A French skier has just become the first person to climb and ski every mountain in the Alps higher than 4,000m (12,000 feet). After chipping away at the project for 15 years, Vivian Bruchez scaled the final peak on June 20.
“Happy to announce today that I have finished the final peak of this adventure,” Bruchez wrote on Instagram (translated from French). “The 82nd of a long list: Pointe Marguerite, 4065m, in Grandes Jorasses, on Friday, June 20, 2025 with my friend @mathieunavillod. An adventure that I feel is my greatest sporting accomplishment.”
Bruchez didn’t save the easiest for last, either. Reaching the summit of Point Marguerite involved technical climbing (both roped and unroped) on ice and ice climbing. The descent required a spicy mix of rocky downclimbing, rappels, plummeting sheets of snow and ice, and crevasse-riddled glacier skiing.
“A project never done before,” Bruchez wrote. “The past 2 years have been the hardest. I had to push myself to a lot of uncertainties, doubts, peaks [where] I had never seen a skier! To wounds, pains, that remind me how vulnerable I am up there…There’s so much to tell, to testify, to convey!”
After spending some time with Bruchez in his native mountain town of Chamonix, I learned firsthand what it takes to handle the complex mountaineering skills required to pull off such an ambitious feat.
The Alps: 4,000m Peaks
The Matterhorn, one of the most recognizable peaks in the world, is clearly visible from Chamonix. It’s one of the 82 highest peaks in the Alps that Bruchez has skied, along with other iconic mountains like Breithorn, Weisshorn, and Jungfrau.
It’s hard to describe the scale of the Alps to folks who haven’t been there to see them firsthand. The Range itself spans 500 miles across eight European countries, stretching from Southern France to Slovenia.
Bruchez’s home in Chamonix is conveniently located on the western edge of that range, near Mt. Blanc. The highest peak in the Alps at 4,805m (15,764 feet), the Mt. Blanc massif actually contains 28 peaks over 4,000m, or 12,000 feet.
That’s where Bruchez first had his vision. His dream was originally to ski the inspiring peaks surrounding his home, like Mt. Blanc, Aiguille Verte, Les Droites, and Aiguille du Chardonnet. Some of those offered nary a ribbon of continuous snow from peak to glacier.
The bigger “project” grew from there: to climb and ski the 82 highest peaks in the Alps. It’s an “alpinist project with skis on,” he said.
Skiing in the Alps
A few months ago, I stood at a railing on top of the Aiguille du Midi, a cable car station balancing on its namesake rock tower overlooking the Chamonix Valley 9,000 feet below, and cascading glaciers in every direction. The Matterhorn, Mt. Blanc, the Grand Combin, and a hundred other sharp peaks looming on the horizon.
I was chatting with Bruchez, a man now considered one of ski mountaineering’s all-time greats. I gripped the railing of the airy platform tightly as I asked him which of these peaks he had skied. He chuckled politely: “Many.”
He pointed to a massive granite spire-like wall in front of us — the Aiguille Verte — indicating that he’d skied it. I squinted at the sheer rock face, scanning for a sliver of snow that I could technically understand as a ski line. I didn’t see it, or at least anything that resembled a continuous line of skiable snow.
The Alps are like that: steep, severe, intimidating. A ski line, if one exists at all, isn’t always obvious. And even if there is a continuous line of snow, the window to ski such an ephemeral line could be as short as a few days per year.
Those are the exact ski lines that the 38-year-old Bruchez is known for, especially the ones plunging down the tallest peaks in the Alps. The types of ski lines so sheer that a typical skier wouldn’t even recognize them as skiable. Routes so technical that even climbing them with ropes, crampons, and ice tools routinely challenges seasoned alpinists.
I originally met up with Bruchez during a media trip in Chamonix for the soft launch of Mountain Hardwear’s new Mythogen Jacket and Bibs, which he’s been developing alongside designers at the brand. Then I peppered him with questions as we skied through the glaciers, powder stashes, and incredible vertical drop around his hometown.
The Project
According to Bruchez, only about half of the 82 tallest peaks in the Alps had traditionally been considered skiable. The others are more like mountaineering routes often completed in alpine style. That means using crampons, ice axes, ropes, and belays to overcome technical rock, ice, and snow climbing.
In other words, it’s terrain that doesn’t lend itself particularly well to skiing. Of that collection of barely skiable peaks, four had never been skied by anyone.
Ski mountaineering, like rock climbing, is guided by a set of ethics that athletes like Bruchez take seriously. So I asked him about the ethics that he’s been relying on throughout the course of his project.
“The line is the most important — finding the good line. Second is to climb to the top even if there’s no snow on top. The third is to start the highest I can with my skis,” he said.
The snow doesn’t get close to the top of some of these jagged peaks. Downclimbing or rappelling to the snow is sometimes inevitable. But Bruchez’s commitment to good style — the climber’s ethic — is the reason he hasn’t completed the project yet.
There isn’t a governing body or record book that he’s trying to appease. The technicalities of his project, along with having good style in the eyes of the climbing world, are largely self-imposed.
As of May, he had just three 4,000m peaks remaining to officially finish skiing all 82: Mt Brouillard, Grand Pilier d’angle, and Point Marguerite. But here’s the thing — he had already skied all three. But he didn’t quite climb to the very top.
To crown his project, Bruchez decided he had to return, finish the final pitches of alpine climbing, and repeat the ski descents. That’s the nature of the project. If it were just a ski project, he’d already be done. But because it’s also alpinism, he aspires to meet the high standards of that niche simultaneously.
“For an alpinist, the summit is important. For a skier, sometimes not,” he said.
Skiing a New Line
“Steep” barely conveys the character of most of these ski lines. Think about the steepest slope you’ve ever skied or seen someone ski. Now make it steeper — by at least 50 degrees — and extend it for thousands of vertical feet, interrupted only by periodic cliffs requiring ropes to descend safely. Then add in avalanche hazards, mostly bad snow, sections of glacial ice, crevasse crossings, and inclement weather.
These dangerous lines are well-known territory for Bruchez, who has established more than 80 first descents over the course of his career. I asked him about his process for approaching unskied lines, especially the icy strips of snow plummeting through chimneys of blank granite faces plastered with rime. He said there are three factors that must line up perfectly: “Right moment, right place, with the right people.”
Some of these lines he’s been thinking about for 5 years or more. Others he saw the day before and decided that the moment was right. But typically, the process to ski one of these giants begins weeks in advance when he considers his ski partners.
“On this project, there are mainly five or six different skiers who ski always with me, not more,” he said. “It is really specific, it is really technical. There is lots of exploration. You don’t call a friend and say, ‘Hey, let’s go skiing tomorrow.’ You have to choose the right person for the right line.”
There are an elite few that could confidently descend these demanding and dangerous ski routes. Even fewer also have the technical skill to confidently free climb the many pitches of ice and rock to reach the summits. Still, there are even fewer that Bruchez knows well enough and trusts completely for objectives of this magnitude.
Even with the right partner lined up, knowing the “right moment” isn’t always straightforward.
Some of the peaks are hundreds of kilometers away. For the routes near Chamonix, Bruchez can walk out his front door and look up. But the faraway lines take more preparation. There needs to be enough snow and ice to connect sections of the routes, but also not too much.
Avalanche conditions need to be impeccably favorable, which is why he typically only attempts these routes in May or June, when the snowpack is solidified. Getting that information requires piecing together an array of incomplete information. That means calling huts or friends scattered around the range, persistently checking the weather, and an abundance of internet sleuthing.
With such an expansive multi-modal project, Bruchez is exceedingly particular about his gear. As part of Mountain Hardwear’s athlete team, he’s clad head to toe in the new Mythogen GORE-TEX Pro outerwear kit that he helped develop. He consistently sports a relatively small Mountain Hardwear backpack, preferring to carry his rope and technical climbing gear on his body and harness for easy access.
His skis are short 170cm Dynastar M-Vertical 88’s. He’s typically carrying two ice axes (Petzl Gullys), as well as crampons capable of punching into glacial ice and levering into rock cracks.
He spends hours double-checking his gear to make sure it will meet the particular challenges of each mountain mission — these routes don’t provide much margin for error.
Many Projects in One
When I asked him which of the peaks or ski routes has been most meaningful to him so far, Bruchez answer surprised me.
Rather than the hardest line or highest peak, he chose a multisport adventure and first descent on Aiguille Verte, a peak close to his home in Chamonix. It’s an ultra-steep and ephemeral line that he accessed via train. He then skied to the valley floor before floating back home in his kayak. It was a journey of pure poetry: riding the snow and runoff from the peak to the river.
Such multisport adventuring is a natural step forward from the more singular pursuits that have long dominated outdoor sports, he said. “That’s the evolution of steep skiing and alpinism,” added Bruchez.
Some peaks he biked to from his home, for example. Other times, he has taken trains or hitchhiked. He has been joined by a handful of different ski partners and has spent many nights in all kinds of mountain huts strewn throughout the Alps.
Vivian Bruchez Background
Acquiring the skills and experience to climb and ski a 4,000m peak in the Alps takes a long time. These are very different sports, though they share a common canvas. And the 38-year-old Bruchez has been working on both for most of his life.
Born and raised in Chamonix to ski instructor parents, he became a competitive skier, climber, mountain guide, and eventually a steep skier. Despite his accomplishments and now entering the final stretch of one of his long-term goals, Bruchez is still constantly learning.
Over the past few years, Bruchez has pursued other projects simultaneously with his ongoing 82 peaks quest. Fans of The Fifty Project saw him in a short film skiing new lines on Baffin Island. He also stars in a new film, Painting the Mountains, featuring steep skiing and freeriding in Patagonia with Aurel Lardy and Jules Socié.
But like the project’s origins, Bruchez’s love for his home range is what continues to inspire him.
“I love to leave my house for three or four days, but if that’s more than that, it’s a bit long for me because I’m a dad, I have a family, I have two girls,” he said. “Leaving home more than a week, the time is long for me.”
Bruchez has pioneered 80 new ski descents around the world throughout his career. Twenty of those have been on 4,000m peaks in the Alps. He and his media partners plan to produce a film and book about the journey in the coming years. You can keep tabs on Bruchez through Instagram and on his website.
Managing Risk in High-Consequence Terrain
The elephant in the proverbial room is risk. If you’ve seen Free Solo or The Alpinist, you and your sweaty palms know what I’m talking about. Skiing steep lines on 4,000m peaks involves objective risks. Like free solo rock climbing, you’re not wearing a rope when you’re skiing this terrain — and the consequences are ultimate.
What surprised me most about Bruchez was his attitude about risk. I came to believe that he’s actually quite conservative in his approach. He takes risk, safety, and control as meticulously as his mountain ethic.
“I can’t play with the risk, I can’t play with the danger,” he said. “If I have two options, one exposed and one safe, I always take the safe one.”
Understanding and controlling risks is core to his project. I asked him about his approach to backing down from a ski line, which he said happens often when one of the three core elements — moment, place, people — doesn’t align. But he was confident that no day in the mountains is a failure because there is always an opportunity to learn. About the mountain, the skills, the snow, or yourself.
“It’s really important to be the right moment for you,” he said. “You have to be really involved, and you have to be really aware of your project. It’s a human game. A balance between mountains, elements, and a small human trying to find his line.”
It’s part of the reason he never put a timeline on the project. He doesn’t really even refer to it as a “project” the way I have here. The way he described it to me, it’s more of a way of life and a process of growing with the mountains. It takes respect and patience that an artificially defined timeline could disrupt.
‘Because I Want to Go’
Bruchez’s famously precise and smooth turns were as impressive in real life as the rumors and video clips led me to believe. Even more interesting was his enthusiasm for skiing simple terrain in good snow. As I chased him through the Chamonix backcountry, it made more sense how he could pursue such a daunting goal for so long — it’s a dedication born from love of the sport.
Throughout our discussions, Bruchez kept coming back to his motivation to complete the journey in good style.
“I do it because I want to go,” he said. “I want to keep the passion, the good reason to climb.”
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