For as long as I can remember, I've felt drawn to remote, inaccessible spots. The Pyrenees, at just a two-hour drive away from home, became a playground where I could unleash that fascination.
There, the unstoppable forces of Earth folded stone on itself, carved it and eroded it with ancient glaciers and created sometimes otherworldly looking, sometimes dauntingly intimidating landscapes where people look diminished.
Its highest summits attract several climbers determined to reach them day after day. To avoid the risks that these ascents imply paths have been traced, milestones have been placed and sheltering infrastructure has been built.
Despite all of that, they’re high mountain areas: untamed, indomitable places where everything remotely human feels dwarf, strange and out of place.