just here.

The article which follows speaks of skiing but deontology obliges me to warn familiar readers of this winter practice, that you will find no front flip over 40 metre rocky drops, no rodeo 5.4, cork 7.2 not even the hint of a jib and nevertheless skiers such as Seth Morisson, JP Auclair, Julien Régnier were present that day... The only helicopters cercling the sky way below us were not the spies of an American super production but those of the less glamorous Alpine rescue teams. We are in Chamonix, on a Monday morning in May, the weather is nice and fresh after three days of rain which, though will not change the water level of the underground lakes in the countryside have tinted the North face of the Aiguille du Midi white...

The doors of the cable car have just closed on Elina and Julien, who managed to clear a patch amongst the hard-core skiers and snowboarders sharing this confined space with a Japanese coach. A few members of the Blackcrows team are going to ski the Mallory, like all the other riders in the 'benne'. It's a steep and strenuous descent but with very easy access. You put on your skis at the exit of the ice gallery, then you slide down following the cable lines, easy peasy. We are absolutely not motivated by ending our winter in style by placing turns in freshly fallen snow, but to turn a small independent ski brand into a multinational earning an enormous amount of dough which we can then share between shareholders in the Canary Islands, or I should say between business partners, at the end of each winter. Nothing easier in these times of crisis and climatic warming, anyone will tell you this is the wisest investment you could possibly make: launch a ski brand.

-" Now what shall we do?"

--" Doesn't look too bad."

With François, we watch Alex Pittin cut across the first slope wondering if the snow will break away beneath his skis. François is our guide, a sound and serious guy, the one who woke me last night at 5 in the morning by leaping on my bed and yelling like a madman. I can't blame him as he is drunk as a devil having been to the closing of an obscur Chamoniard night establishment in the compagny of other members of Blackcrows, whose names I will not mention out of decency. We are not the only ones watching, the small group of Asians are looking on in astonishment at the strange creatures with undefined intentions and absurd behaviour skiing in a place they don't deem adapted to winter sports. Elina is looking for the right angle, the right frame to immortalise the moment we throw ourselves into the slope with the hope of getting some beautiful shots with promises of glory and wealth, as well as worldwide recognition and admiring looks from young girls in cable car waiting lines.

And so we set off for a long and beautiful vertical journey with the leafy valley and prairies of Les Houches and Vaudagne as backdrop. We traverse one by one under the summit seracs. It's soft and easy and not to steep yet, at the end of the traverse the serious stuff starts, with grace and style, well each with his own, we begin to throw some jump turns between the rocks and sometimes on them which is quite disturbing, even unbalancing when, at the end of a curve, you can hear the sound of your edges on rock at the wrong place and at the wrong time. I follow with mixed concern Julien's progress as with every turn he dislodges cubic metres of fresh snow with his big Nocta's 188 which he could have left in La Plagne and had the foresight to swap them for a more adapted pair of skis... But as he told me himself, afterwards, he prefers to have skis on which he feels comfortable, for his second run at the Aiguille du Midi and his first taste of steep slopes, it's understandable. Things had started out well, we felt confident with the slope and the snow until we hit the first sketch passage ( for all those who are not familiar with 'slope' vocabulary, sketch means very steep, hard snow and rocks, and if you fall you're dead...). Here, I decide to swerve to the left to hit a passage permitting me to avoid the one where all the guys before us went, maybe seven of them, all skidding clutching ice axes and rocks, something I'd happily do without remembering last week's experience. Bingo! it's better and Julien, whose followed me, is also seeming to appreciate the confort of fresh snow. François is belaying Camille who's playing around with his ice axe, between a poor season and the arrival of a new inhabitant in the valley, his mountain practice had relatively slowed down this year, and I'm not talking about the winter. Anyway, what a great way to finish the season especially knowing I'd promised him a cool descent in soft snow, omitting the fact that rain at altitude had formed a bitch of a layer of ice under the powder which crumbles away after the first tracks. As we level with the fork leading on to Eugster couloir, we pull out the ice axes and this new step by step descent technic on hard snow and vertical slope over long distances is truly pleasant. After a while one leg seizes up and the other trembles, you look up praying that your mate, of which you can globally appreciate the esthetics of his die-cut soles, doesn't fall; and whilst moaning against the motherfuckers who are sending down streams of snow: a moment of pure happiness. Oh, the joy of the first absail! especially when you have to start in switch to get past the rocks. Those unforgettable moments, four of us hanging on a small piece of old rope and those shitty traverses above the abyss. Here, we can really start talking about exposure. Luckily, after the two first absails, we find ourselves at the summit of a ridge where we can start making turns again and forget for a short time mountaineering and rope manoeuvres. Camille joins me and moderates my enthusiasm by informing me that Tristan, who was in the last cablecar to glide over us, saw Lucas, the snowboarder, go head first into a snow drift in the group which preceeded us. He called François straight away... One of the tourist's standing next to him in the 'benne' ask seriously if there was an extreme ski competition today. We really made the most of those few turns of the ridge, the snow was amazing, the setting and atmosphere epic all with relative ease as opposed to what was to follow. To cut it short, because I'm sure you are sick to death with my story, it got really steep and most of all really icy and even with an ice axe in hand, we were pushed right over our threshholds. Its in moments like these when you'd rather be in another place and doing something else with your life, even if we are pros and we must make a living out of it. This is also part of the joys of skiing when your mate is in a bad way ten metres away from you and you can't do anything else but lie to him by saying it's cool, the snow is good and all is well, because even if you set off as a group, you are alone when you ski. In the meantime, fast and well rehearsed curves are being shaped above us, perfectly normal as it's Nathan Wallace, Seth Morisson, JP Auclair... who turn up. And here, I realise when seeing their skis that they are seriously exaggerating, honestly professionals like themselves should know better. I'm lead to believe that they havn't read the ski tests done by the specialized press which classify and explain very clearly what you should ski and on which snow according to your practice. Now this is really taking the piss or else Seth would not have taken his pro model full Rocker and JP could have been better informed, I say nothing. Well, Julien explained his reasons but Julien is a case ... Now that I am blacklisted by 90% of ski magazine editing staff and I can stick my article you know where, unless Camille wants to put it on our blog. Meanwhile, I have joined the others and offer my help to François to pull in the ropes, which he declines; he then takes off in search of a good anchorage to secure a final solide absail. Whilst waiting, I turn around and look incredulously at Nat's two rope ends dangling in the middle of a "gore tex" passage ( see explanation for sketch) a good ten metres above a much gentler area.

-" OKEY buddys take off your skis and put your’s crampons ! "

We have difficulty believing this because we are no hatchlings at BlackCrows, but I secretly thank François to have advised me to take a sixty metre rope instead of a forty ... But if you " pas tombe", it's cool.

Once the last absail over and tension vanquished, we start to laugh and mess around, because between one thing and the other we spent a lot of time on the face. Camille unsheaves his Blackberry, Julien and François come up with the pictures of our descent, and Ju asks me whether after this momentous descent he could now be considered an extreme skier?

Text :Bruno

Photos : Elina Sirparanta ( elinaphoto.com ) ; François Régis-Thevenet and Camille Jaccoux

Vidéo : The Scroll
Notes on this video by Julien Regnier

Watching this video in its entirety is purely optional, feel free to do so or stop or move on at will. When I went up l'Aiguille du Midi, for the first time last year, skiing the 'Mallory' wasn't even an option; but last summer I started climbing and this winter skied more and more verticals which lead me, on my second visit to l'Aiguille du Midi, to thinking what a good idea it would be to go off to the left and ski the 'Mallory'; one of the classic vertical descends in Chamonix.

Bruno Compagnet is a freeride ski legend in France, Camille Jacoux is a childhood friend who I hadn't skied with in a long time. A dream team with Fanfan, a young guide from the valley. It's an adventure, a trip, you'll see it's amazing said Bruno. It's a long descent for which you need all your wits about you as the slightest mistake could take you places you'd rather not think about. I always wondered how to share this type of experience, not an easy task, and this is why I wanted to film the whole story or nearly, up to you to decide, the length is a reflection on the spirit of adventure.

I'm really happy to finally be using Sonic Youth as soundtrack to a ski film: part 1 of Sonic Youth SYR6: Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (avec Tim Barnes).