In Conversation with: Vivian Bruchez

Vivian and I have had versions of this conversation many times in the mountains. We just never had a camera recording.

We first met when I moved to Chamonix in 2011. Vivian was one of the people who introduced me to steep skiing and, through it, to another way of understanding mountaineering and moving through the mountains. Over the years, we have shared many days outside, learned from each other, and gradually found that our ways of seeing the mountains became closer.

In this conversation, we talk about creativity and performance, the patience behind Vivian’s project to ski the 4,000-metre peaks of the Alps, how snow shapes the decisions we make, and the complicated relationship between commitment and risk. We also talk about becoming fathers, how that changes our perspective in the mountains, and how we pass on experience and mountain knowledge in a world where so much is now seen through social media.

My book Beyond Endurance tells the story of linking the 82 peaks over 4,000 metres in the Alps in 19 days, and of the glaciers and ridges I crossed along the way, many of them changing fast. Find it here: bio.to/KilianJornet