François Bernard
Mountaineer • France
“Thanks to my Three-Poles challenge, I became aware of how fragile icy environments are”
François Bernard is a high mountain guide based in Chamonix. In addition to some 30 expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctica, he is the first Frenchman to have completed the Three Poles challenge, reaching the North Pole (1993) and the South Pole (1996) without assistance, and Mount Everest (1999) with oxygen. To date, only seven people in the world can lay claim to such a prestigious achievement.