51 years old fr en

Jean BOUCHET

Mountain guide

Activities :

Rock climbing
Ski touring
Mountaineering

France / Northern Alps

Haute-Savoie, Chamonix

In 1984, I discover mountaineering and rock climbing thanks to Grenoble's CAF (French Alpine Club), and two years later, aged 16, a mountain guide employed by this structure takes me in sympathy and makes me an incredible proposal that I of course accept immediately: I follow him, carry the collective equipment and help his customers and in exchange, he takes me for free in the outings he has made a specialty: the classic rock climbing routes of the Limestone Pre-Alps.

I naturally think of becoming a mountain guide myself, even if this dream seems to me at the time insane and highly impracticable because I finally have little experience in mountaineering.

Exiled three years in one of the wildest area of the Vercors massif, I become a mountain leader in 1989. I practice this job with great pleasure because I have a personal interest in all aspects of life in medium mountains, in trees, in flowers, in animal tracks, in birds and in raptors.

Having made hundreds of outings and other major and various routes throughout the Alps, I naturally become a mountain guide in 1996. I now practice this profession full time, first in the Ecrins and the Southern Alps, then everywhere in the Northern Alps ans in the Swiss and Italian Alps, trying to almost never climb the same route to always keep alive the passion and the desire to return to the top.

In 1997, I discover a new desire and crossed a new course: I turned to far-off trips and cold destinations.

After more than thirty exploration trips and major achievements in twenty countries (Norway, Spitsbergen, Patagonia, New Zealand, Eastern European countries, Greenland, South Georgia, Antarctica, Baffin Island, African countries, Nepal, etc.) and in places that are often improbable and always far away from the classic destinations offered by agencies to the masses of consumers, I consider myself a true craftsman of mountain adventure travel with a human dimension.