Maud Vanpoulle

Originally from the countryside near Lyon, she moved closer to the mountains as soon as she could. Maud is now based in Vallorcine above the Chamonix valley in the French Alps, a good base camp to share her time between local and far away mountains.

She is an IFMGA mountain guide which allows her to pass on her passions for the mountains and her vision for them, especially through education. Her focus is on teaching teams of young alpinists and women alpinists. She likes to build strong relationships and to share climbing techniques as well as emotions, feelings, joy, fears and beers!

After being part of the French National Women Team of Alpinism, she is now passionate about foreign expeditions. To associate reflection to action, she is also a PhD student in social sciences of sport, about risk taking and risk management in mountaineering. It is not always easy to find the balance between body and mind stimulation when the call for travelling and mountains is so big, but she is working on it!

Besides climbing in the Alps, she’s recently been to Patagonia, Peru, Canada, the USA, and the Indian Himalaya.

“For me climbing is about adventure, exploration, wild places and emotions! I think mountaineering is a metaphor of our every day’s contradictions: we need to approach risk to come back more alive. Alpinism is for me an enhancer of life.”