Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25062
mesmerizing, filled with stone ramparts and raging skiers. ibi lity was sti ll freaky and the new snow mostly untracked when Raoul plowed into a submerged rock outcropping, thigh fi rst. He was lucky to ski away from it and we began to notice the mounting toll around us: two helicopter evacuations in thick clouds, people in restaurants limping and bloody, shattered boarders downloading on the telepheriq ues. La Grave was more like an arena for some wicked, full-contact than for skiing and I kept wondering what drew anyone at all. Some wild men from New Jersey had been there two weeks, grooving on having so much big skiing mostly to themselves. A French guide and his Dutch clients were just doing it by numbers (the 20 must-ski routes tourists bagging name-brand mountains). A couple of cheerful amilies from Norway were there because La Grave isn't just another sterile resort and it has a good reputation throughout Scandinavia. Tout Ie monde of free skiing was also on hand. American legends Doug and Emily Coombs were running their steep-skiing camps in La Grave for the winter. :Sick" Rick Armstrong, who guides in Alaska and goes big in ski pictures, had just pulled in for a visit, lu red by The Word and the chance to push hi mself. Teton Gravity Research, one of the hot alpine filmmakers, rolled in with young stars Jason Prigge and Cursten Kramer in tow. Whatever it was that brought people to town, after five weeks without a trace of snow everyone was psyched by the storm. They were out in full force, raving all day. That night the small bars in the hotel and on La Grave's highway rocked. The air was filled with more than the usual elation of ski-town bars, it reverberated with the manic euphoria that accompanies not just having fun, but surviving. At most ski areas you may be moderately concerned about tweaking a knee or shoulder, but at La Grave the stakes are considerably higher. That very fact is what lures increasing numbers of punters and wannabes, and with the sketchy conditions they were just fodder for the carnage. We were hunkered down in the din of the Glacier Bar and Doug Coombs was talking about the day. "We're looking up at this guy snapping nice turns down a face, boom, boom, boom, and I think okay, now he. suddenly he's got 40 feet of air and he's just flai ling. We saw that happening everywhere, people just going for it. " "Crazy, " concluded Coombs. "I've been here a month and I'm only scratching the surface. We did a run today, 8,000 vertical. It was 35 degrees, then a cliff, more 35, an icefall, more 35, rock bands. You couldn't do it if you weren't prepared, " he emphasized. "We call them sucker tracks. You follow someone's line and suddenly it's time to rappel. If you can't, you're gonna be climbing back the way you came." There's growing concern about the number of sucker tracks 26 magazines are leading to La Grave, encouraging people to come who aren't up to it, the very same goofs who sideslip double-black-diamond runs in America so they can spew about it in the bar later. And people