I’ve been obsessed with Chamonix for a long time. It is an intoxicating place where you can sip espresso in a cafe and know with some certainty that the guy who just walked by you in the Petzl thong definitely did something rad that day.  The town has a potent mixture of accessible-yet-mega objectives in many sports. To sum it up: stoke-inducing!

When our new friend Felipe posted on the Zurich Googler Skier Forum that he was looking for partners to do an AIARE 2 course in Chamonix, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to continue my avalanche education while going back to a place that is quite meaningful.

Felipe and his wife Leslie gave us a ride from Zurich to Chamonix (in their Subaru Outback!). Felipe is Brazilian, and Leslie is an American PhD student at ETH. They live in Andermatt (a great basecamp for both skiing and climbing) and are kind people we hope to do more exploring with. 

The road from Martigny is a series of switchbacks on a barely 2-lane road that has been featured in the Tour de France. Add on the meter of snow that the area had received in the last week and I was very happy I was not driving! We crossed the unguarded border into Vallorcine then took the tunnel into Chamonix because the Col des Montets was closed. In the morning we walked outside and HOLY it had snowed at least 40 cm overnight on top of the meter that had already fallen in the week prior. Fat flakes were still coming down. We walked to Chamex to meet our instructor Danny.

Danny is from Boise, with a ton of experience and a teaching style that could be described as stream of consciousness. Each day, we would start by making a plan in the AIARE booklet:

• Who are you touring with?
• What are the avalanche conditions?
• What’s the weather?
• What’s the terrain plan?
• What risks are you taking on with that plan?
• What will you do in an emergency?

It was level 5 avalanche danger because of the sheer amount of snow. The Mayor of Chamonix tweeted that it was the most snow Chamonix had experienced in mid-December since the 1950s. Needless to say, we decided to stay out of avalanche terrain that day! We went up the valley to Le Tour, which has great low angle options though you could certainly get into some fun trouble if conditions were right. By just walking up the cat track to ski a 25 degree slope we set off a small avalanche that sympathetically triggered another below. We turned around, skiing down the gentle piste, getting face shot after face shot. It was so light and deep that you really had to time when you went up for air!! As you are supposed to do in avalanche education, we debriefed after a glorious day in the falling snow, dissecting when we were most at risk, what we thought went well, etc. Additionally, Fred and I had an incredible tartiflette, which dare I say might be my favorite way to enjoy cheese and potatoes.

The next day, we also skied at Le Tour, getting higher since it was not actively snowing. We still stayed out of avalanche terrain and dug a pit just to understand temperature gradients, which helped me visualize snow metamorphism and how problematic layers can stick around. The sheer amount of snow that had fallen was pretty spectacular: our pit was 160 cm deep, most of which had come in the last week. My highlight was Freddy finding a skintrack that was too gentle even for him! Imagine what the Jake’s skintrack layer would say! Additionally, we went to an exquisite cheese shop called L’alpage des Aiguilles, where a short cheesemonger with an extravagant updo told us the Beauforte d’étè was *chef’s kiss* so we had to get some along with a Reblochon. I know this has nothing to do with skiing, but Freddy made an incredible Tartiflette from the Reblochon later in the week. Wow, French cheese..what else can I say?

On Sunday, we skied at Flegère (tickets were 52 Euros for a full day), which is the resort on the sunny side of the Chamonix valley with a fat view of the Mont Blanc Massif. It was a total Type 1 day: full fun in the sun and it had only 30% of the angry thirst you feel in the KT line on a powder day. From an avalanche learning perspective, it was hard to make objective decisions about the snowpack with everyone skiing everywhere. We skied a cool SW facing couloir that was rather enjoyable, and we had a good discussion on why we felt comfortable skiing in avalanche terrain.

To summarize my AIARE 2 experience: You’re paying someone to help you verbalize and justify every decision you make in the backcountry. What would you ski on a Level 3 day? How is stability trending? What uncertainty do you have? Is this skintrack in a runout zone? Should we ski this one at a time? Where is a safe place to wait for you? I thought it was a good exercise because it’s scary to think about the amount of “right” decisions you need to make in avalanche terrain and never knowing if you’re getting lucky. The learnings I felt that I have latched onto the most are:

• Runlist: put all your ski tours you do regularly on a list and say under which avalanche rating/problem you would feel comfortable with - there’s a site in CH that kind of does that for you (www.skitourenguru.ch)
• Knowing when you're entering avalanche terrain and double checking: Danny called this "getting on the bus." Everytime the group is getting on the bus, stop and take the time to make that decision consciously. This also helped me categorize observations vs decisions

I don’t think one needs to take this class to learn these things (you could do this with your friends or note these things after you tour), but I’m happy to be pushed to explain my decision making since I can’t be reliant on familiar terrain (not that that is the only datapoint your should rely on to make decisions in avalanche terrain!). The Alps feel really fucking big, and for now, I want a big margin for error.

After a divine day of skiing, we started driving home, fulfilled and frothed by the stoke Chamonix inspires. Leslie and Felipe dropped us off in Visp, making the direct train back to Zurich a breeze. Another fun and informative weekend skiing!