Femmes de guides - Cordée et sac de nœuds - Brigitte SIMONET

Femmes de guides - Cordée et sac de nœuds - Brigitte Simonet
(Wifes of guides - String and knotted bags)


Giving women a voice and an unusual look at the profession of mountain guide, this is the subject of this collection. It has been a long time since I thought that a book about the women of guides had its raison d'etre. The accident of my husband, a high mountain guide, following an avalanche that seriously wounded him, was the trigger for this writing project. The idea being more related to the elements of everyday life impacted by this profession than to the theme of the accidentology. About twenty interviews with women of guides illustrate this and reinforce the first part in which I sincerely give my own experience. I would like to emphasize that the categorical presentation full of humor of the women of guides is a nod to femininity in its globality because I do not claim to be sociologist and this work is only the fruit of a sharing of moments Life related to an unusual profession. The mountain, and more particularly the Écrins massif, occupy a prominent place throughout the themes touched upon here, whether it be encounter, accident or family life. The rusticity of this territory adds an authentic touch to these testimonies.


This book is a testimony of the daily life of guide families, as close to the rock and the sky, in the intimacy of the highest summits of the department but also in the valleys and the foyers, with the fantasies, the joys And the pains, the children, the work of the women, their involvement in this mythical and dangerous craft which is that of their husband. Rope and bag of knots!

To put an unusual look (why not unusual) on this job through the experience of the companion, her life with her guide of husband, thanks to testimonies of twenty women, all different, whether they are "warriors "," Seconds de cordée "," bouilleuses de marmitte "," warm "," artists "," zen "... is the subject of this collection.

A well-written, exciting book, which one reads in one go, a little as one climbs, to glimpse the passion, the attraction, the absence, the risk that make the substance of these lives of guides and their families ... A beautiful tribute to women. All women ... including female guides.


Award of the Ecrins "RENÉ DESMAISON" 2016.

Collection Récits d'aventure, editions du Fournel.


The author:

Brigitte Simonet lives in L'Argentière-La Bessée (France). She is a member of a Briancon family and has always known the mountain environment and has for many years shared the life of a mountain guide (Jean). Adept of the workshops of writing, it is the first work that it publishes.