Introduction --- Forests and mountains have played an important role for exiles, banished people, draft dodgers, disobedient individuals, and resistance fighters. For the vanquished, they represent places to hide and be forgotten by the authorities. For the insubordinate and the seditious, they evoke the terrain from which resistance is organized. --- In France, the Vercors massif and the Glières plateau embody this organized resistance during the years 1943 and 1944. In Spain, Franco's victory in 1939 did not lead to an immediate surrender. After the defeat of the Republic, the struggle against Francoism continued in the cities, but also in the mountains. The failure of Operation Reconquista de España in October 1944, orchestrated in the Val d'Aran by the Spanish Communist Party, led to a dispersal of guerrilla actions nationwide. The libertarian resistance and its networks of clandestine crossings into France, facilitating the escape of the persecuted and supporting the internal resistance through Spanish refugees, remained very active in the Pyrenees for over thirty years, from 1939 to the 1970s.
Today, the mountains are often considered a mere playground for sports and leisure, devoid of history. Mountaineering is described as a catalog of sporting activities glorifying individual performance, competition, summit conquest, innovation, and the commercialization of equipment.The UGEL (Unió de Grups Excursionistes Llibertaris - Union of Libertarian Excursionist Groups) emerged in Catalonia in 2012. The primary goal of this federation of hiking groups is to oppose capitalist systems. In homage to the resistance, it organizes itself autonomously to promote a collaborative, non-competitive, and environmentally conscious form of sport. Linked to the libertarian movement, the first campaigns led by the UGEL of Catalonia consisted of removing crosses from mountaintops and reviving the historical memory of sites and guerrilla struggles through the organization of gatherings. The Catalan UGEL notably opened and marked the GR-179 long-distance hiking trail, a 150 km route connecting Manresa to France. This trail is inspired by the paths used by resistance fighters to move clandestinely during the Franco regime.
The Madrid branch of UGEL was founded a little later, in 2022. It was initially influenced and supported by the Catalan branch of UGEL in order to lay the groundwork for an organization uniting the various existing mountaineering groups in Madrid. It is based on the same libertarian values: non-competitiveness, horizontal organization, mutual aid, and respect for the environment. UGEL-Madrid also organizes historical and political hikes commemorating Francoist resistance and repression, as well as talks and book presentations. It participates in debates and opposes certain mountain projects. Notably, it published the fanzine "Renaturalize what has been devastated - Sabotage what has been sportified - Unmask what has been privatized" and has announced the upcoming publication of a second fanzine.
Henri Mora is involved in the administration of the "Anti-Tourism Blog," a platform for archiving and critically analyzing tourism and the commodification of the world ( https://antitourisme38.over-blog.com )
. He sent the following letter to the members of UGEL. First, he commends their initiative to envision a community of struggle within mountaineering and the publication of a fanzine that questions this mountaineering movement. "Criticism of leisure activities is rare, and even rarer when it is linked to a broader social critique." Then, as an invitation to discuss, debate, and gather feedback from readers of the UGEL text, Henri Mora reiterates his comrades' critique of hegemonic mountaineering and offers his own perspective on certain aspects he considers essential.
We are publishing this letter, which complements and expands upon this reflection in a way we find highly relevant.
TO THE ATTENTION OF THE COMRADES FROM THE UNION OF LIBERTARIAN EXCURSIONIST GROUPS OF MADRID
I share many aspects of the critique of hegemonic mountaineering that you describe so well. The cult of performance and competitiveness must undoubtedly be denounced. And you are right to emphasize that social relations play a major role in how we approach the mountains. "Weekend climbers" are generally perceived as responsible for the damage caused by their massive presence on weekends. And you rightly exonerate them by pointing out that salaried employment imposes a "slicing" of the week between work and leisure time; this leisure time during which the urban worker will seek to reconnect with nature. We are not alone in sharing the idea of the importance of nature as a counterbalance to a life artificialized by industrial society. The Marquis of Villaviciosa de Asturias, Pedro Pidal-a politician of the Crown and a renowned mountaineer recognized for establishing Spain's first national park in 1918-declared this in 1932: "Life is a contrast, and those who live in cities all year round, weary of the wall of the house opposite, the noise of the street, the shop windows, the friezes of the theaters, the prolonged stay in the workshop, the study, or the office-in fact, of artificial and urban life-naturally desire to be able to contemplate unspoiled and wild nature-and the more unspoiled and wild, the better-where no trees have been cut down, no animals killed, no landscape destroyed or damaged, where they can stroll or relax, wander freely, oxygenating body and mind... and that is why in the United States they say that 'on returning from the national parks, the lawyer is a better lawyer,'" The engineer is a better engineer, the architect is a better architect, the tailor is a better tailor. If everyone could enjoy national parks, one could say that the social question would be solved."(1) This quote from Pedro Pidal-whose sympathy for Marxist or libertarian ideas cannot be suspected-reflects quite well the aspirations of a segment of the progressive aristocracy at the beginning of the 20th century: nature should solve the "social question"! Everything is taken for granted: the foray into nature must allow workers to become "better." It becomes essential in the eyes of the ruling class, and of society in general, for the compensatory role that industrial society demands it play in the face of the alienation of work and urban life. This alienation is then accepted as a necessary evil: the worker must reconnect with nature to better accept their condition.
In France, the idea of preserving nature in national parks originated with members of the French Alpine Club (founded in 1874) and the Touring Club of France. The latter, created in 1890 by a group of bourgeois cycling enthusiasts, aimed at "the development of tourism in all its forms."[2]
Despite the legal recognition of national parks in 1960, their growth was hampered by the very strict protection of wildlife and the significant costs associated with expropriations and their management by the state. These national parks-where people are only tolerated as occasional visitors and not as residents-then gave rise to the idea of Regional Natural Parks[3](PNRs). In these parks, the goal is to protect nature while maintaining a vibrant local economy.
The idea of Regional Natural Parks (PNRs) emerged as an alternative to the negative impacts of urban concentration, even as large-scale tourism development projects were underway: the Racine Mission of 1963 on the Languedoc coast in southern France (500,000 beds) and the Snow Plan, primarily in the Alps (150,000 beds). These projects aimed to compete with the Francoist Spanish tourism model of "Sun and Beach." As early as 1965, reports also emphasized the importance of establishing, "around major metropolitan areas, Regional Parks for leisure and recreation where city dwellers can reconnect with nature." (4)
The PNR project as a playground and recreation area for city dwellers was clear from the outset. And many naturalists and thinkers opposed these natural or national parks as early as the 1960s. Bernard Charbonneau, for example, stated: "It is the men of the car and the plane who climb the mountains on foot. Sympathy for indigenous societies will at best result in a folklore for tourists superimposed on an abyss of uniformity. The last wild men will be confined, like the last large mammals, in carefully protected reserves, where they will play the role of the primitive before a civilized public. The national park is not nature, but a park, a product of social organization: the public garden of the total city."(5)
The social organization presents itself as generous and environmentally conscious. However, its technocratic and political discourse primarily aims to make people accept the world as it is and as it continues to develop. Behind the arguments presented lies the management of a world being driven-"because it's good for jobs and GDP"-down the slippery slope of irrationality; a world subservient to its own commodification. This is why tourism is already devouring nature and reality, transforming them into commodities.
It is crucial to debate what constitutes "leisure, contemplative, exploratory, or adventurous mountaineering"[6]within the framework of a mass leisure society administered by the industrial system. In the age of increasingly invasive technologies, the behavior of our contemporaries is not only dictated by explicit rules or by the state: a simple photo on Instagram can go viral and create, overnight, a new tourist destination. Tourism will always seek to capture non-commercial mountaineering activities. In this regard, the president of the tourism commission of the Regions of France association emphasized, at the beginning of 2026, the need to transform hikers into consumers (7).
The tourism industry has grown from 25 million international tourists in 1950 to 1.52 billion in 2025, according to UN Tourism (formerly UNWTO). It represents the world's leading industry. In 2019, there were 36,000 passages at a strategic point on the Tour du Mont Blanc trail. In 2023, on this same trail, more than 60,000 passages were recorded during the four summer months, between the beginning of June and the end of September. On some days, the number of hikers exceeded 1,000 per day, with peaks reaching 1,500 people per stage. Furthermore, from December to May, 65,000 skiers use and descend the famous Vallée Blanche, still in the Mont Blanc massif.
The Mont Blanc massif suffers from overtourism, where the sometimes reckless behavior of certain visitors leaves us speechless: for example, we saw two tourists land their plane not far from the summit only to climb the last few meters, another abandon a rowing machine after assembling it, Latvian patriots attempt to erect a 10-meter flagpole, and a group of revelers set up an inflatable jacuzzi to take photos of themselves in swimsuits. While the individual behavior of some and the group effect are reprehensible, that is not our focus. Let sociologists, ethnologists, and other institutional experts examine this issue. What matters to us is whether this kind of excess is not intrinsically linked to tourism in general. Haven't we already heard in the press about the anger of permanent residents at the antisocial behavior of some tourists-binge drinking, noise, inappropriate conduct towards locals, etc.-in cities or other tourist destinations? Why does the individual, in a group, "let loose" as soon as they adopt the guise of a tourist?
Let's return to a more general critique of tourism developed by institutions. Touristization colonizes and monopolizes all human activity and land in the mountains. This development of tourism in the mountains "increases the price of real estate and land, so that residents and employees find themselves completely excluded from the market. Housing is rented to tourists or sold as tourist accommodations or as second homes. Many shutters remain closed in the mountains; what is commonly called in tourist jargon 'cold beds'" (8).
The development of "four-season" tourism encourages the transformation of ski resorts into mountain resorts. Faced with a lack of snow, decision-makers are adapting: some regions are investing in snow cannons, while others are preparing for economic diversification. Yet, none seem able or willing to abandon tourism. All are now investing in a sustainable transition, supported by the "Mountain Future" plan[9]. This new form of tourism, an alternative to the "all-ski" model, requires new developments: access and reception infrastructure, eco-friendly mobility options (with charging stations for electric bikes and all-terrain scooters), cable transport or "valley lifts," greenways, parking lots, tunnels allowing access for double-decker buses, educational signage, user-friendly climbing walls (outdoor or indoor), cultural events (traditional or otherwise), and folklore. All development initiatives are welcome and valued when it comes to "saving the planet."
I am not implying that your intentions are in that direction, of course. My remarks were primarily intended to highlight that mountaineering is now fully integrated into the tourism industry. It has become an essential cog in the transition towards a so-called "sustainable tourism," which is increasingly pervasive and imposes its rules as a mono-industry in mountain regions. One can legitimately question the impartiality of the president of a tourism development consultancy who maintains that "the notion of overtourism stems from class contempt"[10]; one cannot be both judge and jury. Since your remarks also revolve around this same idea, they deserve closer examination.
While I agree with you that the massification of mountain tourism isn't due to a culture war between different lifestyles, I don't think this massification can be seen solely as a result of class contempt. At first glance, the massification of tourism might be considered a form of democratization: what was once reserved for a privileged elite becomes accessible to the masses. One might see it as the culmination of the principle of equal access or even the end of privilege. The reality is quite different. The massification of mountaineering-like that of tourism in general-pushes elites toward "tailor-made" and ultra-personalized projects, fueled by the need to distinguish themselves in the mountains as elsewhere. And isn't this need for distinction a corollary of the standardization, uniformity, and mass production of goods, and of the social relations imposed by industrial society? Doesn't this contribute to creating a new economic niche to exploit, which will, in turn, be "democratized" to satisfy the desires of the majority of mountaineers, drawn to these new products that have become new social markers?
The class struggle of the last century aimed at the abolition of social classes. Denouncing the privileges of the elites should not, however, lead to demanding access to recreational mountaineering for all. In a world of mass production and consumption in perpetual crisis-which, as we know today, poisons the earth, air, and water, while destroying species and the climate-such an approach does not reflect the advent of a more just, egalitarian, and domination-free society that has abolished wage labor and commodification; it is limited to a simple right to consume leisure activities for everyone.
Hoping that these few remarks may enrich the discussion you have initiated on mountaineering, I wish you that some excellent initiatives will emerge from your meetings.
With all due respect,
Henri Mora, April 13, 2026
Notes:
1- This quote was displayed at the entrance to the Pedro Pidal Visitor Centre in the Picos de Europa National Park. (See photo linked here and below at the end of the notes)
2- The French Alpine Club and the Touring Club of France founded the National Union of Tourism Associations (UNAT) in 1920
3- Nacima Baron and Romain Lajarge, Regional Natural Parks - Territories in Experimentation, Quæ, 2016
4- Ibid
5- Bernard Charbonneau, The Garden of Babylon (1969), Encyclopedia of Nuisances, 2002.
6 - Cf. Renaturalize what has been devastated - Sabotage what has been sportified - Unbarberize what has been privatized.
7- The Regions of France association comprises 18 members (12 metropolitan regions, the territorial collectivity of Corsica, and five overseas collectivities). This association presents itself as a forum for dialogue between the Presidents of the Regional Councils, elected officials, and their staff. The exact remarks of Franck Louvrier, president of the association's Tourism Commission, during the press conference can be found at 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 20 seconds into the recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybJMGs3oas
8- "The Future of the Mountains," article published in the January 2023 issue of the newspaper Ricochets
9- According to the plan's presentation: "The Future of the Mountains addresses the ambition of sustainable and resilient tourism through three key areas: 1) Promoting the diversification of the tourism offering and attracting new clientele; 2) Accelerating the ecological transition of mountain tourism activities; 3) Boosting the leisure real estate market and curbing the formation of "empty beds"
10- Jean Pinard, "The notion of overtourism stems from class contempt," Le Monde, September 3, 2024. (https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2024/09/03/jean-pinard-consultant-la-notion-de-surtourisme-releve-du-mepris-de-classe_6302627_3232.html)
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4728
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Source - A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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