Ariane Fornia – The call of mountaineering

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Welcome to La Sportive Outdoor. Today I’m hosting Ariane Fornia, better known on social networks as Itinera Magica . We’ve known each other for several years now, and I’ve been closely following the development of her passion for mountaineering. I wanted her to tell you about her journey, especially as mountaineering is often perceived as a masculine sport. Ariane does not come from a mountaineering background, which makes her story all the more interesting.

Photo credits: Itinera Magica

Introducing Ariane

Welcome Ariane!

Thank you so much for inviting me, I’m delighted to be taking part in La Sportive Outdoor.

Pleased to welcome you too. Can you introduce yourself?

You’re welcome! I’m Ariane, known on the networks under the pseudonym Itinéra Magica, which has also been the name of my blog since 2015. I grew up in Aix-en-Provence, near the sea, and today I live in Grenoble, surrounded by mountains. My two great obsessions are the Alps and Provence. Like all of you, I’m passionate about outdoor sports!

Motivations and inspirations

How did you discover mountaineering? It’s a big step up from outdoor sports, especially when you come from the sea.

Yes, completely! It all happened very gradually. The first step was to discover the mountains in summer. For me, the mountains used to be all about skiing. I’d always loved skiing, but I thought the mountains ceased to exist once the lifts closed.

The trigger came in 2017, during two incredible adventures with Marion, my photographer partner. One in Chamonix and the other in the Vercors. These experiences were full of firsts: my first hike above 2000 meters, my first bivouac, my first face-to-face encounter with a glacier, and my first encounter with an ibex. All these discoveries made me realize that there was an extraordinary universe right next to me, which I didn’t know at all. It was at this point that I began to take an interest in mountain hiking, and became passionate about it.

The second trigger came in 2020, when I undertook my first big hikes and had my first mountaineering experience. I vividly remember the moment when I said to myself that I really had to go for it. It was on the Jonction hike in Chamonix, where you arrive facing the glaciers, with Mont Blanc and the Aiguille du Midi directly opposite, separated by a sea of seracs.

That’s when I asked myself: “How do you go further? That’s where mountaineering comes in, with its ropes, ice axes and climbing techniques needed to progress where walking is no longer enough. It was this idea of going further in the mountains that captivated me.

I understand, but there’s a big gap between hiking and mountaineering. What prompted you to take this step?

It’s really the fascination. I remember this moment in front of the glaciers, when I said to myself: “I don’t want to stop here. I want to go further, see these seracs and crevasses up close”. But at the same time, I didn’t want to take any reckless risks. I knew it was dangerous, so I asked myself how I could do it safely.

My first introduction to mountaineering was in the summer of 2020, when I crossed the Vallée Blanche on foot, climbed the Pointes de Lachenal and climbed my first rocky ridge. From then on, I started devouring books about the mountains, like Gaston Rébuffat’s Les Conquérants de l’inutile and the works of Frison-Roche. I acquired my entire alpine culture from the little red books in the Paulsen-Guérin collection, available in a Chamonix bookshop. I had this irrepressible urge to discover this fascinating world for myself.

I can just see this bookshop, it’s true that you want to leave with a pile of books!

That’s what I do every time!

Is there anyone in particular who has inspired you in your practice?

At first, I was fascinated by the great names of mountaineering, such as Lionel Terray, Gaston Rébuffat and Louis Lachenal. Les Conquérants de l’inutile had a profound effect on me. Rébuffat in particular, with his ascents of the Calanques and Mont Blanc massif, made a huge impression on me.

But then I asked myself,“Who are my female role models ?”. It was an essential question for me, and it marked a turning point. Today, I’m impressed by the number of women in the mountains. There are some fantastic events, like Lead the Climb, a section of the Alpine Club dedicated to women, or the Women in the Mountains Festival. These are inspiring women’s moments, and that’s extremely encouraging.

Today, I feelvery inspired by all the sportswomen I come across, whether in ski touring, climbing or hiking. There’s a real dynamic around women in the mountains, and that motivates me a lot.

It’s so important! The Femmes en Montagne Festival is just around the corner, taking place in November. This year, there’s even an online version, which is great for those who don’t live near Annecy. Personally, I’ll be taking my pass.

So am I! I’m really looking forward to it.

There’s also a book on the history of women’s mountaineering coming out soon. I’ll be interviewing the author for the podcast. I can’t wait to read it and find out more!

Now that’s an episode I won’t want to miss!

Learning to climb

Let’s move on to your apprenticeship. It’s true that it’s something that intrigues me. You’ve told us how you got the idea, but how did you actually get started? From the moment you said to yourself: “Okay, that’s it, I’m going to do it”, what were the steps involved in getting started?

For someone like me, with no mountaineering background at all, the first step is to contact a guide. It’s essential to be on the safe side and not to decide to venture out on your own on a ridge or glacier. It’s an environment fraught with objective dangers, and there are a whole host of techniques to ensure your safety. So going with a guide is the best way to learn.

Today, I still use guides for my races, but I’m trying to become more autonomous. More and more, I ask them to let me take the lead, to check my maneuvers without intervening unless I make a big mistake. But in the beginning, it wasn’t like that at all: I just followed and tried to survive.

Then, more concretely, mountaineering is not a sport in its own right, but a collection of disciplines. For me, learning mountaineering meant progressing in all the disciplines it encompasses.

It starts with alpine hiking, on difficult terrain, with exposure to the void, scree and steep slopes. Many rock-climbing approaches are involved hikes. Then there’s rock climbing, especially long-pitch climbing, which is done over several pitches: instead of going back down to the top of a route, the second person goes up, we build a belay and continue climbing. For me, it’s the transition between sport climbing and mountaineering.

Then there’s ski touring, although it’s a discipline I put on the back burner after a bad experience. But in the early days, I did quite a bit of it, learning how to deal with snow, avalanche risk and so on. Finally, there are more specific activities like ice climbing. It’s not something you do every day, but it’s fun to do and makes you feel like you’re on Everest!

I suppose so. You originally had hiking as a skill, but the others, like climbing, you had to learn along the way, didn’t you?

Completely. I started everything at the same time. I started climbing, and then got back into skiing in a more serious way. For me, skiing isn’t just about technique: it’s also about managing the slope, the void and the cold.

I also started doing itinerant treks, bivouacking, carrying all my gear. This taught me to rationalize my gear, develop stress management skills, analyze situations and observe paths. Mountaineering encompasses all these practices, whether hiking, trekking or climbing.

In fact,climbing has become an important part of my life. In winter, for example, I don’t climb so many snowy peaks, but it’s an excellent season for big-pitch climbing in the south of France, in the Calanques, for example. It’s opened a lot of doors for me, not only in the mountains, but also by the sea.

Fear and risk management

You manage to link the two. You were talking about the risks and fears this can engender. How do you deal with these fears? Vertigo, emptiness, weather conditions… How do you manage them?

It’s really one day at a time. I’ve scared myself a few times, and there are moments that I handle better than others. For example, I feel I’ve made progress in terms of my fear of heights.

At first, configurations with a void on both sides, as on a ridge, were extremely complicated for me. I had a big scare crossing the ridges of the Grand Pic de Belledonne: there were 1,000 meters of open space on each side. I spent four hours crying, moving forward crying my eyes out. It was a really difficult experience, not a good advertisement for mountaineering! But since then, I’ve done a lot of ridge climbing, at first easier, then moving up the difficulty scale. Climbing also helped me a lot to deal with that.

As far as the cold is concerned, I’ve also made progress by getting better equipment and understanding what works for me. The solutions aren’t the same for everyone, and it took me a lot of trial and error to find the right equipment to cope with the cold.

On the other hand, fear of avalanches is my biggest obstacle. In January 2023, I triggered an avalanche in the Maurienne, and it was very traumatic. It stopped me dead in my tracks when it came to learning ski touring. I still go to mountain film festivals in Grenoble, and unfortunately, many of the films deal with the dangers of avalanches. Even though I’ve made progress in my knowledge of snow conditions, there’s still an element of uncertainty. It’s still an area of fear that I haven’t completely overcome, and I’ll see in the coming winters how I manage it.

You’ve already made progress on a lot of things, and in any case, congratulations. I admit that avalanches are something that personally scare the hell out of me, but I imagine that if you decide to do it, you learn to manage the risk as much as possible and then live with it?

You can take courses with guides or snow schools. For example, I went to Grenoble with a really great guide, specializing in nivology, who teaches you to analyze slopes in a safe environment. He asks you: “Which way would you go? Why would you do that? Tell me about the exposure, the orientation, the wind…” This helps you to analyze rationally and choose the best possible route. I use these skills even in summer. For example, last June, I had to change my itinerary to go up to the Pavé refuge in the Écrins, because the classic route was too exposed to avalanches. So we found an alternative.

These snow skills are super useful, but unfortunately, with global warming, they’re not always enough. Hot-cold alternations, heavy snowfalls followed by high temperatures, create unstable snowpacks, and even the greatest experts find it hard to guarantee that it’s safe. Unfortunately, I think that climate change is making the mountains more dangerous overall. In the future, whether you’re an amateur like me or a professional, you’ll probably have to be more cautious. It’s great to climb a mountain, but the aim is also to come down alive.

Outstanding experiences

Exactly. You mentioned this situation in ski touring. What exactly happened? Can you tell us how you got out of it?

We were going uphill, with a guide and my partner Geoffrey, and we had tried to choose the most rational route possible. There was a dangerous traverse, so we had the sealskins and knives, those crampons for skis that grip the snow. We knew that this slope, inclined at around 30-32 degrees, was risky, especially in avalanche risk 3. The guide decided to go for it, spacing us out so that if one of us got carried away, the others could locate him. Of course, as always, we were equipped with avalanche transceivers, shovels and probes.

I was the second to cross and, halfway up the slope, I heard noises under the snow, as if it was moving. I kept going, but it sounded like it might go. Then, all of a sudden, a big “boom”, like a cracking sound. The avalanche started beneath me, but fortunately, the knives probably saved me from going with it. I heard a thunderous noise, and not only my slope went, but also the two adjacent slopes, a whole 180-degree arc.

Fortunately, the guide and Geoffrey were safe, on sheltered rocky ridges, while I was alone in the snow. It was very impressive. I tried to reassure myself, because if I’d gone with the avalanche, they might have been looking for me, but it was extremely frightening. Miraculously, the snow above me didn’t go, just the one below. I finished the traverse in terror, hoping the rest would hold, and made it to the other side.

We were a long way from our base camp, so we still had to ski all day. That’s when you take it on yourself, because you have no choice. But after an experience like that, all you want to do is go home and get warm. It was very hard on me mentally, and afterwards I had a lot of nightmares, it was hard to get over the trauma.

I only returned to off-piste skiing last winter, a year later, in a more secure area, at La Grave-La Meije. It’s an off-piste area, so there’s a heightened level of vigilance, with ski patrols securing the site. I went there on a day when the avalanche risk was low and everything went well. It was my first step towards regaining confidence in off-piste skiing.

I imagine it’s really hard after that, really. You’ll get there, but gradually. We’ll move on to a better memory, and then move on to something else. What’s your best ascent, your best mountaineering memory in any case?

So I’ve got plenty, because I’ve had so many magical, powerful moments. But I thought very hard when you sent me the questions and said, I’ve got to choose one. I’m going to say the ascent of the Meije Oriental. Firstly, because I love the Écrins so much . It’s such a wild massif, so authentic, so absolutely beautiful, so rich in history. It really is a land of pioneers.

Andthe Meije fascinated me completely. Now, I’m not talking about the Meije Oriental that I did, which is easier, but the great peak of the Meije, the central peak. I haven’t done that one yet, it’s not up to my level, but one day I hope to. It’s one of my objectives. The Grand Pic de la Meije has given climbers a hard time to an unimaginable extent, so much so that the Grand Pic de la Meije, the summit, was not reached until 100 years after Mont Blanc. Incredibly, it was the last problem in the Alps.

And what’s more, it’s a source of great national pride because it was French people, people from the Oisans, local villagers who managed to get up there, the famous Gaspard de la Meije. So there you have it, there’s a myth around the Meije and that’s something that means a lot to me because, as I was saying, I started out with books, I’m a literary person, so the stories, the legends, the aura of myth, it speaks to me a lot and I really wanted to get close to the Meije.

I knew that the Grand Pic was inaccessible at my level, but that the Meije Oriental was possible. It really is an exceptional climb. We sleep at the highest refuge in the Écrins National Park, the Aigle refuge. You have to imagine it as a sort of small pile of wood suspended on the glacier. You can’t help but wonder how it holds up, it’s quite incredible. So we sleep at 3400 with the most beautiful sunset of my life, a fiery sky, sheets of golden mist and so on.

And in the morning, we set off very, very early at 4 a.m. and climb the glacier. It’s very varied, you have ice slopes, then a ridge and finally you get up there and the view of the Meije is just exceptional. You have the impression of seeing all the Alps, i.e. Mont Blanc, Viso and La Meije. You have a magical circle of Alps around you, and the joy of being so close to the Queen Meije, known in the Dauphiné as her “meijesté”. It was really a very, very, very strong memory. Then there’s the 2,300-meter negative vertical drop, which really takes it out of you…

Daily training

It was worth it anyway, considering the beauty! Let’s move on to your day-to-day practice. How often are you able to go mountaineering and how do you train on a daily basis? Do you do a bit of everything, and other sports too?

In fact, for me, who’s not a professional mountaineer and doesn’t have a great desire for winter, mountaineering is a summer sport. In concrete terms, depending on conditions, we start in May-June and finish in September-October. For example, this year, with the bad weather we’ve had, the heavy snowfalls, etc., the summer mountaineering season is already over. There aren’t many people who do mountaineering in winter outside of really professional circles. So it’s a short period.

That means trying to be as fit and ready as possible at the time. For me, the best preparation for mountaineering is hiking. In other words, going into the mountains, carrying weight, being on mountainous terrain. In winter, that means either ski touring, if you’re not too scared, or snowshoeing. Or even simply, even with the lifts, continuing to go high in altitude.

So, for example, when I go in winter to the Pic Blanc, to Alpe d’Huez, and I climb to 3,300m and I stay as long as possible to try to spend some time at altitude, etc., that’s something I do on a daily basis. That’s something I do on a daily basis, because I’ve really understood over the last few years that it’s a mistake to think of acclimatization as a one-shot thing. For example, “That’s it, I’m up to 3000, I’m acclimatized”. In fact, acclimatization is something that happens all year round, over several months, all the time. And yes, there is a specific acclimatization before an ascent, but your basic acclimatization is done by going to the mountains as often as possible.

Living in Grenoble, skiing and hiking are part of my regular activities. Of course, there’sclimbing on cliffs when possible, when the weather’s good, and indoors the rest of the time, to try and keep the gestures, the apprehension of heights, so as not to fall back into what I was afraid of before I started mountaineering, i.e. fear of heights and vertigo. Climbing maintains the fact that you’re used to having the void beneath you, and to managing your movements, and coordinating yourself, and so on.

And then, after that, there’s all the general maintenance that can be done by the way you feel. Some people prefer running, swimming or cycling. Me, I do a little bit of everything. I work out. But it’s part of my general day-to-day physical maintenance, so that by the time I have to go back up into the mountains and grab the big pack and go eat some climbing, I’ll be just about ready.

Climbing projects and dreams

Your body will be up for it! And what are your short- and long-term goals? Do you have any specific climbing projects that you really want to achieve?

Yes, there are plenty. Already, there’s something that’s been eluding me for the last two years, and that’s Mont Blanc. Twice in a row, I’ve “failed”. I use quotation marks because I see it as a failure, but in fact, in concrete terms, it wasn’t my fault. It was the guide who said, we can’t go, there’s a storm, it’s too dangerous, it’s impossible. So, what can I say? I’m not the one who failed, but I still consider it a failure, because everything’s ready, everything’s there, you’re on the starting blocks.

I’d like to take this opportunity to digress for a moment. Obviously, I totally respected my guide’s decision and didn’t try to negotiate. In fact, this year, it had a big impact on me. When he said “No, we’re not going, there’s a storm, it’s too dangerous”, it was at the beginning of September. You know, four people died in that storm. They froze to death, got lost… It was horrible. So that’s the parenthesis. When people tell you that it’s not possible, that it’s dangerous, it’s not to annoy you.

It’s very important to remember that the mountains are a hostile environment. Even if it’s beautiful and you try to go in good conditions, it’s hostile. And if your guide tells you “we’re not going”, there’s no need to argue. You just have to listen.

Exactly. But then, there’s always Mont Blanc. I hope 2025 will finally be the right year, after the failure of 2023 and 2024. Of course, there’s also the Grand Pic de la Meije. For that, I haven’t set myself a date yet, because I don’t feel ready. It’s a really technically difficult climb, with a lot of exposure to the void, and I want to go there feeling really sure.

Then I have projects that are technically less challenging, but seem to have great beauty. I’m very attracted by aesthetics. I’d love to go to the Grande Ruine in the Écrins. A lot of people say it’s the most beautiful belvedere in the Écrins, that it’s magical. It’s not very hard technically, but it’s hard physically, with big changes in altitude over several days. Now that’s the kind of hardcore experience you love when you live in Grenoble!

In June, I was in Mont Rose. Mont Rose is a really great place, because there are so many 4000-meter peaks. It’s on the border between Switzerland and Italy, and it’s a bit of a Disneyland for mountaineers, because you’re at a refuge and there are 4000-meter peaks all around you. I really enjoyed my experience this year, but it was cut short by a storm.

So, I’d like to go back to the Cabane Margherita. It’s the highest refuge in Europe, at over 4500 meters, and was named after Queen Margherita, a queen of Italy in the late 19th century. She was mad about mountaineering and climbed to 4500 metres with her dog.

We were talking earlier about inspiring female role models, and I adore her. Imagine, it’s 1898 or something, this woman is Queen of Italy, she’s not young, she’s over 40, which, in 1900, is already a lot. She wasn’t 40 like today. In those days, you were already considered a granny. But she had no intention of being buried, and she said: “I want to go up there”, and she climbed with her dog to 4500 meters. Honestly, she fascinates me.

That’s great. We often don’t get to know these women, and that’s really annoying. We hope that, as time goes by, we’ll be able to make women like that better known. At the time, to dare to do that, with the conditions of the time, we can’t even imagine. I can’t believe it.

Personal development

As far as mountaineering is concerned, I imagine it also teaches you a lot about yourself. What do you feel you’ve learned? You’ve been climbing for just over four years now. What have you already learned about yourself?

Here’s a funny thing. You know, this author who was very well known this year with his book about his dog, L’odeur après la pluie, Cédric Sapin-Defour, first and foremost, is an author of books about mountaineering. He’s written some very, very funny books that are sort of dictionaries of mountaineering for dummies, Chroniques alpines, etc. And he often comes back to a phenomenon that’s been going on for years. And he often comes back to a very funny phenomenon, which is that, in fact, mountaineers don’t live in the present.

Because in the present, while you’re living it, very often you say to yourself: “What the hell am I doing here? Why am I doing this? I was so happy at home, why did I have to go and get myself into this mess? I’m cold, I’m hungry, I’m sleepy, it’s hard, I can’t take it anymore, I’m wrapped up in my clothes, I can’t reach my carabiner because my fingers are frozen…. What the hell am I doing here?”

He says that the mountaineer lives in the future, in projection, dreams of summits, and in memory, remembering what you’ve experienced, looking at photos, videos. You say to yourself, “I’ve been there, that’s what happened.” And I’ve come to realize that this is something very strong in my head: the projection into the future and the idealization of the memory. That’s why, even after suffering martyrdom, you get to the bottom, you can’t take it anymore, you’re at the end of your rope, and during the descent, you say to yourself: “No, I’m never doing this again.” Then you get to the bottom and say, “That was wonderful! When are we going to do it again?”

It’s this almost magical process. I realized that it was very strong in me, and that I needed dreams, goals and memories. Today, when someone asks me spontaneously what are the highlights of my life, these are the images that immediately come to mind. I think that’s why we go back.

I think it does that even in trail running, for example. I find there are lots of moments when you think, “Why am I doing this thing?” But then, the weird thing is, there’s also the moment afterwards when you think: “Ah, that’s great, really, I love it, it’s extraordinary.” And then 5 minutes later, again: “Oh no, it’s horrible.” But it’s true that it’s a very special vision. And then, in the end, you go back, so you find pleasure in it… Does this way of seeing things influence your daily life? It means that you’re very much focused on the past or the future. So I hope that when you’re living it, there are times when it’s fun too!

I said it jokingly, but it’s true: it’s the moment when you eat at the refuge. Honestly, it’s wonderful. In other words, it’s a time when you’re not suffering, when it’s warm, when you’re eating and talking with your friends, etc. In fact, why do we do mountaineering at all? In fact, why do we go mountaineering? To eat pasta in mountain huts at 4,000 metres! I sincerely think so.

Yes, on a day-to-day basis, it’s something that’ s with me all the time, that I wear all the time, even as wallpaper on my phone. They’re like dreams that are with me all the time. I don’t have any tattoos because I’m afraid of needles. But if I had tattoos, I’d get them. I can already imagine a line on my wrist with… all the summits I’ve been to. There’s something about it that makes me very happy and very proud.

But still, in relation to what I was saying about this future-past projection, I really realized that I wasn’t living enough in the present. And that’s something I felt very strongly when I started mountaineering, that I was always in the before or after.

It may seem like it has nothing to do with mountaineering, but for me it’s a bit of a counterpoint: I do lots and lots of yoga. It’s something that forces me to anchor myself, to savour the moment and also to take setbacks more philosophically.

The first time I failed at Mont-Blanc, I cried, I was at the end of my rope, I wanted to die. The second time I failed at Mont-Blanc, I said, “It’s okay, we’ll go and eat cookies, everything’s fine.” You see, I’m trying to improve my serenity.

And that’s super important too. In the end, yoga is a great complement. I mean, it can be a sport in its own right, of course, but it also complements many other sports.

Climbing, for example, for all the hip opening, flexibility and so on. Many climbers are also yogis or yoginis. And there are even climbing gyms that offer yoga classes for climbers. For me, it’s not just a trendy gimmick, it really makes sense.

There’s also yoga for runners, but it’s all the same, really. All in all, there are quite a few sports where you’re going to use certain parts of your body, but… always in the same way. Yoga brings a bit of flexibility into the equation, which is a nice touch. It also helps to use other muscles.

Advice for women wishing to take up mountaineering

To conclude, it was said at the outset that this was still a male sport, even if it is becoming more feminine. But would you have a message to pass on to women who, like you, would like to take the plunge but don’t necessarily dare?

I think it’s really important to find female friends or guides. For example, I went to the Écrins with Laetitia Chomette, and I found her to be a super girl. She’s part of this new generation of mountain guides.

Going off with other women, I find, is a really great experience of, how can I put it, sisterhood and accomplishment. I know it sounds silly, but my best mountain experiences were with other women. Because there was that sense of, “We’ve done it, we can do it. We succeeded without a man showing us, even though, once again, I had exceptional male guides. But the sense of accomplishment isn’t the same.

I’d be inclined to say to women who want to take up mountaineering to look for kind-hearted people, men or women, to accompany and surround you. And if possible, as many other women as possible, because it’s inspiring.

Every time I see my girlfriends climbing superbly, skiing superbly, doing crazy things in the mountains, it triggers something in your brain. You say to yourself: “Yes, it’s possible, it’s great.” What’s more, women are often very supportive of each other. They’ll help you, they’ll encourage you, they’ll show you things in a tone that’s not condescending, but really educational and that will help you understand things so you can put them into practice. And that’s invaluable.

Thank you so much, it’s a lovely final message. I hope it will inspire other women to take the plunge and that it will perhaps provide the little spark that makes them dare. Thank you so much for your testimony, Ariane. It was a real pleasure to listen to you. I still don’t really want to take up mountaineering, but I love reading books, watching films and following other people’s adventures.

Listen, I understand you, because you fascinate me with trail running, but I tried it once this year and I’m not sure I’ll do it again. So, I think we also need women to inspire us on things we don’t do. On La Sportive Outdoor, you’ve really got it: the sports we do ourselves and the ones we don’t do, but love to watch our girlfriends try.

Follow Ariane

• Her blog: https: //www.itinera-magica.com/
• Instagram: https: //www.instagram.com/itineramagica/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itineramagica/