High spring skiing adventure in Chamonix

One of the legendary spring skiing adventures is a trip down the Vallée Blanche along the rugged shoulders of Mont Blanc down into the mountaineering town of Chamonix, France. It is a life-long dream for many serious skiers and was a life-long dream of mine.

Almost two decades ago I attempted to ski down the 12-mile-long glacier Vallée Blanche above Chamonix, France, but conditions wouldn’t permit it. Last, year, I finally had another opportunity to complete the journey.

During my first attempt, the weather had not cooperated. A steady morning drizzle in town meant snow and clouds on the mountains. With crevasses as deep as skyscrapers, ice chunks as big as cars and variable snow, visibility on the glacier is as crucial as having a guide when skiing it. Further, the forecast was for more of the same. Without enough time in Chamonix to wait, I had to abandon the Vallee Blanche.

This time, as before, I reported to the Maison de la Montagne, a stately building housing the guide offices and ski-school offices. It sits, appropriately, next to the church in the center of town. Here in Chamonix, the birthplace of Alpine guiding, mountain guides are next to gods. Until the end of the 19th-century they were the main economic power in Chamonix.

Inside, I talked with the head guide to assure him that my friend and I were capable skiers and in good physical condition for the all-day excursion. They collected about 140 Euros for our group guide fee and instructed us to meet at the base of the Aiguille de Midi cable car early the next morning ready for an adventure.

In the crisp morning, the jagged peaks rose sharply toward a brilliant blue sky, casting shadows across the town, and the wind was restrained. An affable thirty-year-old Parisian named Vincent Lameyre was our official Guide de Haute Montagne. He leads climbers in the summer and skiers in winter through these mountains that he knows intimately. "It's my passion," he said.

Though my heart was racing, I never wavered in my decision when I boarded the cable car to the breathtaking 12,604-foot Aiguille du Midi, a rock outcropping on the flank of Mount Blanc topped with a rocket-looking spire.

I didn't hesitate walking through the tunnel of ice, nor did I flinch when Vincent tightened the harness around my hips that would connect me by rope to eight others in our group for the treacherous journey to the glacier.

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But nothing quite prepared me for what followed: a slow, meticulous descent down a knife-edged ridge with a 6,500-foot drop-off to oblivion. On an icy path as wide as my ski boots, I inched my way down, trying hard to ignore the sheer drop. Tenuously gripping my skis with one hand and a rope guideline with the other, I sidestepped down as slow as the slowest member of my tethered group. I prayed if anything fell, it would be the skis and not one of us.

"Don't look down, don't look down," I repeated to myself, gingerly taking one small step at a time on the slippery slope.

Thankfully, the narrow path dipped below the ridgeline to a plateau where the group gathered to click into skis and begin the all-day journey.

Here reality kicked in: there was no turning back -- no lifts, no ski patrol, no villages. Anyone not able to continue due to injury or sheer fear was extricated via helicopter. (We saw and heard about five choppers throughout the day.)

But the raw beauty of enormous serrated peaks calmed me. I had never been enveloped in such an expanse of nature on this scale. It was exhilarating, knowing we would spend the day exploring this magnificent glacier valley. 

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