Blanc

In the winter of 2018, Sylvain Tesson and mountain guide Daniel Du Lac set out to cross the Alps on skis. Starting from Menton on the Mediterranean coast, they traveled north and west across Italy, Switzerland, and France, ending in Trieste. The narrative follows their ascent over four successive winters, documenting the physical reality of high-altitude movement through the silence of the clouds. Tesson focuses on the aesthetic of "the white," a state of sensory minimalism where the landscape dissolves into a colorless void, stripping away the clutter of modern geography and history.

Readers interested in mountaineering and ascetic philosophy will find a study of endurance and vertical solitude. The text appeals to those who value the intersection of physical exertion and geographic observation. A reader finishes the book with a technical understanding of the ski-touring route across the Alpine arc and a conceptual framework for "le blanc"—the idea that a blank, frozen landscape provides a sanctuary from the noise of civilization. It offers a precise record of how cold and silence alter human perception.