam to the Mer de Glace, France鈥檚 longest valley glacier, but it retreated, too, and now the test takes place on the Glacier du Tour, the last bowl before the Swiss border. On the morning of July 2, a Tuesday, candidates gathered at the cable-car station at Le Tour, the roadhead.

After a gondola and chairlift ride, followed by 90 minutes of marching uphill on grassy slopes, the trail contoured up the valley and onto the lateral moraine. There, candidates put on their crampons, almost universally worn over lightweight boots like La Sportiva Trangos, with no lip at the front. They set out for individual stations. Today there were four, located in crevasses on the glacier, overseen by Philippe Batoux, an ENSA guide who was in charge of the ice test.

The test involved various traverses on steep ice that gauged candidates鈥� skills with crampons and ice axes. When it came time for the four remaining women to make the final climb, Hulya Vassail went first, moving rapidly up the ice. On the traverse, she neatly hooked her axes over her shoulders to swap them as she went left. She easily beat the time limit of six minutes.

M茅lanie Martinot struggled. When the six-minute mark arrived, she was toward the end of the route, but she hadn鈥檛 done her downclimb. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not great,鈥� she said afterward. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what decision they鈥檒l make. But it could be elimination.鈥澨�

Aur茅lia Lano毛 got through with another solid performance, but Valentine Fabre had a tough day and was too slow. 鈥淚 was

really stressed,鈥� she explained later. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 have the capability, I couldn鈥檛 perform. I鈥檇 lost all my confidence, everything.鈥�

That night, when Marsigny emerged with the results, Martinot, Lano毛, and Vassail advanced, while Fabre was eliminated. She wasn鈥檛 alone. There were only 50 names left on the list. The ice had taken its toll.

Two days of rock-climbing tests followed the ice day. The first, the mixed-terrain test, would be done in mountaineering boots. The second, on steeper slopes, called for rock shoes. Day one happened above Vallorcine, ten miles up the valley, close to the Swiss border. The candidates鈥� interpretation of climbing boots that day was pretty light: the same light boots worn on the glacier.

From the car park in Vallorcine, the candidates were ordered to do a stout approach march of 3,773 feet, with two hours to finish. The pack weights were now the same for men and women: 13.2 pounds. Between the two tests, Marsigny had gotten an anonymous letter that bemoaned the perceived double standard.

鈥淚ntroducing women is a good idea, no doubt,鈥� it said. 鈥淏ut there is an issue with the weight of the packs. 鈥� Asking for a different pack for a woman is the same as asking for a lighter pack for someone in a delicate situation.鈥� Marsigny denied that the letter spurred a policy change, saying the decision had already been made.

The path threaded up from the valley floor, rising through the forest and above timberline toward the clustered huts of the Refuge de Loriaz, at 6,627 feet. From there, the candidates hiked to a ridgeline 1,135 feet farther up. Krommenacker, the ex-banker, explained that the long approach, which had a time limit, was designed 鈥渢o make it difficult to pull off a miracle.鈥� That is, if you鈥檝e just yomped up almost 4,000 feet, you鈥檙e not going to climb beyond your usual level.

The ridge was rocky and bare. Candidates pulled on their harnesses and came down to the first climb, where they were watched by the instructors. Three took off at any one time, belayed by their successors, in lanes marked with red and white tape. As with much of the Chamonix Valley, the cliff was bolted for protection, and the required climbing level was roughly equivalent to 5.10a. After the climb, the candidates traversed the ridgeline to the next obstacle, a steep descent. On the crest perched Pierre Gourdin, an ENSA instructor who had worked in British Columbia.

鈥淒o I have time?鈥� a nervous candidate asked him, fussing with his pack.听

鈥淵es, yes,鈥� he said. 鈥淐alm, calm, breathe, prepare everything. Be calm, this isn鈥檛 the assessment. Take the time to go up.鈥�

The next test was a steep crag descent, with candidates judged on speed and style. From there, a fixed rope ran down and into boulder-strewn waste below the ridge, toward the obstacle that, for some, illustrated the insanity of the Probatoire: boulder parcours. In this challenge, candidates are expected to run through a boulder field at high speed. Quickness is a major judging factor.

Guide Caroline George has some doubts about the test. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 remember the last time I had to run through a boulder field with clients,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o I don鈥檛 see how it鈥檚 pertinent other than to show that you have good proprioception.鈥滿arsigny insists it鈥檚 a valid challenge. 鈥淚t鈥檚 there to assess the agility of the candidate in difficult terrain,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have reliable data regarding accidents.鈥�

Up above the Refuge de Loriaz, the candidates pounded around the boulder field. Krommenacker was pleased with his performance; at his age, he knew he had less explosive muscle power than the younger candidates, and he had organized his nutrition carefully for the day, with gels to keep his energy up.

Vassail, after her strong performance on the ice, was worried. She鈥檇 fallen on the climb: not an automatic disqualifier, but a bad sign. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a big penalty,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檓 a bit sad, but above all I鈥檓 stressed.鈥�

Afterward, photographer Nicolas Blandin and I walked down with Marsigny and the administrative head of ENSA. At Vallorcine, down by the river, we found Baptiste Obino, the 20-year-old who鈥檇 slept in his car in the winter. This time, in better weather, he was living in a tent, which he moved when new venues were announced. His dirtbag creed extended to his footwear, too: his trail shoes were repaired with duct tape. He claimed to be washing in streams.听

That night, as always, Marsigny emerged with his list. Krommenacker, Marty, and Obino all got through. Among the women, Lano毛 and Martinot made it. Vassail was out.

It used to end there. Until 2011, the Probatoire finished after the technical tests, but there鈥檚 now a final element: a week in the mountains. After Marsigny finished his briefing on Thursday night, he advised the candidates to rest during the weekend.

On the following Monday afternoon, the remaining candidates鈥�41 had passed the rock test鈥攕at in the upstairs library at ENSA. For the second week in a row, they would separate into groups of three or four, each with an instructor, and scatter across the Mont Blanc massif and farther afield. One group would end up on the Nadelhorn and the other 13,000-foot peaks above Zermatt in Switzerland. It was during this assessment week that a Probatoire candidate was killed in 2018, and Marsigny was reluctant to let journalists go along, given the seriousness of the terrain and our relative inexperience.

But on the last day he gave in. He explained that following the candidate鈥檚 death鈥攚hich took place in a fall above the Argenti猫re glacier鈥攖hey had changed the system. Now, if you鈥檇 passed the technical tests but failed the mountain week, you could return to do that part again, without resitting the first tests. The intention was to reduce the pressure on the candidates, a factor Marsigny believed had contributed to the fatal accident.

On the final day, a Friday, I traveled up the Br茅vent cable car with Marsigny and four candidates. Among them was M茅lanie Martinot, one of the two women left. She鈥檇 had a bad day in the mountains earlier in the week and knew she was on the brink.

The Br茅vent stops at 8,284 feet, with an extraordinary panorama of the Mont Blanc massif opposite. After disembarking, we walked down the back side of the ridge over patches of old snow, to the foot of the cliffs that form the north face of the peak. Our objective, a bolted route called Po猫me 脿 Lou, already had climbers on it, so we moved to the next line over, Le Fin de Babylone, which was also bolted. The hardest pitches on the route were rated 5.10c.

The party set off on two ropes, moving elegantly up the smooth granite. Below, large vultures circled on the thermals. Three hours later, the first rope team came over the broken ground beneath the cable-car station. They unclipped, packed up their gear, and took the first cable car down.

When we got back to ENSA, waiting for the final cut began. It was late afternoon when Marsigny emerged with the sheet. In all, 45 people had passed. Krommenacker, the ex-investment banker, got through. So did Baptiste Obino, the dirtbag, and Lucien Boucansaud, whose father had died when he was 18. I asked him what his dad would think.听

鈥淗e鈥檇 say he was happy for me,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檇 say thank you鈥攆or all that he gave me.鈥�

M茅lanie Martinot didn鈥檛 pass; following her wobble the previous day, she was eliminated at the last hurdle. In the hall, standing by the list, she looked utterly devastated. I asked if she would try the exam again. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know,鈥� she said.

The one woman who passed was Aur茅lia Lano毛, the van dweller. I asked how she felt it would be to train as the lone woman with all the men for the remainder of the three years of the program.听

鈥淭he fact that I鈥檓 the only woman, it鈥檚 not a big deal,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檇 have preferred if there were some other women, but I can handle it as it is.鈥�

I asked how she thought the training, due to start in September, would go.

Her reply was all business: 鈥淚鈥檒l tell you next year.鈥�

Simon Akam () wrote about Scottish backcountry skiing听in November 2017.

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, from 听and ,听features three urban running crews as they figure out what it takes to be a trail runner. They begin their journey in Lyon, France, and work their way to Chamonix for some high-altitude听trails.

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