Web conferences

Eric Bonnem, founder of Expeditions Unlimited, talks about the rare challenge of the Seven Volcanic Summits, the characteristics of each of the expeditions and those that are no longer accessible. It's a unique conference in a world where Expeditions Unlimited is the only French-speaking organisation present.

We've climbed them all... thanks to you! In our interview with Eric Bonnem, founder of Secret Planet, we take a look back at the legendary Seven Summits challenge: the characteristics of the expeditions that made it up, those that are no longer accessible and its extension to the poles.

Journalist, writer and mountaineer, Jean-Michel is a man of the mountains and of the pen. He has made five attempts to climb Everest, including his first in 1989. In this interview, he recalls the history of mountaineering on the world's highest peak.

Pascal Zellner has been an emergency physician since 1994. In 2005, he and Emmanuel Cauchy founded Ifremmont, the mountain medicine research institute based in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. With their teams, they revolutionized telemedicine for patients in isolated environments. At the time, there was only one solution: a large suitcase from the European Space Agency... They are developing research, prevention and treatments linked in particular to high-mountain pathologies, whether hypoxia (rarefied oxygen) or cold.

On October 12 1967, to encourage and reward the best in the race to the top, the Bureau of the Central Council of Sports Societies and Organizations of the USSR decided to award a prize to those who managed to climb the five highest Soviet peaks. The Snow Leopard challenge was born.

Eric Shipton is one of the fathers of himalayism, or better still, of alpine climbing in the Himalayas. With his companion Bill Tilman, he took part in most of the reconnaissance trips to the world's highest peaks in the 1930s and sometimes opened routes that were used to achieve first ascents, such as Everest or Nanda Devi.

In this interview, Bernard Muller, one of France's most renowned expedition leaders at very high altitude, talks about our expedition to Everest, from which he has just returned, other 8,000 meters peaks and their characteristics, the reasons why some climbers want to get close to the ‘death zone’, the key factors in the success of such summits, their preparation, general and local organisation, oxygen...

Jérôme Brisebourg is one of the hundred or so sports adventurers and explorers in history to have completed the Explorers' Grand Slam on 13 January 2020 at the South Pole, i.e. climbing the highest peak on each continent (Seven Summits) and reaching the North and South Poles on expedition. Jérôme looks back at the expeditions he has attempted and often successfully completed, in both high mountain and polar environments.

A Frenchwoman who has lived in the Himalayas for over 20 years, Marion Chaygneaud-Dupuy has reached the summit of Everest three times via the Tibetan side and has climbed many peaks over 6,000 meters in central Tibet, some of which are still untouched. She is one of the world's leading experts on sustainable development at very high altitude, and has launched a major project to 'clean up' Everest via the northern route.