For many years now I have been following mountain athletes like Killian Jornet, Emily Forsberg, Laetitia Roux to name a few, and I have been in awe of the ski alpinisme races they were performing in. Dreaming that may be one day I would have the skills needed to attempt one of these epic events high in the mountains myself.
When I moved to the French Alps the summer of 2020 and entered my first winter, I had previously done 2 weeks of ski touring in Norway and a handful of outings with friends in Chamonix over the years. I did not know how to do a kick turn up a climb properly, I had only used crampons once, I never had done a Via Ferrata nor had I much experience climbing or scrambling over ridge lines as narrow as the width of your foot at breath taking heights. Yet I had traversed the Nepalese Himalayas on a mountain bike solo and knew what suffering in the mountain entailed.
I was first introduced to ski mountaineering by Alex Dimitrioux who took me on a ski tour in Chamonix where I was at my limit following him up and down the mountains and who turned my negative view from "I can't" to "show me how to”
Meeting Yann last year I met someone who understood my drive instantly, someone who not only understood it but nurtured it as well. Yann had done almost all the classics ski alpinism races including a bucket list event for me the Pierra Menta, a 4 day Ski Alpinisme race in France, reserved for the best of the best in this sport. I was accepted in Yann's group of mountain friends instantly. They helped me learn, progress and continuously inspired me to practice, practice and practice so I could keep up with them in the mountains which is very much still a work in progress!
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| learning the way of the mountains with Yann |
I have never felt I have been someone who has an enormous amount of talent, but what I can do is work hard. And when I mentioned wanting to do the Belle Etoile, a 3 day ski alpinisme race which is a qualifier race for the Pierra Menta, Yann's reaction was a little reserved. It is hard he said, you need to really work on your downhill skiing, and work on being able to perform the transitions from skiing to skinning back to skiing fast, including putting crampons off and on and putting your skis on your back.
This year I invested in my own set of skis instead of using Yann’s kit which was a little to big for me. As soon as the snow arrived I practiced, practiced and practiced. Spending big days in the mountains searching for the steepest corners of the edge of the ski resort to become comfortable with steep gradients but not needing a massive day in the mountains to find those descends. I got as much skiing in as I could, working on Yann’s feed back on what I needed to work on. “Your skis have to become an extension of your feet” he said.
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| skiing steep terrain with Mac |
The next challenge was finding someone who wanted to do the Belle Etoile with me. Yann was doing it with his friend and team mate for the Pierra Menta, Antoine. When I asked people who had much more mountain experience than me, they would answer it was too hard, “may be next year with more training”. May be I wanted too much too soon. I had almost given up on the idea until I received an email from Nina 4 weeks before the race. She had seen my post on the organisers Facebook page that I was looking for someone. Nina had the same objective as I had, solely getting to the finish line and enjoying the experience. Before she had a chance to change her mind I had entered us. And so the madness began!
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| skiing a morning with Yann and posters to improve my downhill |
I met Nina the evening of the prologue, we did not know each other, let alone skied together, yet we immediately got along and I could not have asked for a better team mate for my first event. Although Nina had a lot more skiing experience than me living in the South Alps, it was also her first “grand course” of ski alpinism. The blind leading the blind you could say.
The evening stage was relatively “easy” being at night and staying on the pistes for safety reasons. The speed however and the amount of technical change overs from skiing to climbing to skiing to a “portage” which means skis on back and on foot up steep gradients, was incredible for such a short course. We were blown away by the high level of athletes in this race, from olympians to world champions and UTMB winners, this sport was for the elites and we were certainly not elites in this sport! But we stood our ground and were happy not to get lost in it all!
Saturday was a different story. My mind was blown on the Saturday stage. Probably one of the hardest races I have ever done. The speed at which these athletes do very technical transitions, technical traverses over ridge lines and technical downhills is difficult to process it being a newbie in this sport.
Where my strength lay purely in the speed I could go uphill, Nina’s brilliance lay in her ability to stay calm and focussed during the transitions, her technical skills in the multiple kick turns and her down hill skiing ability. Everything but I mean everything was done at full speed during these races. You would be pulling your skins of your skis with a heart rate sitting a max as fast as you could. Who knew that putting your boot into your ski could be so difficult when you are gasping for air??
Even though I had studied the course before hand I lost count of the amount of transitions during the day. In the end I felt we were actually really strong in our transitions leaving the area often before other teams who were already there when we arrived. Following Nina on the downhills was a challenge for me. It is hard to explain how fast and how technical the off piste descents were. They involved little narrow “couloirs” at 40% gradients if not steeper at times in all sorts of ski conditions, from soft powder to hard crust and icy slopes. The race skis are super light, narrow skis which are difficult to ski at the best of times, let alone at high speeds. My legs were burning and I felt everything BUT in control chasing Nina down the mountain. When my race brain is in action however it simply does not let me slow down as much as I want to try!
We were unlucky on Saturday when we got stuck behind people for at least 30min on a ridge line (strava has evidence of this!) and therefore missed the cut off time for the final 300m climb and were redirected on course B which was the two day course. Although happy with our race we were a bit disappointed when we got told by the organisers we would get a two and half hour(! ) penalty for this or we could chose to do the B course on Sunday and our time would count in their results. Either was not ideal because we had done a lot more climbing on the Saturday compared to the B course, and we also had the prologue already in our legs. But at the end of the day we there for the experience. When we looked at the B course for Sunday it only missed out a climb and descent on piste compared to the A course which made the B course much more interesting for us.
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| finding team flow with Nina |
With what felt like very little rest we were back on the start line on Sunday morning ready for another speedy day in the mountains. Where Nina’s fears were the climbs I was worried about the downhills because I had not really enjoyed them on the Saturday. We started a bit higher on Sunday which meant we had to take a chairlift and ski down to the start. It got me in a frozen state and I did not feel good. The race started with an icy technical kick turn climb (not my strength) and we were stuck behind people. I struggled to find my rhythm feeling nauseas and worried for the remainder of the day. Surprisingly chasing Nina on the downhills on Saturday had progressed my skiing some what and I could keep her insight. Feeling a lot more in control I started to enjoy the high speeds we were flying down the mountain passing a few teams in the process. The ridges on Sunday were more exposed and technical and involved scrambling up icy rock on crampons at close to 3000m altitudes as fast as we could go whilst being attached to a fixed rope with Via Ferrata kit. Clip, unclip, clip unclip, clip unclip as fast as you can following the rope over a narrow ridge line. What I love most about racing is that your brain is so focussed on moving forward fast, there is no room for fear. You are climbing up with your heart rate close to max, and only focus on your feet, your hands, the ropes, the rock and ridges ahead of you, it is like all the movements become automatic after a while trying to be most efficient. I love how calm my brain becomes whilst doing this.
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| transitioning from skinning to skiing as fast as possible |
As the day got on Nina and I became more and more relaxed. We laughed with our fellow competitors, chatted to the awesome volunteers, powered up the climbs and flew down the descents, I felt like the second half of the Sunday we started really flowing well together, complementing our strengths and weaknesses and it was pretty cool to feel that team spirit.
We were pretty happy to see the finish line and that we were able to complete this incredible tough course, our crash course into ski alpinisme racing! Close to 5 hour days at full speed was hard! With only a few female teams entered we managed a 3rd place in the B course which was the icing on the cake.
Unfortunately Antoine was ill after a very strong start with Yann and could not race on Sunday. Luckily Yann was allowed to race solo but without a number on his back which still made for a good training day which he was happy about. Our other room mates Jules and Martin had a very strong performance coming top third in this very elite field.
It is hard to describe how tough this sport of ski alpinisme is and how many skill sets you need to have to be able to do well at it. It has certainly blown my mind but it was equally one of the coolest experiences I have had racing. It has inspired me to keep working at it to become faster and the Pierra Menta is on my bucket list now more than ever!
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| I feel lucky to have been accepted by Yanns friends showing me life in the mountains |
Since I have been living in the mountains I have been able to tick off one bucket list event after an other. I can not thank Yann and his friends enough for taking the time to teach me, to support me and inspire me to keep on learning, keep on dreaming and keep on progressing.
A big thanks to Hammer Nutrition who has made a real difference for me in recovery and proper race fuelling which has been a weakness of mine for years and which I can now turn into a strength.
Whats next? No rest for the wicked, more ski alpinisme races of course!
"Be willing to be a beginner every single morning"