Mountaineer Kilian Moni from the Cimalp team joins the 2025–2027 intake of the GEAN (Groupe Excellence d'Mountaineering National), created in 1991 by the FFCAM (Fédération française des clubs alpins et de montagne). At 24, he is one of the most promising mountaineers of his generation!
©Timothée Nitschke Cimalp
GEAN: the pinnacle of French mountaineering
Since its founding in 1991, the GEAN has produced some of France's greatest mountaineers, including Benjamin Védrines and Léo Billon, alongside other members who have achieved incredible ascents and expeditions around the world.
In 2025–2027, it is young Kilian Moni — 24-year-old mountaineer from the Cimalp team — who joins the GEAN, the elite programme of French mountaineering!
Over two years, the 9 selected young athletes will follow a high-level mountaineering training programme with the FFCAM - Club Alpin Français. Led by Stéphane Benoist, the group will be guided towards peak performance while being introduced to the many facets of mountaineering, which remains a high-risk activity.
On the programme: advancing technical skills, deeper self-knowledge, and building committed mountaineering projects.
An impressive record of alpine ascents
At just 24 years old, Kilian Moni has already completed several historically significant and high-profile ridge routes in the world of mountaineering! Among the most recognised, his achievements include:
- The ascent of the North Face of the Ailefroide in the Écrins.
- The North Face of the Eiger via the Heckmair route.
- The Drus via the direct North couloir.
- The one-day ascent of the Colton–Macintyre on the North Face of the Jorasses.
- The one-day ascent of La Direct Américaine on the Drus.
- The repeat of the Cascade de la Massue, grade 7, opened in 1991.
- The traverse of La Meije, Écrins.
- First repeat of Cœur de Géant on the North Face of the Dent du Géant!
Within the GEAN, he is reunited with his rope partner Arthur Poindefert, with whom he completed the first-ever repeat of a route at the Dent du Géant in 2023. Unable to follow the original line, which had changed significantly, they pushed through this sustained technical route, opened nine years earlier.
A fully-fledged Cimalp team athlete
Originally from Avignon and now based in Chamonix, Kilian Moni also practises ice climbing, paragliding and caving — his first love. This rising star of the mountain world never stops impressing and inspiring!
A true outdoor enthusiast, Kilian joined the Cimalp mountaineering sports team at the very start of his climbing career — a team created by Cimalp, a booming French outdoor brand. With 60 years of history behind it, this SME based in the Rhône-Alpes region has reinvented itself over the past 15 years, with an ambitious project set to mark 2025: the expansion of its headquarters. Cimalp now competes with the biggest names in the national market.
