At sixteen, bivouacked on a mountainside beneath a sky filled with stars, Jean-Marc Rochette has already begun measuring himself against some of Europe’s highest peaks.

At sixteen, bivouacked on a mountainside beneath a sky filled with stars, Jean-Marc Rochette has already begun measuring himself against some of Europe’s highest peaks.

The Aiguille Dibona, the Coup de Saber, La Meije: the summits of the Massif des Écrins, to which he escapes as a teenager, spark both exhilaration and fear. At times, they are a playground for adventure. At others, they are a battlefield. The young climber is acutely aware that death lurks in the frozen corridors of the French Alps.

In Altitude, Jean-Marc Rochette tells the story of his formative years, as a climber and as an artist. Part coming-of-age story, part love letter to the Alps, this autobiographical graphic novel captures the thrill and the terror invoked by high mountains, and considers one man’s obsession with getting to the top of them.