Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Tribute to Rémy Lécluse

Mika, Rémy and myself on the North Face of Tour Ronde direct 2009 (Photo: Tobias Granath)

I only got the chance to ski with Rémy Lécluse once, back in 2009 when Tobias Granath and myself met him and Mika Merikanto on the north face of Tour Ronde in the Chamonix massif. We had climbed the north face and they had climbed the Gervasutti couloir and we met at the top at the same time. Being acquaintances from before we decided to ski the line together. It was a great steep skiing season back then and Remy had thought the same thing as me, to ski the direct line without rappels that’s very rarely in conditions.

We started down the route, me first, then Rémy and Mika following us. We skied the face with great care and took our time, enjoying every great turn.

We were chatting the whole way down and I remember Rémy cursing my kick turns and arguing how I should use the double pole plant technique in my skiing. At the mixed section further down we all got quiet, concentrating while down climbing the rocky passage with skis on. At the bottom we shock hands and said we should do it again sometime.

We never did. Winters pass by quickly in a skier’s world and he was busy guiding and I was busy doing my thing. Every time we met in town, we talked about lines and dreamt away on what we could ski together.

Time flies, and so do life.

Rémy and his climbing partner Greg Costa are missing after the avalanche disaster on Manaslu, the world’s eight highest mountain, a few days ago that took 11 lives.

He was one of the best and most experienced steep skiers of all time with more than 500 first descents from all over the world under his belt. He would go “out there”, in to the mountains, often solo, to “live, think and breathe” mountain skiing.

But it’s as a guide I’m mostly impressed by Rémy Lécluse. Never have I heard clients be so euphoric by any guide as by going out in to the mountains with him. We would give his clients the best days of their lives, all the time – as a profession. If you get judged when you die by something or somewhat, then bringing meaning and joy to so many will count for a lot.

Also know for wise decisions, mountain sense and gentleness towards the others he will be remembered and missed by all who had the chance to cross his path.

Thoughts and love goes out to all the departed, their families and friends!

Lyngen Descents – Episode 1

Last spring the Salén brothers and myself went to the Lyngen Alps in the north of Norway for three weeks of ski touring and ski mountaineering. We were extremely lucky with the conditions and even though we got to turn around a lot we managed to pull of six first descents and experience the magic of this amazing place among friends.

This is the first episode out of three. For more movies from our adventures together check out Bjarne’s video blog at endlessflow.posterous.com.

Lyngen Descents Episode 1 from Bjarne Salén on Vimeo.

Sunday, September 23rd, 2012

Patagonian Realizations – Skiing the Whillans Ramp on Poincenot

Skiing the Whillans ramp on Poincenot, Cerro Fitzroy massif, Argentina. Photo: Bjarne Sahlén

Last Wednesday Bjarne Salén and myself walked in towards the Fitzroy massif from El Chaltén. After about 5 hours we arrived at Laguna Los Tres and pitched our tent. From there we skinned up about 600 meters to get some good skiing and check the conditions. We found great snow conditions and skied down to our tent in the sunset.

The next day we woke up early and started skinning in the dark and about five hours later we arrived at the Whillans ramp on Poincenot. The weather was ok, but far from perfect with really hard winds, and clouds coming and going.

I changed to crampons and ice axes and started up the ramp in powder varied with breakable crust. It was steep from beginning to end and always slanting out towards the huge cliffs below. It was so steep and unstable ground that I didn’t feel like I could stop and relax so when I found a belay one forth up I clipped my self in and backed it up with another nut. In my mind I imagined a rappel there just as a back up on the way down.

Then I continued traversing to the left. At one point I was climbing on slabs with only 20 cm of snow on top. This was the scariest moment. But I came trough and the upper section eased of a tinny bit from extremely steep (for skiing) to just really steep. I continued up to the top of the field and then built a platform with my ice axe to put my skis on.

Bjarne had told me to talk to the camera and describe my feelings on the way up and down. I realized, that if you are able to talk to the camera, then it’s not that difficult. I only managed to take one photo and put on the Go Pro– then I set of.

It was a wonderful feeling mixed with plain fear. The skiing is always skiing, and not that complicated, but I was concerned about the traverse with the rocky slabs with far from perfect snow lower down.

When I got there I hit steps with my pole in front of me, held on with the ice axe on my left side and traversed slowly forward. It took time, but I never lost control. It was really steep. When I got down to the anchor I clipped myself in and by a reflex I started rappelling, but realizing this was much easier than what I had just skied I stopped after 15 meters and skied/side stepped the last part down, and then climbed back above the seracs and skied all the way down to Bjarne.

For me, there is not even a pre made trail to follow when it comes to reacting on what I just did. I don’t know if I should feel pride, joy or shame. What happened was simply something that occurred and something I had to do in my inner world of adventures.

Skiing on the upper snowfield on the Whillans ramp

I don’t see the point in repeating something dangerous when you have already reaped the rewards, and I can’t see any more rewards coming out from this trail, so therefore I feel it’s highly unlikely I would do something like this again.

It’s arguable if skiing on this level is skiing anymore and as I sidestepped about half the run I wouldn’t call it very stylish. On the other hand, in my reality, in these conditions I would be extremely impressed if someone would ski the whole thing with “style”, and although surely possible it would be a game with very low odds of success trying to do turns where I could barely get my skis to stick while sidestepping.

For me this whole business comes down to two things: where does extreme skiing stand as a sport within the skiing game and how are we supposed to judge anything that is done in the mountains?

I sometimes look with disgust at the subjectivity of my own sport. That is, of course, only when I lower my self to judge what others are doing in the mountains. For me the question howhas always been more important than the question what. In other words, it has always been more important how a line has been skied than which line that was skied. Doing stylish turns was always more worthy than sidestepping the line. Down in the valley it can sound like two different persons skied a line when one did it with big turns in a fast time and the other sidestepped the whole thing in a day.

But when we are arguing about these things we have kind of lost the thin red line of purpose in the first place. If we are thinking of these things, then there is a risk that we are playing this game for others and not for ourselves. Is it worth risking your life to make others think you are cool, a great skier, have courage, are a great alpinist or something else?

American freeskiing legend, Doug Coombs, used to state that: “The best skier is the one who have the most fun”!

I think he was on to something here, but I like to modify the statement to: “The best skiers are the ones following their own path”, or; “The best skiers are skiing with heart”.

For me, skiing and what we do in the mountains is beyond fun, it’s a way of living with all the up’s and down’s life includes. Sometimes I’m full of joy and sometimes I’m feeling down and sometimes I’m not feeling at all. Life is just what happens to be everyday, of course it’s the way I made it, and I’m a skier, so I go up there on the mountain and make my turns. It can be as simple as that. Skiing with heart, then, means that I’m truly up there on the peaks skiing because that’s what I happen to love to do, what comes out of the day comes out – let it be any possible feeling I could think of.

Skiing becomes the platform from which I live my life. Obviously one can change skiing to something else – like, surfing, yoga, climbing or what else?

Doing things with heart also means that you sometimes do things you can’t explain – Like skiing a really difficult line because you feel it will add something to your life.

I had been looking at skiing the ramp on Poincenot for years and at the same time I have, since I started skiing, been looking for a line that would demand the best out of me. You have to be very fortunate to find this right combination of variables coming together on one spot at one time and then happen to be ready to face the situation.

Skiiing the Whillans ramp on Poincenot

The mountain has to be formed in a perfect way making for difficult skiing, but easy enough to be possible to ski. The snow conditions have to be just right as well as the timing and the weather. If you happen to be on an expedition and you don’t live at this spot, then you have to be very lucky to just happen to be there when it all comes together.

You also have to be ready in your mind and be ready to face your inner demons and the consequences of your actions. This might be the hardest.

This whole thing was just something I had to go through to get past my folly of looking for limits. Blake said:

“Let the fool persist in his folly and he will become wise”.

I will by all means not pretend to be wise, but I have been living for skiing my whole life and I have always been looking for this border that I just come this far to find.

250 vertical meters of snow, ice and rock might seem insignificant, but like anything in life, if the timing is right it can also be magic because enchantments sees no limits.

For me this was magic and I got what I came for. I understand the different feelings people get from this but be aware: If you start looking down judging what others do, first look in to your own life and all your own little battles. We are all here to learn, and it might just not be so, that reality is built up exactly like you where thought in school.

For more info and updates follow myself and Bjarne Salén on the following:
Andreas:
www.facebook.com/thoughtsfromhighplaces
Twitter: @ndreasfransson

Bjarne:
endlessflow.posterous.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Endlessflow/185856141445411

Tuesday, September 18th, 2012

Patagonian Dreams

Skiing steep lines is sometimes in a way like a high jumping competition. If you aim high on things you know you can do, if outer and inner conditions match – then you might walk away with nothing if circumstances are not in your favor.

It’s sometimes a very frustrating game to play, but it’s still one of the games in life I enjoy most playing.
Taking the above mentioned in to account, this last week has been a frustrating week to say the least. First of all it took three days for our baggage to arrive, then I got a cold for two days before we finally were able to walk in to the mountains.

Mighty Cerro Torre

Myself and friend and film maker Bjarne Salén are now in El Chaltén, Argentina, a village situated next to the legendary mountains of Cerro Torre and Fitzroy. On our first try three days ago, we walked in to the Torre valley to check out two of our potential objectives. After seven hours of walking with extremely heavy packs we arrived at the glacier. We put up our tent and woke up to a beautiful day. But looking at the lines from below we realized the approaches to two of the lines we wanted to ski went straight through a massive active serac landscape. The other lines did not have as much snow on them as we would have hoped, and looked like the north face of Aiguille du Plan in Chamonix where the actual ski run is in a labyrinth of seracs. The small and easy lines seemed fine, but we felt like we rather walk back to be ready for the good stuff when we get the chance, than put our time in to things without real attraction.

El Chaltén, Santa Cruz, Argentina

It´s a dangerous game to play with the mind as it’s really scary to let the time pass when we have done nothing. But on the other hand it’s extremely important to be able to trust one’s self to not go and fail with success, meaning that I would do something I know has a risk that does not equal the possible rewards, and then seemingly do something good, when I matter-of-factly know I did something stupid. If you make that a habit, it will be hard to catch a good sleep in the long run, as you know you can’t trust yourself to take safe decisions.

The great thing with everything so far is that we have lots of positive energy flowing and both Bjarne and myself are extremely impressed by the landscape here. In a skier’s point of view nothing seem to have been done in this mountain chain that is one of the most famous for alpine climbing in the world. The catch, though, is that without beta it’s extremely easy to do time consuming mistakes like our first little adventure, and loose the opportunity to do some good ski lines. Time goes fast, and this particular area is not famous for long periods of good weather, on the contrary, looking at friends who have been here on climbing trips, it seems like you have to be satisfied if you get to do one or two good lines per month.

We have almost four more weeks, and we are starting to realize that if we get three good lines, we should be extremely happy. But it’s of course easy to sit here and talk about things we don’t yet have, so that’s why I will also add that I know many who have come here and returned with nothing. And that’s when trying to repeat climbing lines, not discovering new lines for skiing.

Sometimes I wonder why I got in to this game of skiing mountains in the first place. I mean, it’s so easy to give all you have, and then get no rewards in return. From experience I have learnt that I have about a 25% success rate when trying new lines. That’s a lot of turning around, and then if happiness is relative to ones expectations, and I by nature have high expectations – then this is a setup that will breed frustration. On the other hand my memory can recall the enormous joy that have come out of doing turns down snowy mountains when everything have “clicked” and I have managed to fulfill a small dream.

So here we are in the ghost town of El Chaltén, surrounded by warm and friendly locals in love with the mountains and with extremely difficult food conditions for vegetarians (I gave up). We have another three and a half weeks to explore this area, which means max a handful of small excursions up the mountains with heavy loads. And then maybe, hopefully, if we are lucky, we get to ski a king line. If it were easy it would be called snowboarding… 😉

Last year at this time I was in further north in South America at the beginning of a much bigger adventure, but still at the start of something. It’s funny how life is repeating it self year after year till we are willing to learn.

Scribbles from the night – Thursday, September 22, 2011 Digging deep – Saturday, October 8, 2011

Bjarne Salén not yet realizing that we are in El Calafate, Argentina and our ski bags in Madrid, Spain

Poincenot and Fitzroy early our first morning in El Chaltén

I have been a vegetarian for ten years, but here I just have to eat “the best meat in the world”, because that’s all there is. 🙂

Bjarne walking out of town on our first mission

El Chaltén

My bag…

The wonderful landscape in the Torre Valley

Bjarne handling the Tyrolean traverse

We went to the glacier and turned around. I was to occupied with the situation to take many photos…

Cerro Torre and the Adelas

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

Tempting Fear Trailer

After lots of hard work by Bjarne Salén at Endlessflow; Mike Douglas, Blair Richmond and Jeff Thomas at Switchback Entertainment and the Salomon crew – our new film, Tempting Fear, is now finally ready. Here’s the trailer:

For more info about the film visit: www.salomonfreeski.com
And for a review of the film by Devon O’Neil at ESPN.com – you’ll find that here.

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

The devil is in the detail #2

Today was a full on packing and preparation day. Tomorrow Bjarne Sahlén and myself are leaving for another South America adventure.

This is everything needed for a five weeks ski adventure in the mountains:

Yoga mat, mountaineering boots, 3 skis, 3 poles, ski boots, axes, rock and ice protection, crampons, ski clothes, 3 stoves, helmet, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, tent, electronics, compass, maps, binocular, camera, harness, ropes, sun glasses, 1^st aid, books (inc, Spanish dictionary), multi tool, avalanche equipment, skins, ski crampons, bottle and more….

Saturday, September 8th, 2012

The last few days in Chamonix, Annecy, Grenoble and Saas-Fee

The last few days has been really interesting and intense with meetings and work at the Salomon headquarters in Annecy, meetings with Petzl in Grenoble and yesterday we did a ski test for the next generation of Salomon skis on the glacier in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. It was great to do the first turns of the season in perfect summer weather. We got the answers we needed and everything went as planned.