The Day I Skied The Grand Couloir

Europe’s Gnarliest Ski Descent

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a skier. My dad is a ski instructor and by the time I was 8, I was skiing the whole mountain with my dad and older brother. Every winter we enjoy epic days out, on and off the piste. 

This day started like any other, we did our equipment checks and then drove to the lift station. It was a classic blue-bird day – blue sky and no clouds. We met up with our skiing buddies and after the usual high fives and fist bumps headed up the mountain. 

We had spent most of the day in the Méribel valley and it was time to go home. We got in the gondola to go to the top of the mountain and ski to our car one last time. On the way is one of the hardest runs in the world and it was open for the first time in a while, so my dad said “Let’s go this way, Alfie’s never done it”. Before I could remind him that I was only eight years old, he was gone. 

There are moguls the size of cars

The run is called the Grand Couloir. It’s the gnarliest marked line in the whole Three Valleys – the largest ski area in the world. To start with it’s very narrow and hard to control your speed as you traverse across the peak of a mountain, after that there are moguls the size of cars. And that’s before you even get to the couloir! 

The drop in is super narrow and crazy steep and the moguls just get bigger and uglier. If you fall and lose a ski you’re falling all the way to the bottom. I thought I was going to die! I was very scared and felt like I had bitten off more than I could chew. I tried not to think about it and focus on my skiing, thinking about staying over my skis, not falling into the back seat and planning three turns ahead like my dad taught me. 

Somehow, I managed to get down without dying or even falling over. Somewhere around halfway I knew I was going to make it and even started enjoying myself. At the bottom I felt so happy. Even though I was still mad at my dad I knew I had achieved something really special that not many kids my age, or even grown-ups could do.

I’m a world record holder

Two days later my dad’s friend, the ESF Courchevel Chief Instructor told his mate, the Mayor, what I had done. I didn’t realise at the time but he had been watching me the whole way. They did some checking and decided that I was the youngest person on the planet to successfully descend the Grand Couloir and even gave me an award for doing it. So I’m a world record holder. 

It’s funny because these days it’s not much more than a warm-up run but at the time it was a really big deal. Apart from being lost in the Rakitnica Canyon in Bosnia for two days (that’s another story) it’s one of the scariest memories I have, but also one of the best.