Gaetan Meme surrounded by his herd of sheep near the Col du Glandon, a high mountain pass in the Dauphiné Alps in Savoie, France

Meme sleeps fully dressed, in fear of a midnight wolf attack on the flock of sheep penned in near his hut, high in the French Alps

The flock of sheep follow the ‘salt route’, a trail of salt laid by Meme to guide them to the next grazing area

The green velvet mountains dotted with rocky outcrops between the Belledonne massif and the Maurienne valley, an idyllic playground for hikers, are his kingdom from June to October

Sheep graze in a field overlooking the Lac de Grand Maison

There are about 1,000 shepherds left in France today. The solitary life still attracts plenty of young people seeking a change, but few stay on beyond a couple of seasons

One of Meme’s dogs, Prudence, was born on a sheep farm and thinks she’s one of the flock

It’s a magnificent backdrop that can quickly reveal a dark side when you have to look after 1,300 vulnerable animals. From the start of his first season, Meme found himself face to face with a wolf and had to fight it off

‘He was there on the end of my staff every evening for a week,’ the shepherd recalls. ‘When my first sheep was killed I immediately felt that I had failed, that I had not carried out my duty.’

To beat the wolves, you have to throw them off the track, he says. Move the penned area, make plenty of noise, light a fire, make scarecrows – this one was made using sheep bones, old clothes and some fur from one of the dogs

A sheep with a broken leg is given medication

For Meme, the job is a lifetime vocation. ‘I can’t remember ever wanting to do anything else,’ he says. When he was 15 and at agricultural college, he followed a shepherd in the Pyrenees for work experience. ‘I did not want to go back down the mountain,’ he says

He wakes at 6.30am to the sound of Jimi Hendrix guitar riffs. Dressed in thick corduroy trousers, a sleeveless jacket and lumberjack shirt, he looks every inch a shepherd

Every other morning, before releasing the sheep, he spreads salt over the rocks. The flock charges after the salt, making a thunderous noise full of bells and bleating. He looks for limps, pulls up a hind leg and trims a damaged hoof

Up at 2,000 metres (almost 6,600ft) above the little village of Saint-Colomban-des-Villards in the Savoiey region, the shepherd’s biggest concern is fog when ‘the ewes spread out’ and become lost.And they do not like rain. They get cold and their fleece soaks up the water. If there’s no shelter, they halt and ‘stand with their rear facing the wind’ until it’s over

He follows the sheep where they like to graze, helped by three dogs. It involves a lot of walking without really going anywhere. ‘I’m a nomad who goes nowhere,’ he laughs. ‘I know only the pasture. Not what lies above or round the side.’

The days are long as the clouds float over the peaks. ‘You should not worry about doing nothing for hours,’ smiles the young man, who listens to a small transistor radio all the time

Meme carries a young sheep to guide its mother to safety

The flock are penned in for the night next to his hut

Mid-October marks the end of the season and trucks arrive to transport the flock from the mountain

When Meme returns home, to Angers in western France, it takes him a month to readjust to city life, and he looks forward to the following year when he can restart his solitary lifestyle. ‘Being with yourself, which many people run from, is exactly what I look for,’ he says