Pierre Petit

What are the effects of high altitude on the human body and in particular its brain functions? How can we adapt to it? To answer these questions, 14 volunteer guinea pigs will undergo a series of tests at the Vallot Observatory (4300 m), near the summit of Mont Blanc. A scientific and mountain experience. 14 voluntary lend themselves to a battery of day and night tests (stress tests, neuromuscular tests, sleep assessment, cognitive tests, etc.) in the plain at Grenoble University Hospital on the one hand, and at high altitude for 6 days at the Vallot Observatory (4300 m). The central objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of hypoxia on brain function during a stay of several days at high altitude.

Through the confidences of Michel Serres, renowned philosopher and unknown mountain climber, and also stories of climbers and mountaineers, we enter to a vertical world, unconventional, where the hostility of the high altitude and the passion of men coexist. What is the sense of mountaineering? Between philosophy, action, and self-discovery, the documentary takes us very far, to the very heart of mountaineering and asks the question that every climber will ask himself one day: Why climbing up there? This film proposes to answer these questions while following two ropes on an emblematic summit of the Alps, the Meije (3984 m) in the heart of the Ecrins National Park.