“The Legend of La Grave, Big Mountain Skiing in France”
By Chris Fellows, Director North American Ski Training Center

What is it Like to Ski 5,000’ Off One Chair Lift? Chris Fellows tells you.

La Grave, France is one of those mythical skiing locations that slowly builds in the collective conscious of the avid skiing and riding community. Its reputation has grown over the last several years as enthusiastic ski adventurers, travelers, and the occasional writer raved.

As in surfing and climbing, the idea of skiing cutting-edge locations inspires us all to wonder: “What’s really out there? Do I have the skills to survive in that environment? Am I willing to make the commitment?” In big wave surfing, names like Waimea Bay, Jaws, Todos Santos, and Mavericks conjure images of surfers rocketing down huge walls of water, sometimes 30-40 feet high, waves so big that the ground shakes as they crash.

A wider audience is drawn in as stories are passed along. The same has happened lately with big mountain skiing: Valdez, Chamonix, and La Grave. Expert skiers have followed the pied pipers of big mountain skiing and riding through folklore, some of it fact and some fiction, shifting our imaginations into overdrive. Who are these individuals and how do they do what they do? In most great adventures, the imagination is sparked by an idea that transcends the moment and beckons us to venture to uncharted lands.

That is exactly what happened to me after hearing one too many stories about the legendary La Grave. The legend of La Grave started for me in 1997 when I read a Snow Country magazine article by Perkins Miller. He described La Meije, a 13,000’ plus mountain blanketed with glaciers, narrow rock couloirs that run for thousands of feet, and building-sized seracs that hang over breathtaking alpine terrain. All this, he wrote, was accessible by a 7,000 vertical foot cable car starting in the village of La Grave. In that small village you could buy a lift ticket for the telepheriques. Every lift ticket included a guarantee of no grooming, no patrol, no ropes, no marked hazards, and all the adrenaline you could handle. He also warned that an avalanche beacon, shovel, probe, and ski harness are all mandatory in this extreme environment.

If you are expecting a travelogue of La Grave, please read Miller’s article of December 1997 or Mike Miracle’s in Skiing Magazine this coming winter. My goal here is to give you some insight into a new type of ski training that is slowly gaining popularity among students of the sport. My ski school, The North American Ski Training Center (NASTC), runs clinics each March in Chamonix and La Grave. The NASTC clinic is a blend of expert ski instruction and guided adventure skiing with internationally certified guides.

You may wonder if I have lost my marbles in running a ski improvement clinic in a wild place like La Grave. The answer is unequivocally “no.” The NASTC program has built

its reputation on providing excellent clinics around the globe. Our La Grave program follows a carefully designed curriculum which incorporates big mountains, technical instruction, and skilled guiding. The teaching style often is coaching-oriented. All our instructors are at least Examiner level or members of the national Demonstration Team. La Grave’s ski guides are some of the most innovative in the Alps. As with any guide, their primary concern is safety, but they also work hard with the coaches to provide an “envelope-pushing” experience. Together the ski guide and instructor create a trusting partnership with the client, which leads to a 3-tiered experience involving first the development of a safety system, next achieving a certain level of comfort with the terrain, and finally going for total exploration.

The 3-tiered experience begins with respect for how lethal La Grave can be, and a corresponding SAFETY SYSTEM. Descriptions of hidden crevasses, avalanche paths, ice and rock fall, and gigantic exposure gain quick respect from the students. Most have read the travelogues about La Grave before arrival. Most have collected the necessary safety gear, although the La Chaumine Lodge in La Grave will provide any if needed. Each morning, the guides and coaches meet to discuss the day’s objectives, the weather, the state of the terrain, snow management, and client assessments. The coaches give an overview of the group’s needs and desires while the guide chooses the appropriate terrain and lines. The goal for the day may be adjusted as conditions dictate on the mountain. What seemed possible at 7am may be flat out dangerous at 10am! Flexibility and resourcefulness allow each group to move from focusing on ski training technique, to skiing down steep couloirs, to on-hill video analysis. Again, all this must be within a safety net that allows participants a confident foundation and the choice to push their personal envelope. Use of the safety equipment is reviewed on day one and again as necessary throughout the week.

At this point I must introduce our lead guide, Pelle. A place like La Grave attracts a special breed of person probably similar to the first western cowboys: hardy, opinionated, self-sufficient, and innovative people with a spark in their eyes that says “I’ve been rocketed to the 4th dimension…come on in and join me!” Pelle is one of 2 owners of the La Chaumine Lodge, where we always stay in La Grave. Pelle is the on-hill man operations man and a UIAGM fully certified mountain guide. He is a mixture of Bjorn Borg and George Castanza. His steady skiing skills and ice-man delivery is all Borg, while his rounder face and his softer, comical, more human side is definitely Castanza.
As lead guide, Pelle is the corner stone of the all-important safety system. I will never forget one time when Pelle stopped the group as we entered the huge and heavily crevassed Girose Glacier. In his standard monotone, he said, “from now on we must not stop together. When we stop skiing as a group, we must finish 10-15 meters apart. This is so we do not stress the snow bridges by standing in one spot.” And like a road runner cartoon, our heads spun around as we frantically looked to see where the hell we were standing. The group took his advice to heart in this teachable moment, broadening the stop zones from that point on. His judgment and experience on this mountain made the entire group feel at ease. His decisions on when and where to ski showed a level of intimacy with the mountain only achieved by spending a great deal of time on it.
Pelle’s decisions were also flavored with a sprinkle of superstition and traditional lore. He had gut feelings that he added to his physical observations. On more than one occasion he chose one route over another just by pure “feeling.” I could always tell when he was getting one of those feelings because he’d fondle the charm tied around his neck and put it between his lips. His eyes narrowed and a quiet calm came over his being as he waited for his decision.

Development of a secure and constant safety system allowed many new experiences: lowering into tight couloirs, skiing lines from island of safety to island of safety, and practicing self-arrest techniques. (Something as basic as self-anchoring with the tail of your ski on rest stops on steep pitches became part of our regular attitude of safety). All of these experiences expand and broaden the group’s COMFORT WITH THE TERRAIN, the 2nd tier of the La Grave experience. As the skiers incorporate these important mountain travel techniques into a disciplined routine, the safety system builds a trust within the group. This trust allows the group a certain level of comfort. Many beginning climbers remark that they will never become a really good climber because they are afraid of exposure. I have wondered if this could be a part of an individual’s genetic packaging aimed at self-preservation. Actually a curious thing happens as one spends more time on vertical rock faces: you become accustomed to the environment, more comfortable with it. A friend of mine calls it “spending time in the vertical world.”
Comfort with the terrain comes from feeling safe, logging hours, and having a series of successful experiences that fill your memory bank with confidence-building images. This is easily accomplished in La Grave because of its wide range of terrain choices and big vertical that can supercharge your muscle memory. As the coaches give technique and feedback, a progression through varying difficulties of terrain is incorporated. When we tire, we stop at a high mountain hut for refreshment and give feedback via video.

However, the mountain will always be the most accurate conveyer of feedback. Like many ski clinics, a great deal of time is spent on stance and balance, and with good reason. Stance and balance are the foundation of all good skiing, from beginning through expert levels. World Cuppers spend endless hours focused on these components. The mere vertical in La Grave doesn’t allow any room for a flawed basic stance. Within minutes of improper balance, the huge mountain sends immediate feedback in the form of cramping leg muscles. The mountain also changes ones turn shape. No need to stretch the vertical drop by series of short turns. Without any instruction by the coaches, people tend to open it up and shift into long turn mode. Its amazing how much vertical you can burn up as your speed increases and turn shape gets longer. As confidence builds, one gains the ability to spend more time up over the skis instead of being over flexed and tipped inside. Covering proper ski choice is as important as remembering to wear clean underwear. My mother used to say if I were ever in a car accident and I had to go to the hospital, I could rest assured that at least I had clean underwear. The same goes for skiing: I’d hate to be pulled off the hill with the wrong skis on after an accident. Fat skis rule in La Grave.

Our goal of achieving maximum comfort with the terrain means the instruction does not stop at technical focuses, personal feedback, and equipment decisions. Much of the clinic involves developing tactics for these off-piste challenges. (See also TPS, Spring 2001) The opportunity to practice a wide range of tactics is endless in La Grave. Its not uncommon to ski winter chalk at the top, then light powder, then rock-hard ice, then spring corn, then heavy slush all in one run. The sheer length of our descents means variations in the snow conditions and hence a game plan is crucial. We talk about this at the top of every run. It is part of the instruction, and key to maintaining the ever-growing level of comfort with the terrain. Anticipation is everything.

The learning partnership was established as student, instructor, guide, and mountain began to dance to the same rhythm. As everyone began to feel they were safe, the barriers for learning melt away. Self-confidence built through a series of comfort-building experiences plus a trust in the environment replaced doubt, fear of the unknown, and helplessness. All of this sets us up for the 3rd tier of our off-piste clinic: EXPLORATION. In this final phase, we go to a new realm of experience that arguably parallels history’s own continuum. Here in America the early settlers were focused on survival. This limited existence left little or no time to enjoy the comforts that later inhabitants took for granted. During the industrial revolution, creature comforts found their way into more American homes. In today’s society, people pay to be taken OUT of that comfort zone. We feel we need something beyond a comfortable situation. We want to explore sides of ourselves which never see the light of day as we go through the motions behind our office cubicle. In the case of La Grave, the continuum goes something like this: after we establish our comfort with the mountain, we feel a natural desire to explore the mountain.

And explore we did! We skied a series of 6,000’ vertical descents into the deserted La Selle Valley on the backside of La Meije. Some of the routes are wide, open bowls that flow into the glacier below and some are steep couloirs that require a rappel in and good route finding skills. The lack of other skiers and the view of this enormous desolate valley gives one the feeling of really “being out there.” In this “explore mode” the mentality of yo-yoing on ski lifts is as far away as the work you left on your desk before your ski trip. Time moves at a different pace as the exploration begins. The only reference to time is the tiny village of St. Christoph where we will have lunch. If you insist on counting, technically we had “just one run” this morning, but those 6,000’ vertical will last a lifetime in everyone’s minds.

Skiing a good vertical route like the Rama chute requires a team effort that draws on the resources of each member. Whether its knowledge gained during the week or a trick learned 15 years ago, the general knowledge of the group will get them through any situation. Traveling together through the mountainous terrain brings each group ever closer. The boundaries of gender, profession, and politics seem to fade as the exploration continues. Standing out on a vast mountain ridge as a storm rolls into the horizon brings a feeling that something so much bigger, so much more powerful, is coming your way. This creates excitement and anticipation and also humbles us all. In La Grave a regular feeding of humble pie is the plat du jour. The learning that results from this respect is immense.

In many ways, this La Grave clinic is a beginning and an end. It is the beginning of a new type of ski instruction. One that puts the learner in an environment that inspires awe and the spirit of exploration. It is the end of the quick fix and the industrial line mentality that has given some ski instruction a bad rap. The joining of instruction and high mountain ski guiding is the direction high-level ski instruction will continue to go. Something or someone ground-breaking will emerge from this new partnership: perhaps an experiential educator/instructor skilled in creating memorable and life-changing experiences or perhaps a highly skilled hybrid ski mountaineering guide/ski coach, capable of balancing the dual responsibilities.

Written May 2001