WHY I RIDEEvery year, there’s a day that defines the season. It’s the day your mind repeatedly wanders back to over the summer months, recalling even the smallest of details. A laboured breath, the glint of ice crystals in the wind, a perfect snowflake framed on an outstretched glove. Together they coalesce into perfection.
Wednesday 29 January 2020 was one such day.
Almost a decade earlier, with my marriage on the rocks, my career in tatters and facing financial ruin I took the path of least resistance and signed on for close quarter combat in Afghanistan. As unlikely as it might sound, for me at least, there’s an incontrovertible link between the arid plains of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province and the snow-covered peaks of the French Alps.
After nine dusty months in “the ‘Stan” I returned home a fearful man. But it’s not death I fear, as you might imagine, after so long in one of the most violent and dangerous places on earth.
My exposure to Helmandi society, where average life expectancy is 44 and where pregnancy is a bigger killer than insurgency has forced me to confront a reality that Western culture can’t handle. Death is an inevitable consequence of life. None of us will live forever – or even indefinitely – as we like to pretend that we might.
I’m now fearful of allowing whatever time is left to me to pass by in a blancmange of mediocrity.
Sadly, my Afghan epiphany can’t save my marriage, revive my career or improve my credit score. But it does give me a very clear sense of what I want to do next, and it’s not complicated.
I want to lose myself in the mountains.
My life is very different now. Each November I drive to the Alps and I don’t return until the snow has melted. Surviving largely on passion and fumes, I scratch a meagre living in the cash economy on the margins of the ski industry. But mostly I ride. Five or six days a week. Five months a year. Every year. For ten years.
It makes no sense and all the sense in the world because nothing else matters when you’re in the mountains. The world beyond your next turn ceases to exist. I realise that my obsession makes me an outlier on the spectrum of normal. It comes at a price but, for me, life is so much sweeter on the margins.
As you might expect, I get a little better each year and each year I tackle something a little gnarlier than the year before. As the lore says, it never gets easier the terrain just gets more consequential. And that’s just the way I like it.
This progression is part of the inspiration that keeps driving me back into the mountains. Lines that were once only dreams have become reality. Anonymous tracks that once I could only admire are now mine.
Which takes me back to Wednesday 29 January 2020.
It was a day full of promise and disappointment in equal measure. Promise because significant overnight snow had fallen and we could begin again the process of tagging the mountain with our tracks. Promise because the day had dawned clear and blue. Disappointment because the avalanche danger scale was level 4 out of 5 on all aspects of the compass, defined as ‘very dangerous’. Many of the best lines were going to be off limits.
Don’t get me wrong, it was still going to be a great day, just not a day that would define the whole season. Or so I thought.
My ski buddy for the day was Paul L. I especially enjoy skiing with Paul because 20 years ago he made newspaper headlines all over the world after he was lost for two long days and nights in the shark infested Tasman Sea. I will never tire of listening to his extraordinary tale of survival against all the odds but more than that, his near death experience has given him a unique perspective on the meaning of life. Another outlier on the spectrum of normal.
Given the avalanche danger we started small, staying in the trees and on slopes under 30 degrees. The powder was awesome and we picked off all the old favourites like we always do when the conditions demand a degree of caution. Even so, we got so many first tracks that morning I could hardly believe our luck. Petit Dou, No Name, Toilet Couloir, Fallen Tree, Hidden Valley, The Hut, Two Nicks, Chicken Run, Park City Ridge and Les Congeres. We were first into all of them.
And as we slayed fresh line after fresh line we didn’t come across any evidence of snowpack instability that warranted level 4 on the danger scale. It wasn’t so much that the forecasters had got it wrong. I didn’t doubt their assessment for a moment but the bulletin covers the entire Vanoise region. For whatever reason, the instability just wasn’t manifesting itself in our little corner of the domain.
When a realisation of this magnitude seeps into your consciousness it creates fear and opportunity in equal measure. Only a foolish rider ignores the avalanche bulletin but how many other lines might also be accessible today?
After a short discussion we decide to try out a few of the bigger lines, still untracked still full of promise and perhaps lurking danger too. First on the list is Equinox. It’s a line that can truly deliver but it’s also avalanche prone and when it goes it tends to go big. Ordinarily, I would never consider this line on Ava 4. It wouldn’t even enter my head.
The boot pack to the drop in is the usual sweaty mix of excitement and anxiety. All the usual ‘what ifs’ are running through my mind but because we’re over-ruling the avalanche bulletin with our own assessment the stakes seem much higher. As with most big lines, if we’ve got this wrong, there are going to be consequences. I’m pretty sure much the same thoughts will be running through Paul’s mind too but he doesn’t show it.
I already know from previous visits that there’s nowhere to dig a pit to test snow stability at the drop in. The best I’m going to manage is a ski cut just above the point of convexity to a small island of safety beneath some rocks. It’s not perfect, especially with so much riding on our assessment that the avalanche forecast is not representative of our domain. What if we’re wrong? It’s not especially hard to imagine how bad this could get but it could also be unimaginably good.
An intoxicating mix of fear and excitement floods my brain.
With most skiing partnerships there are rules. Unwritten and rarely discussed, they simply evolve over time. Mostly they’re a blend of trust and respect, a mutual acknowledgement of the relative strengths (and weaknesses) that each individual brings to the partnership.
Other times there’s no real logic, it’s just the way things are. With Paul and I one of these illogical rules that’s evolved over successive outings together is that I always go first. I don’t really know why, it’s just the way it is. So it’s a bit of a surprise when Paul drops off the ridge into the powder six feet below.
Because I assumed I would go first I haven’t told him about my plan to make a ski cut but I can’t chase after him. It would be very unwise to overload a 45 degree slope with a second skier. With my heart in my mouth I watch as he accelerates down to a point just above the convexity and then turns sharply across the slope, maintaining his speed as he makes a traverse to a small outcrop of rocks.
He’s just done the exact same ski cut I was planning myself. The slope holds and I sheepishly make my way down to join him at the island of safety.
Having made the ski cut the line is now his for the taking but, inexplicably, Paul offers it to me. I can hardly believe it. Paul has just gifted me first tracks on one of the most iconic FreeRide lines in the Trois Vallees. It’s like all my birthdays and Christmases have come at once. I also know the right thing to do is to decline this generous offer. It’s what anyone else would do but, of course, I choose a different path.
“Trois, deux, un. Tomber.”
I count out loud into the drop. I always do this when I’m scared. It’s a way of calming my nerves, clearing my mind and committing myself absolutely to whatever happens next. But there’s another reason too. By making my commitment public I also ensure I don’t back out.
And then I’m into my first turn. It’s euphoric.
I stay on the fall line as I drop over the convexity and feel my skis briefly lose contact with the mountain. This is the tension zone and the most likely fracture point that could initiate a slide.
This is where it all goes wrong or it all goes right.
With my spider senses on red alert, I make a silent plea to Mother Nature to let me pass unhindered. My skis kiss the snow with the lightest of touches and then I’m accelerating away, waist deep in pow.
My request has been granted.
With my synapses in overdrive, endorphins flood my neural pathways keening my senses into hyper-reality. I’m processing signals from my unseen skis beneath the snow and constantly making micro adjustments to maintain my centre of balance while simultaneously scanning ahead and planning my turns. I’m travelling much faster than is strictly necessary. Just for the thrill of it. Even though I know this will hasten my descent when all I want in these moments is for them to last forever.
It’s the dilemma every FreeRider must endure. The euphoria of every successful descent is always tinged with the sadness that it’s over. The probability that I will be first into this line again is close to zero.
As I near the bottom and the gradient begins to flatten out I let my skis run up onto an area of raised ground that will provide an island of safety should Paul trigger a slide behind and above me. The start point above the convexity is hidden from view so I know he will be waiting for me to call him and give the all clear before starting his own descent.
I already have his number on speed dial and when I speak to him I try to keep my voice completely neutral and matter of fact. It’s a throw back to my Afghan days when, even under intense attack, we would call in situation reports without betraying a shred of emotion. Of course, just like back then, my heart is racing and my hands are trembling but my voice does not betray me.
After a brief discussion, Paul begins his own descent . Since I already have my phone to hand I take a few snaps but they utterly fail to capture the scene. Paul is a little black dot on a wall of white.
As a general rule of thumb, one big line of this nature is enough excitement for one day but today is turning out to be no ordinary day. After a brief discussion Paul and I decide to take a look at Creux Noir. There are multiple different lines to choose from, all of which we can scope on the journey. It will involve another boot pack but in the current conditions it will be more than worth it.
This time we’re not alone as we start our ascent. A group of green jacketed ski guides are cutting the booter ahead of us and we catch up with them at a transition point just below the summit. It’s an awkward moment as we clip into our skis and prepare to move off. From our perspective, the guides have cut the booter so they have first choice but they face a dilemma. On the one hand they’re naturally suspicious we’re a couple of freeloaders following their tracks. On the other, they don’t want to yield the path and risk being beaten into a line they’ve worked hard for.
In the end group dynamics makes the call. A group of six simply can’t move as fast as a group of two and Paul and I slip past them. Before long we’re alone again on the mountain, just the way we like it but to our frustration we discover that the line we were looking for has already been taken. There’s still plenty of room for us to make fresh tracks beside the lines that have already been laid down but we’ve gotten greedy skiing first tracks all day. We push on in search of a line of our own.
And then I see it. It’s a narrow couloir I’ve never considered before even though I’ve passed by this way perhaps a dozen times. The drop in is vertiginously steep but below it lies a perfect powder field without a single blemish of human intervention.
Automatically I begin my risk assessment.
There are probably two turns above the “no fall line”. An imaginary line drawn on the descent above which a fall will have serious, possibly fatal consequences. We’ve both been on our A-game today and, while there are never any guarantees, this is within our level of competence.
An avalanche in this spot would be undesirable. Once committed, there is no safe area or run out point. Nor is there an obvious alternative route in to perform a rescue. On the other hand an avalanche on a pitch this steep is unlikely. There will almost certainly be some sluff to manage on the descent but a burial is improbable.
We’ve done everything right today. From our cautious start and our snowpack evaluations to our safe travel techniques we’ve been impeccable backcountry guardians – and this is our prize. But my objective appraisal doesn’t quell my fears of the “what if” or still my racing heart. I run through my assessment with Paul.
Once you’ve spent 48 hours alone in shark infested waters there’s not much left that life can throw at you but I can see that even Paul is feeling the gnar of this particular line. Nonetheless he agrees with my analysis.
We’re a go and this time I’m definitely dropping first.
I don’t want to hang around because, by now, it’s late afternoon and the light is beginning to fade, but also because I know there’s a real danger I’ll start over-analysing and back out altogether.
Trois
I hear a disembodied voice start the countdown and to my consternation realise it’s my own.
Deux
Wait, wait, I’m not ready!
Un
Get a grip Chris, this is happening.
Tomber!
Even as I launch into the unknown I hear the fear. My voice, usually so reliable, has betrayed me. I’m already well into my first turn but I call out again anyway.
Tomber!
And this time I hear authority. I’m back on it and back in control. And it feels good. It feels really good.
I drop through the couloir at warp speed, avoiding the temptation to close out my turns. I don’t want to overload the slope and I need to stay ahead of my sluff. I cut left as soon as I enter the powder field and watch as snow tumbles harmlessly out of the couloir behind me.
I briefly spare a thought for Paul, hoping there’s enough snow cover left for him to make a safe descent. And then I close my mind to everything but my own cosmic insignificance.
Nothing else matters now.
“We are the Pilgrims, master;
We shall go, always a little further”
No-one has skied this section of the mountain, it’s mine. All mine. I perform a series of linked turns, red lining my personal stoke meter, as I carve a thin, ephemeral track across millennia. But for the very briefest of moments, my passing will go unnoticed – erased by the next snowfall.
Except in my mind where the memory will burn bright, endlessly drawing me back to the mountains because I never feel more alive than in these moments.
This is why I ride.
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