PowderPeople | Anselme Baud

Bernhard Scholz runs the blog skialpinist.com and is working on a book about the history of steep skiing, for which he has conducted extensive interviews with the greats of the early and current scene. In the following interview, Anselme Baud explains, among other things, why he doesn't think abseiling counts as skiing and why hard snow is better than powder for steep face skiing.

BS: How did you get into skiing?

AB: I've always skied, I've always wanted to ski. From the first snow to the last remnants that lay somewhere, I was always on skis. My desire to ski remains unbroken to this day. It was normal to ski everywhere, so logically also on the steep slopes. I went on to ski races and trained as a mountain guide. All my male relatives were mountain guides, so it was the obvious thing for me to do. We - Patrick Vallençant and I - started skiing steep faces in the early 70s.

How did you get to know Patrick Vallençant?

When I was 18, I took part in a preparatory course for mountain guides. That's where I met Patrick, among others. The following year, we both went to the "Ecole National du Ski et Alpinism" (ENSA) in Chamonix together to complete our mountain guide training. There we realized that we were thinking along very similar lines. He had already skied the north face of the Tour Ronde and the Aiguille d'Argentiere back then, I had not skied anything on this scale, but there are also steep descents at my home in Morzine and we talked a lot about it.

Did you know about the other steep face skiers? Sylvain Saudan, Heini Holzer etc.

At first, very little. At first we only knew Saudan. Then Heini Holzer came out of "nowhere" and was the first to descend the Brenva flank and also the north face of the Aiguille d'Argentiere. We only found out about this afterwards. He was very modest and did not talk much about his plans. But from that point on, we knew him and followed his descents.

Of course, we knew more about Saudan. He sometimes came here to Chamonix with friends. They were skiing and drinking beer, and it was probably in a bar that they started talking about someone skiing down the Spencer. He dared to do it, his friends helped him to ski up and he did it and made it. They took a few more photos and when they were back in the valley, a woman from "Ski Flash" magazine took an interest. She published the descent and even put it on the front page. That was the beginning! Back then, in 1967/68, the term "off-piste skiing" didn't even exist and nobody was talking about steep face skiing or extreme skiing. But after that first article, things really took off.

Saudan immediately understood that you could make something out of it and built his whole life on it. He still makes a living from the two or three films he made. He also always skied on soft snow and of course used ropes to belay himself - in the Gervasutti couloir, for example (which he no longer talks about today, of course). Nevertheless, he fundamentally changed the "game" because he was able to interest the media in him.

We smiled a little at first because we followed different principles. In our view, you have to climb up a mountain before you descend. We rejected helicopters and outside help, such as porters, too. We managed all our descents in an honest and, in our view, serious way.

Skiing in the Himalayas is extreme, but what about in general? Is the term extreme skiing correct, or should it actually be called steep skiing?

When I started doing these things, I wrote articles about it in which I called it ski mountaineering. Because it's skiing with a fair amount of alpinism. Then the ski touring races came along and someone started calling it "ski alpinism". (In France and Italy, ski touring races are referred to as "skialpinism") Of course, this is not even remotely true - running up and down well-trodden paths has nothing to do with alpine thinking. But unfortunately the term has become established here and in Italy. We had to accept that, we had no choice. So Patrick and I started to call our skiing style extreme skiing. And as it takes place at your own limit, it's also extreme in the true sense of the word.

In 2002, you published the book "Mont Blanc et les Aiguilles Rouges", which also lists very steep descents - one of the first guides to steep skiing, so to speak. Was that intended to make the sport more popular?

Yes, of course. I even had this idea before: the idea behind my first book ("The 100 most beautiful descents in the Northern Alps" from 1985) was to make people dream. To show what is possible. That's why we also included descents that are very steep, with honest descriptions and an indication of what such a descent requires. As with climbing or mountaineering, the difficulty is also stated in the description.

Of course, there was criticism that all sorts of people would now start doing the most dangerous descents unprepared. But that didn't happen. The books point out exactly how difficult it is and obviously the self-assessment of the vast majority of aspirants is good enough. There are no more accident victims on steep slopes than anywhere else in alpinism. In my opinion, there is no point in hiding the difficult. Describing it properly enriches it.

For my second book, "Mont Blanc et les Aiguilles Rouges", I worked with Volodia Shashahani to find a scale with which steep descents can be assessed. And the key is to specify the conditions to which the scale applies. We based our scale (Author's note: the Volo scale, which is still widely used today) on hard, firm snow. This snow is like an average, it offers high avalanche safety and is still very grippy.

We always wanted to stay in control on our descents. That's why we skied on hard snow. Today, you see more and more steep descents, even in powder snow. We wouldn't have done that, the risk is too high in my opinion.

Once we didn't ski the Couloir Couturier because the snow was too soft. We decided to wait for the next day. But then someone came and was dropped off at the top by helicopter and he skied down. But it took him four or five hours to get down! He was green with fear! He only ever traversed and the snow slid underneath him in large clods the whole time. It was terrible for him, he was always going back and forth, only making a turn on the outermost flanks of the gully and then traversing back to the opposite side, his knees trembling.

The snow quality is easier to assess elsewhere. In Alaska, for example, it's completely different. The slopes are short there, so you can fly up in a helicopter. That's not good style, that's not the steep skiing we always wanted. It's like cheating. Because the slopes are so short, you can speed down them with just five turns, the avalanche behind you, and then you're at the bottom - no big deal. It's not an alpine challenge.

There have already been a few fatalities here, for example at Pointe Helbronner. Dédé Rhem, the snowboarder - he skied down, stopped and was then swept away by the snow that followed. Unfortunately, this is happening more and more often now. An Italian, a Norwegian, a German and even a cable car employee - he skied off and had to stop. Snow came sliding down from above, a small avalanche, and he was swept away.

This shouldn't happen in steep terrain and it doesn't happen in hard snow either. You can't control it in loose snow, but it's much easier to ski down in soft snow. In hard conditions, you have to be a much better skier to maintain control. You have to master the technique to avoid falling. But with the wide skis nowadays, this technique is lost. The new generation can no longer ski with such control. At least that's what I think.

Our attitude has always been: don't fall! If you lack the technique or are physically and mentally unable to ski without crashing, then you shouldn't get involved in something like that. It's quite simple.

And if you're skiing in soft snow, you have to be aware that there is a risk of avalanches. Personally, I wouldn't go there.

We also highly recommend the interviews with Sylvain Saudan and the Austrian steep face pioneers Albrecht Thausing and Manfred Oberegger! On the one hand, of course, for insights into the beginnings of extreme skiing, but also because of the different personalities that come to light in the conversations.