Venturing deep into Simone de Beauvoir’s enormous body of prose work, Yan Hamel passed over her tales of Paris intellectual and artistic life, her recollections of the Second World War, her thoughts on the Algerian War. Instead, he focused on the philosopher’s accounts of her mountain hikes. Scrambling up steep hills, her headscarf fluttering in the wind, always reckless and thrill-seeking on her adventures with her close friends, including a Sartre who’s forever struggling to keep up. Of all our images of “Castor,” whether caricatural or admiring, Yan Hamel – an avid hiker who walked the same trails – paints a uniquely charming one: Simone the trekker.