Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25062
are worried about tourism destroying the area. Ironically, much of the angst comes from non-natives. People like Coombs and Armstrong came because of the mountaineering possibilities and the chance to ski super-steep 50-degree slopes on a regular basis. But they don't want to be part of the area's ruin. Local business people like Tonnelier and her husband Vincent don't see more action as all bad. People have really only been skiing the mountain for the last ten years, and it's huge, the size of two or three Jackson Holes. Surely, they say, there's room for more. On my last day I got to see it busy, an unnerving omen of the future. It was a pure bluebird morning and the small parking lot at the lift was overflowing with day skiers coming in from neighboring areas. Raoul was out with rock damage so I went with instructor Didi Haase, a top European multi-gl isse talent, and a 16-year-old boarder from Paris named Benjamin. The base lift line was nearly an hour, but since few people actually ski all the way back to the bottom during the day, the mountain absorbs people fai rly quickly and Didi steered us to uncrowded slopes. On the Chancel side we did 35-degree Patou couloir, a picture-book chute with perfectly protected snow. On the Meije side we squeaked into the notorious main Triffide couloir, 40 degrees of anorexic windslab twisting through lethal rockwork. Didi described being chased down it one day by a sl ide and I wondered if that was what he meant when he said he had moved to La Grave for, "the new challenges every day." Of the challenges, there's no doubt. La Grave is big, spooky and unique. But what will also draw me back are the people, the intimate alpine town and the raw wildness of the slopes. • LIKE MOST STEAMBOAT LOCALS. JOHN FLOYD HAS HIS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT. THE SKIS COST MORE THAN THE TRUCK.