Raide Vivant

"Mom, tomorrow I'm leaving for the north face of Pic Sans Nom. You might find this note a little late, but just in case, you'll know where to find me. I'll have been careful, you know!"

Paul lives for the mountains, consuming himself in search of something elusive, which takes shape with each ascent. He smokes, often climbs solo, hesitates, frightens himself, skis slopes of steep snow as sharp as church steeple rooftops, ventures into extreme altitude, runs along ridgelines… Sometimes he stops and looks back on the incandescent moments of his past, those moments when "the entire world is concentrated in a single gesture."

• the real life of a top alpinist of today, a feverish, fast-paced life, sometimes haunted but always intense, where the pursuit of beauty in the mountains extends into writing.