The media savvy Swiss born French skier known in his home country as the “Le Skier de l’impossible) is once again in Kashmir. Sylvain was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1936. His biography has been written by Paul Dreyfus and is called “Sylvain Saudan, the Skier de l’impossible”. It would be interesting to reproduce some extracts for the information of his admirers in Kashmir.

“Saudan grew up near the tiny village of Verbier where he skied to school during the winter. His working life started as a truck driver but his true vocation was skiing and the mountains. Coming from a poor family he didn’t have the money or contacts to compete on the professional ski circuit and became a ski instructor instead. In the early sixties he took off for a prototypical gap year which saw him working at Aspen in the USA, Mount Cook in New Zealand and finally, as the resident professional at Scotland’s Glen Shee. During his travels he was increasingly drawn towards the backcountry and descents of previously unskied slopes. Nicknamed “The Skier of the Impossible” he put up a first descent of the direct 45 degree line of the Couloir Sans Nom on the face of the Rothorn in the spring of 1967. A month later he skied the north face of the Corvatsch in St Moritz, around 1000 meters of vertical at over 45°. The lift company were not impressed and pulled his lift pass when he reached the bottom. He was ‘a bad example to other skiers’ according to the piste director. Finally on the 23rd of September 1967 Saudan gave himself a fantastic birthday present with the first descent of the Couloir Spencer in Chamonix.

In the early 1970s the south west face of the Eiger, the south face of the Grandes Jorasses and the couloir of the Tournette on the south west side of Mont-Blanc all fell to Saudan. Then in the winter of 1971 he was invited to The Meadows ski area in North America. The technical director thought he might be interested in Mount Hood. This 3419 meter volcano, flanked by 8 glaciers and situated just 175km from the Pacific coast and its weather systems, had only been climbed 20 years before. Now Saudan was considering a descent by a challenging couloir on the Northeast side where nobody had yet set foot. On the 3rd of March, after two weeks of delay the weather cleared and a helicopter was called. Meadows had already received over 17 meters of snow and a climb was impossible. The small, two seater Bell, finally arrived at three in the afternoon. The pilot had been busy with a film production on the coast. Sylvain climbed aboard. “We’ll try to go up, but there’s not much chance, too much wind”, the pilot screamed over the noise of the rotors. The flight gave Saudan his first good look at the couloir. Four times the pilot tried to land on the small, snow capped dome, finally succeeding on the fifth. The pilot returned to fetch Saudan’s partner, the Avoriaz guide Anselme Baud and his gear. The summit temperature was –35C, it was already late in the afternoon and the sky was growing dark. A cup of hot tea then Sylvain said goodbye to Anselme and entered the 50-degree – 55 in places, slope. “For the first time in my life I felt my legs freezing… for the first turns I couldn’t feel my skis… I was worried about wind slab avalanches meters of snow had been blown by the previous day’s blizzard”.

The first couloir was 300 meters long but the descent was blocked by cliffs, Sylvain had to traverse to a second couloir. But he entered too high. On the diamond hard ice there was no chance to turn or even make a conversion, he would have to back up. Digging the edges of his over 2 meter long skis as hard as he could, his pole tips barely gripping, the operation took the best part of 30 minutes. To reach the second couloir Sylvain once again had to cross this icy trap then below him the slope opened up, 1500 meters of vertiginous descent to Clark Canyon.

The start of the couloir was too narrow to turn, rock walls loomed on either side. Could he stop himself if he got up speed at the start? “If the snow was hard I’d be in trouble…this was the key to the whole descent” He threw a rock, the snow was soft, a couple of turns and the couloir began to open. In the solitude cold was forgotten and he began to relax. He made short turns, trying to avoid triggering an avalanche. A further surprise, there were numerous crevasses and a Bergschrund then Saudan was on the gentle slopes of the glacier. At the base a hundred people were waiting, journalists, ski instructors, photographers and fans. A big round of applause, interviews, photos. The Skier’s Gazette wrote a huge piece about the “Superman on Mount Hood”

In 1982 Saudan descended from the top of the 8068 meter Gasherbrum-I in the Karakorum Mountains. This was the climax of his first descents. He had earlier descended 7135 meter Nun in Kashmir. His association with Kashmir is very fascinating. He came to Kashmir first time in 1976, more than 30 years back. I had the privilege of bringing him to Kashmir and that too was an interesting coincidence. In 1975 I had been invited to Chamonix in France by its mayor, Maurice Herzog, the most famous French climber who had made the first ascent of Annapurna. During my visit he introduced me to Sylvain Saudan as the most famous and crazy extreme skier of France. Sylvain was at that time looking for 7,000 metre peak in the Himalaya to ski down as he had already skied down the 6,000 metre Mount McKinley. I offered him 7,135 metre high Nun peak in the Suru valley of Kargil. Sylvain came to Srinagar in 1976 with a small team to climb and ski down Nun. However, he had under estimated Nun and had to turn back half way. There was extensive media coverage in Paris claiming that the impossible skier had been beaten for the first time by Nun peak. It gave worldwide publicity to Nun which has become one of the most well known peaks of Himalaya and is frequented by a large number of foreign expeditions every year. In his press conference in Paris on return from Nun after his first failure, Sylvain declared that Nun is a challenge to him and he will not rest until he climbs and skis down the mountain. He came again in 1977 but this time he was well prepared and determined. He successfully climbed and skied down the mountain. In 1986, I again met him in Chamonix and asked him about his latest adventure. He had started heli-skiing. This is a sport involving the use of a helicopter to reach high mountain ridges for skiing down virgin slopes. Some of the best skiers prefer to ski down in different unexplored areas as the traditional ski areas are very much crowded and the slopes are beaten up. They like to ski in new areas on powder snow. Kashmir has the world’s best ski slopes with ideal snow conditions. With the use of a helicopter one can ski every day on a new slope in totally different areas. I offered Sylvain the possibility of starting regular heli-skiing programme in Kashmir. He immediately accepted and started his project in 1987. He continued the programme through the worst years of militancy. A number of hiccups because of helicopter problems and uncertain conditions have not discouraged him and he is once again back with his “companion” Marie Jose Valencot. Together they are putting Kashmir on the foreign circuit in spite of the worst advisories. They deserve some encouragement from the local Tourism Industry both the public and the private sector. He is here not for money but for love of Kashmir which he never wants to leave. A true story in persistence!