On the occasion of the Dijon International Adventure Screen Festival, of which she is president of the jury, the French climber, renowned mountaineer and today editor, looks back on this unique life that took her to the summit.
On the subject of Catherine Destivelle, a real star of climbing in the 80s and 90s, several times crowned world climbing champion, we used all the more or less happy superlatives and qualifiers, nicknamed her “the spider woman”. », “the dragonfly of the rock”, “the climber of the impossible”, “the wild woman of the vertical” or even “the mountaineer of charm”.
It must be said that when it comes to women and sport, exploits or titles, the rule has long been to confine them to the feminine, forgetting that sometimes they also outstrip men, thus abolishing very persistent gender categories. in our societies as well as in the mountains. But Catherine Destivelle has always been above that, tracing her path in complete freedom on the walls of the world, first by climbing, then by mountaineering.
Particularly respected by her peers and awarded the prestigious Piolet d’Or Carrière in 2020, the climber has an impressive track record, inspiring generations of climbers and mountain lovers with her extreme exploits: sometimes in full solo, without belaying along walls, sometimes in winter and solitary version on the large northern faces of the Alps.
Now editor at the head of Éditions du Mont-Blanc, a French publishing house which offers all forms of mountain stories, from thrillers to beautiful books, including comics and children’s books, Catherine Destivelle has today keen to pass on his love of the mountains and climbing; a discipline that she defends as a game and above all an immense pleasure, like the peaks she has climbed.
Learn more :
– On the Éditions du Mont-Blanc
– On the latest work by Catherine Destivelle “Once upon a time there was climbing”a comic strip co-written with David Chambre on the history of the discipline
– On the International Festival of Adventure Screens which is held every year in October in Dijon.