REPLAY | Jérôme Brisebourg, objective 3 poles: Everest, North Pole and South Pole
08 April 2021Web conferences
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. In our interview, conducted by Eric Bonnem, founder of Secret Planet, Jérôme looks back at the expeditions he has attempted and often successfully completed, both in the high mountain environment (Kilimanjaro, Kun, Mustagh Ata, Gasherbrum II, Seven Summits including Everest, Denali, etc.) and in the polar environment (crossing Greenland from west to east, the North Pole at the last degree and the South Pole from the Axel Heiberg glacier in the footsteps of Amundsen).
At 47, Jérôme, a native of Bordeaux, company director, husband and father of two daughters, has some fifteen significant expeditions to his name, in both the high mountain and polar environments. Until he was nineteen, Jérôme was destined for a career as a professional footballer, a dream that never came true, but which gave him a taste for effort, taught him to manage his energy and, above all, helped to build his excellent mental outlook. Fascinated by the idea of surpassing oneself, he was inspired by the exploits of adventurers such as Pierre Mazeaud's ascent of Everest in 1978 and Jean-Louis Etienne's expedition to the North Pole in 1986.
His Explorers Grand Slam project began 16 years ago with the ascent of Kilimanjaro. At the time, he had just discovered mountaineering after climbing Mont Blanc with his wife, under the guidance of the great Bernard Muller. From then on, Jérôme had only one idea in mind: to climb to the top of the world. He began his preparation with Cotopaxi (5,897 m) in Ecuador, then Kun (7,087 m) in India - his first ascent with ‘an expedition logic’ - and various peaks in Russia, where he met the team with whom he would set out to conquer Everest a few years later.
In 2011, Jérôme took on the challenge of climbing his first 8,000-metre peak, none other than Everest. Between the finely-tuned logistics and the hypoxia involved in climbing to such an altitude, the climb turned out to be more arduous than expected for the sportsman that Jérôme is, but ended in a fine victory all the same. With ‘the hardest part done, in principle’ and his body's limits now reached, he set about conquering the Seven Summits, and would not turn to polar expeditions until he had completed them.
Jérôme's achievements to date:
2002: Ascent of Mont Blanc (France - 4,810 m)
2004: Ascent of Kilimanjaro (Tanzania - 5,895 m)
2011: Ascent of Mount Everest via the Tibetan route (Tibet - 8,848 m)
2012: Ascent of Mount Elbrus (Russia - 5,642 m)
2013: Ascent of Mount Vison (Antarctica - 4,892 m)
2014: Ascent of the Carstensz pyramid (Papua - 4,884 m)
2015 : Ascent of Aconcagua (Argentina - 6,962 m)
2016 : Ascent of Denali (Alaska - 6,190 m)
2017: Crossing Greenland from west to east
2018 : North Pole last degree
2019 : South Pole from the Axel Heiberg Glacier
In the rest of our interview, he talks about the expeditions that have enriched him and those that have not, shares his anecdotes from his ascent of Everest and his polar expeditions, before of course tackling the famous Explorers' Grand Slam, a feat that only a hundred or so people in the world have achieved:
Expeditions Unlimited blog
