When Marie-Charlotte Iratzoquy walks through the door of the Librairie des Alpes, in 6e arrondissement, in Paris, his emotion is still strong. Each time she visits the capital, she likes to come to this century-old cabinet of curiosities to contemplate the youth of the peaks she climbs all year round. On the walls and shelves, photos and old engravings of the crests set a familiar scene. “It’s important to keep visible traces of what our Alps once were “, assures in a serious voice the young 23-year-old athlete in sports studies at the Grenoble management school, where she takes distance courses from Chamonix.
She owes her attachment to the mountains to a passion for ski mountaineering that has remained intact since she was 14. Also called “skimo”, this discipline consists of sliding down off-piste slopes after having climbed them with touring skis (equipped with seal skin). As a teenager in the Pyrenees, she initially rejected the rigorous activity – why on earth not use the ski lifts? –, then it was picked up by the sense of effort and the respect for the landscapes that the discipline imposes.
Since then, her relentless training has borne fruit: three times French team champion, in 2019 as a junior she won the Pierra Menta, the world ski mountaineering summit bringing together six hundred athletes in Arêches-Beaufort, in Savoie. Ten thousand meters of positive altitude gain over four days, in settings of snowy ridges, fifteen peaks from 2,000 to 2,687 meters, a challenge that she plans to take on again on March 12. “When you experience such surpassing yourself in the mountains, despite the cold and physical fatigue, it’s visceral, you become addicted,” she assures.
The precious powder from his childhood
But, for three years, the evidence has been fading. The anxiety caused by the concrete manifestations of climate change in the mountains has insidiously taken hold in his daily life as an athlete. “To ski, I have to go higher and higher. Every winter, snowfall becomes rarer and rarer. “, she confides. The melting of the glaciers disturbs its aspirations. “I feel selfish for continuing to practice my sport, so I spend my time compensating in the way I consume. »
No shopping at the supermarket, no fast fashion, she recently asked sponsor brands to stop sending excessive equipment and clothing. An awareness that she shares with her sports-study classmates. “We talk a lot about the abnormal heat in December, the spring conditions which arrive in February, that worries us all,” she says.
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