POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 90 9/27/07 8:06:30 PM

POWDER MAGAZINE
90 FEATURE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 90
9/27/07 8:06:30 PM
PHOTO: david reddick / INSET: Patrik Lindqvist
FEATURE
POWDER MAGAZINE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 91
91
9/27/07 8:06:33 PM
GABE ROGEL
NAThan WALLACE, YAN ANDRé, AND yves détry. PORTRAITS: JOHN NORRIS
F
irst tram at the Grands Montets in Chamonix is a lot like it is at Snowbird or
Jackson Hole in the sense that everyone is there for the same reason: You
don’t need to speak the language to understand why the stranger smashed
in next to you has perma-grin despite the mutual discomfort. But that’s
where the similarities end. On this morning, every person on the Grands Montets—
as they likely are on its more famous neighbor to the south, the Aiguille du Midi—is
wearing a climbing harness and pack stuffed with ice axes, crampons, ropes, and
shovels. The other notable difference: This tram ascends 6,900 vertical feet, placing
you smack in the middle of an ice-strewn alpine environment. Though the winter in
France thus far has been less than stellar, a huge storm recently buried the peaks
around Chamonix with at least three feet of snow. So when the tram doors finally
slide open, there’s a mad dash of asses and elbows for the exit.
But Nathan Wallace isn’t in it. Since he arrived early enough to get first box,
he’s got time to have a cig at the tram’s summit. He’s a little disappointed that the
coffee shop isn’t open yet, because he’d love an espresso, too. But it’s just as well.
Standing out by the railing, his lips pinch the delicate papers—rolled with crispy
American Spirit leaves—and he pulls his brown hood over his head to shield his
lighter against the wind. While everyone else clambers noisily down the long metal
staircase to the snow, he breathes in the fresh smoke.
When he finishes his cigarette, Wallace strolls down the stairs, the carabiners
on his harness clinking like a janitor’s keys, the pink tips of his skis glowing against
the muted background of stone and ice. A freezing wind buries the thermometer 15
degrees below zero and rakes the snow’s surface, exposing patches of blue ice.
Wallace takes one last look at the direction the other skiers have gone, then lifts the
rope leading the other way, and slips under it. There are no other tracks.
Skiing slowly down a low-angle ridge, the Mammoth, California, native takes in
the snow with each turn. Should this slope release, it will take everything on it over
a series of 100-foot cliffs. Before stomping into a ski cut, he says there’s no need to
rush—that it would be smart to ski gently and lightly.
Wallace, who is 36 and has lived in Chamonix for nearly 10 winters, is hoping
to become only the third American ever to receive the hallowed certification from
the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations (UIAGM by its French
abbreviation). Five-feet-ten, 150 pounds and dark, contemplative eyes, his calm
behavior is learned from an area in which avalanches, crevasses, falling seracs, and
thousands of feet of exposure are as common as groomers are in the States.
But there’s something else shared by all seasoned locals, no matter where they
are from, that keeps people like Wallace cool and collected.
This is the birthplace of alpinism, where the 15,774-foot Mont Blanc was
first climbed in 1786. It’s where Sylvain Saudan descended the 1,000-foot-long
Spencer Couloir in 1967—the first time anyone had skied anything steeper than 50
degrees—thereby launching the modern era of l’extreme du ski. Old photographs
show others in tight pants, wool sweaters, long skinny skis, glacier glasses, wild
mops of hair and smiles to match as they ski near-vertical slopes. How do you
compare yourself to Patrick Vallençant, who made the first descent of the North
Face of the Tour Rond in 1971; to Jean-Marc Boivin, who skied the Nant Blanc face
of the Aiguille Vert; to Heini Holzer, who was the first to ski the Brenva Spur of Mont
Blanc? They skied spectacular lines, but didn’t live past the 1980s. And then there
was Daniel Chauchefoin, as prolific in Chamonix first descents as anyone during
the period. After proving to the world what was possible on skis, he mysteriously
crumbled, and has all but vanished.
All of which mark Chamonix’s place as one of the most demanding ski venues
on earth. Not only does the terrain create panic among even the best skiers, the
valley is surrounded by lines that harbor the ghosts of men driven over the edge.
Locals become so entrenched in the lifestyle that they hardly recognize it until they
go someplace else. Rappelling 100 feet over blue ice to find powder becomes
normal. Rescuing a friend from the depths of a crevasse, though frightening at the
time, makes for good laughs at the pub later. Tiptoeing along a knife-edge ridge with
hundreds of feet of rocks on both sides is commonplace. Ski mountaineering—the
term held with such high esteem by the rest of the world—is just skiing here, and
nowhere will you find as many true alpinists with such raw connections to steep,
aesthetic lines as you will in Chamonix.
If nothing else it’s a style, and Wallace carries it well through ripe avie conditions.
POWDER MAGAZINE
92 FEATURE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 92
9/27/07 8:06:42 PM
“yeah, it looks like it’ll go.” Andreas Fransson. Haute Savoie. PHOTO: PATRIK LINDQVIST
Finally, he stands on top of a chute that drops 1,000 feet, chokes to a few ski lengths
wide in the middle, then opens up to several thousand feet of rolling glacial moraines.
Far below, the town of Chamonix sits out of the storm—bathing in the soft glow of
spring. The wind has swept at least another foot onto this immense slope known as
the Pas de Chèvre, one of the area’s classics. Wallace looks over, and for the first time
this morning gives a deep, dimpled smile. Then he drops in and the powder roils up to
his chin and over his head in great plumes of white. It’s as dry and cold as you could
find anywhere, no matter the continent. At the bottom, he dusts himself off and pulls
out his smokes. That was a good run, after all, no need to end it just yet.
A
fter you ski the Pas de Chèvre—and anything else that terminates at the
toe of the Mer de Glace (the Vallée Blanche off the Aiguille du Midi being
the most common descent)—getting back to Chamonix means hitching
a ride on the Montenvers cog railway. It’s one of many conveyances
in the Chamonix Valley, which includes five ski areas, a combined 40,000 feet of
vertical and 47 lifts spread over 60,000 acres. The three-mile ride on the train, built
in 1908, is steep and slow. When it lets you off, it’s just a short walk down the street
to the corner of Rue des Allobroges and Avenue Michel Croz. This is the Chambre
Neuf—the place to be seen. Skis are stacked outside the pub at all hours, and the
delicious plat du jour is all the incentive you need to not miss your train from the
Mer de Glace. Every night the bar fills with inebriated Swedes and Brits to the point
where many are forced to stand on tables. Which, of course, is fine.
The view down the Michel Croz is classic Euro: a narrow street filled with trendy ski
shops, postcard stands, creperies emitting wafts of sweet batter into the air, and sidewalk
cafés filled with young hipsters smoking cigarettes. Pastel-colored hotels with wroughtiron balconies crowd the skyline, but nothing hides the Aiguilles—the appropriately
named needle-like spires that shoot up like skyscrapers from the surrounding peaks.
It’s not until you cross the river L’Arve that you come to a narrow alley that lacks
all of what makes Michel Croz a tourist trap. About 100 feet down this alley—the
Rue des Moulins—is a dark, smoky pub called Soul Food. Vintage Motown and R&B
filters through the front door, and inside locals belly up to the bar. Among them is
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 93
9/27/07 8:06:45 PM
skier (yes, there is a skier): Ian “Cheddar” Watson on just another Chamonix line. PHOTO: PATRIK LINDQVIST
“parlez-vous gnar?” Bruno Compagnet orders the plat du jour. PHOTO: PATRIK LINDQVIST
Yan André, one of Wallace’s ski partners, and another skier whose casual attack of
steep slopes is a thing of beauty.
Born and raised in Chamonix, André was one of Europe’s first professional
freeriders back in the 1990s. Tall and dark, complements of his North African heritage,
he now makes documentary ski films. The first one, in 2006, followed an expedition
to India where he and his crew, including Glen Plake, climbed and skied two first
descents above 19,000 feet. Having lived his entire 35 years in Chamonix, André can
ski just about anything on the map. He has a small sponsorship from Dynastar, but the
five pairs of Legend Pros sitting in his old hatchback are worth more than the car.
Earlier in the day, he led a young Finn and me from the 12,605-foot summit of the
Aiguille du Midi to the Junction, a run opposite the Glacier des Bossons—an immense
field of broken ice and falling seracs that crumbles down from Mont Blanc right outside
town. To get there, we skied the SW Couloir (also called the Glacier Rond), first skied
by Chauchefoin and Yves Détry in 1977. The Junction gets very little traffic due to the
dangerous access; it requires crossing the glacier twice, where you are often exposed
to whatever might fall or swallow you up. Wallace had done it a few days before and
we were hoping to follow his tracks, but the wind had obliterated them.
Before we skied onto the Bossons, André gave me his cell phone with
directions to give rescuers should he fall in a crevasse. Then halfway across he
stopped and self-consciously noted that we had gone the wrong way. Standing at
the point between two gaping crevasses where blue ice twisted downward into a
deep, mangled hole, he decided that if we removed our ropes we could straightline
it through the middle. A tense moment for sure, but it went. After finally reaching the
Junction, we descended 2,000 feet of creamy knee-deep powder. The only tracks
were ours, and we could see them from town that afternoon.
Illustrating the virtue of patience, it was the first time André had skied the run all
season. “You need to come here for a long time before you bump into what you’re
really looking for,” he says. “You can’t just come and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve been to Chamonix,
I don’t need to go back there.’ It’s changing all the time. And it can be dangerous but
that’s part of the quest for the magic day—when everything comes together.”
Due to extreme changes in elevation, temperatures and snowfall, these are lines
that come and go with the seasons—a cycle that depends on the weather. Some
routes may not be skiable for years, if ever again. Canadian Ptor Spricenieks calls it
the “potential of the potential,” where one finds “the magic of that highest level not
always being available. Waves of lines coming into condition over the years and waves
of souls sweeping over the landscape over the years that sometimes intersect.”
POWDER MAGAZINE
94 FEATURE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 94
9/27/07 8:06:52 PM
DANIEL
CHAUCHEFOIN
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 95
9/27/07 8:06:54 PM
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 96
9/27/07 8:07:01 PM
the gervasutti couloir. skier: lionel hamchemi. PHOTO: Dan Milner
Pierre Tardivel. PHOTO: John Norris
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 97
9/27/07 8:07:03 PM
Earlier in the week, I’d taken a ride up the Aiguille du Midi with Wallace and
André to ski the Grand Envers, a steeper, untracked variation of the Vallée Blanche.
The mountains had received more than a foot of snow in the last 24 hours, and were
enshrouded in thick white clouds and below-zero temperatures. In a magnificent
stroke of luck, we were the only skiers on the tram, the frigid weather having
frightened away the masses.
As the car ascended its final 800 feet, Wallace pointed to the ice fields covering
the near-vertical rocks directly below, a faint line of snow connecting them for several
thousand feet. Known as the Mallory Route, it is the North Face of the Aiguille, a line
first skied by Chauchefoin, Détry, and Anselme Baud in 1977. Wallace said he and
André—along with their friend, Paul McLeod, who died in 2003 trying to parapente
off the Aiguille—had skied it a while back. Seeing my look of disbelief, he added, “We
don’t ski ice. We ski it when there’s powder.”
P
erhaps it was time, and the passing of it as he waited for lines to come into
play, that finally got to the man known as “le Chauch.” Or maybe Daniel
Chauchefoin just needed more than he was given. No one knows why this
once world-class French skier simply up and quit the sport in 1986 after
notching some of the greatest first descents on the Mont Blanc massif. His descent
of the “Austrian Route” of Les Courtes in the Argentière Basin in 1979 stands as
one of the most dramatic and influential descents in the Alps.
“Daniel had a very easy, very good style,” says Pierre Tardivel, the 44-year-old
Frenchman who has more first descents in the Alps than any other. “He was always
very supple, very soft—the perfect skier. Daniel had very soft contact with the snow
and small tracks.”
PATRIK LINDQVIST
JOHN NORRIS
JOHN NORRIS
the mallory route on the north face of the Aiguille du Midi–one of those
lines that comes and goes with the seasons. PHOTO: PATRIK LINDQVIST
Anselme Baud, in his definitive guidebook, Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles Rouges,
characterized Chauchefoin as “unassuming and efficient,” constantly in pursuit of
naturally harmonious lines. As best as anyone can tell, the man has not skied in 20
years. Yan André thinks he may have seen him in line at the Aiguille du Midi, but then
changes his mind after giving it another thought. He is, it seems, a living ghost.
His absence, however peculiar, goes mostly unnoticed in Chamonix. First
descents are not the priority anymore and many who made them are now dead. Only
three of Chauchefoin’s contemporaries—Détry, Baud, and Saudan—remain active
in Chamonix. Détry is a guide who maintains a quiet life, and Baud is an author,
historian and guide instructor. The 70-year-old Saudan spends much of his time
guiding in India.
I try to set up an interview with Baud, whose son, Edouard, was killed by a falling
serac while skiing the Gervasutti Couloir in 2004. Baud is difficult to reach, but
Détry agrees to meet me one evening in an empty café just down the street from the
Chambre Neuf. Another storm is brewing over Chamonix and Détry is fresh off a tour
in which he guided four middle-aged Brits on the Aiguilles Rouges. He emerges from
the cold night still wearing ski pants and a faded yellow jacket. At 55 years old, he is
short, probably 5-foot-7, with silver-rimmed glasses, a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard,
and deep crow’s feet around his blue eyes. Most everything about him is small, except
his hands, which show bruises, scabs and calluses like a fisherman’s. He doesn’t
admit to being tired, saying fatigue is a “state of mind.” Above all, he is gracious.
Détry, who is best known for soloing the first descent of Col du Plan on the
North Face of the Aiguille, skied several virgin lines with Chauchefoin in the mid1970s, including the 55- to 60-degree North Couloir of the Col du Dolent. He says
he can’t recall Chauchefoin in any particular detail, other than he did a lot of jump
turns. It has been many years since he’s seen him. He then pulls out a list of all
C O N T I N U E D O N PAG E 1 3 2
98 POWDER MAGAZINE
FEATURE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 98
9/27/07 8:07:06 PM
C O N T I N U E D F R O M PAG E 9 8
the birthplace of ski mountaineering. PHOTO: John Norris
his own firsts—a meticulously kept chart that includes dates—and the conversation
inevitably shifts to a comparison between now and then. “There is none,” Détry says.
His generation was made up of pioneers who relied on studying the mountains and
having an imagination to see a skiable line, not the Internet and fat skis, which in
Détry’s eyes make someone a “slider,” not a skier. “I know nothing of wide skis,” he
says in jest, “but they help the client.”
Détry’s own “extreme” career ended abruptly in 1979. As he skied a line on
Dent du Requien with his best friend, Richard Baumont, the slope released and
buried both of them. Baumont didn’t survive, and it took many years for Détry to
recover. Even now, discussing it nearly 30 years later, it touches him deeply.
At closing time, Détry says he needs to get home to rest up for his next trip, a
morning departure leading clients over the Haute Route, the classic hut-to-hut trip
from Chamonix to Zermatt, Switzerland. As we stand outside on the cold sidewalk,
he looks up into the snowflakes swirling through the streetlamps, and says the
worsening weather might delay the trip. There’s no one waiting for him. None of the
passersby take notice that they are walking past a legend. After a firm handshake,
he pulls his face into the collar of his jacket and walks into the storm.
A
s Wallace and I hang out at his flat five minutes from downtown
Chamonix, Pierre Tardivel joins us for a glass of Cassis, grape syrup
diluted with tap water. Unlike most seasoned alpinists, Tardivel’s
complexion is smooth and unblemished. It seems almost impossible
that he and Détry have the same occupation (though, to be fair, the younger Tardivel
is not a full-time guide). With slightly curled blond hair and a lean build, his demeanor
and appearance is more like that of a physician. His voice is soft and lyrical, moving
up and down with a rhythmic cadence. All told, he has more than 80 first descents
in the Alps; only one of them included a helicopter, something that shames him. “I
was young,” he says, “and didn’t realize how stupid it was.”
Tardivel’s success can be attributed to his climbing and skiing skills—he uses
diminutive 168cm Dynastar Legend 8800s for big, technical descents—but his easygoing manner means he’s relaxed in the most gripping conditions. It also makes
him perfect at his day job: selling mountaineering books. According to some of his
younger friends who grew up in the freeride generation, Tardivel can be a little too
relaxed. On the climb up, he frequently stops to take pictures, or to comment on how
beautiful the view is, or how he’s just so pleased with the texture of the snow. When
everyone else wants to get the summit push over with, Tardivel is taking his sweet
time. The way down is the same, with Tardivel analyzing every turn.
As a boy in Annecy, a small city an hour west of Chamonix, Tardivel cruised
around with Chauchefoin and learned from him. But by the time of Chauchefoin’s
breakdown in the late ’80s, Tardivel had come into his own as one of the finest ski
mountaineers in Europe. Two people who started together couldn’t have ended up
on more opposite sides of the spectrum. The fall of his former ski partner appears to
trouble Tardivel. Over the years he’s often reached out to him, but is always rebuffed.
He doesn’t know why.
In the climbing and skiing community, Tardivel is very popular, and it’s easy to
see why. Within five minutes of meeting me, he asks if I want to join him for a first
descent he’s planning. That is, if the weather holds—he never skis anything big until
at least three days after a storm. The snow has been steady for a week, and a cold
wind has loaded some aspects. Tardivel finds the route on my laptop: a 1,600-foot
couloir in the Aravis—a subrange of the Alps west of Chamonix—that requires several
sketchy traverses on the way down. Wallace disagrees with Tardivel’s assessment
of the conditions, and warns that it could be dangerous with all the new snow.
I respectfully decline, and he thinks it’s because I’m on freeheel gear. “Why you
telemark?” he asks incredulously. The weather doesn’t look good, however. At least
not for him. The forecast is calling for more snow and wind up high, meaning Tardivel
may have to wait at least another three days before adding to his list of firsts.
T
his time, Wallace finds the coffee shop open on the Grands Montets
summit. He orders an espresso, which is served in a ceramic cup
decorated with tiny pink and blue flowers. He takes it black. The wind
buffets the windows of the café, but a heavy wooden door keeps most of
the cold out. The sub-zero temperatures have made the morning rush to the cable car
less crowded than you’d think for a powder day. There’s one other skier in the café, but
it’s just a frightened tourist. The barista, a short middle-aged man wearing an apron
and eyeglasses, is hustling around preparing for the day’s business. After finishing
his coffee, Wallace assesses the contents of his pack: crampons, 60-meter rope, axe,
shovel, probe, tobacco pouch, and water, which he keeps in a battered plastic Perrier
bottle. Ten years in Chamonix and he still hasn’t splurged for a Nalgene.
He’s planning to ski a line that abuts the magnificent Les Drus spires just south
of the Grands Montets. Wallace saw the run six years ago while scanning the peaks
above his flat through a spotting scope. Through the naked eye—even one that’s
trained—it doesn’t look like much because everything around it is so huge, namely the
13,500-foot Aiguille Verte and the 12,316-foot-high Grand Dru. But Wallace could
see tracks coming down, and he went to investigate. He found a 1,000-foot couloir
dropping sinuously through jagged shards of granite. The entrance is guarded by
razor-sharp rocks and often requires a 100-foot rappel. Far from the hassle of the
rest of the world, it stays hidden to all but the most experienced Chamonix locals. All
around are the shadows of the old ghosts, the black Chouca birds people say carry
the spirits of souls lost in the mountains. Hanging ominously above the couloir is a
snow and ice field spilling off the Nant Blanc face of the Aiguille Verte. Jean-Marc
Boivin put tracks there in 1989, a year before he died parachuting in Venezuela.
Just off the other side, several hundred feet beyond the entrance to this couloir,
is the realm of Daniel Chauchefoin, who recorded the first descent of the Col du Nant
Blanc in 1978, and, just a bit farther, his famous descent of Les Courtes. There have
been many attempts over the years by Chauchefoin’s friends to get him back up to
these slopes. But he is “very hungry and crazy,” people say. “This man is mad.” Then
again, it’s always possible that he finds time to ski when no one else is looking.
Wallace, living abroad far from his family, understands why someone would
want to branch off on their own. Despite recognizing what’s at stake, part of his
style is enjoying the solitude of these tragic mountains. Which is why he takes his
time—so he knows exactly what he’s getting into. “My mom gets worried about what
I’m doing over here,” he’d said earlier. “But it’s not about death or even being on the
edge of death. Everyone always talks about Chamonix that way. But it’s casual. We
ski something good, then sit on the glacier and have a smoke. If it’s not safe, we
don’t go. It’s that simple.”
And so Wallace gets ready to ski again. He cleans his goggles and puts them
on. Buckles his boots. Gloves and hat. Then he stands and secures his pack, pushes
his shoulder against the heavy door and walks out into the wind.
Details, Details
Tourism Office: The Chamonix Tourism Office can help with all your lodging
needs, which range from luxury hotels to communal hostels. The office can also help
you book a mountain guide, and offers free wireless Internet access.
Chamonix.com or +33 450 53 00 24
High Mountain Office: Ohm-chamonix.com
Weather: Chamonix-meteo.com
Getting there: Air France (airfrance.com) serves 13 U.S. gateways and
provides service from 125 cities through Delta, Continental and NWA. Geneva is
the closest major city to Chamonix, just 54 miles away, and there are various ground
options, including bus, private taxi, and train (with connections).
Resources:
Snow, Ice and Mixed, Vol. 1 and 2, by Francois Damilano. JM Editions
Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles Rouges, by Anselme Baud. Nevicata Editions
POWDER MAGAZINE
132 FEATURE
POWP-071200-CHAM.indd 132
9/27/07 8:07:07 PM