Steep

Just watched an amazing documentary about extreme ski-ing, rented on Lovefilm. It is a must for those who love the mountains, and also gives some interesting insights into some of the personalities involved. There is plenty of incredible footage of people ski-ing down unfeasibly steep slopes and leaping off impossibly tall cliffs, in various locations such as Chamonix, Alaska and Iceland. It took me back to a trip that my friend Jon and I did to La Grave about six years ago - it is a small village in the French alps at the foot of the seriously scary looking Meije mountain, which features in the film. As one interviewee put it, you can be sipping your coffee in a bar one moment and five minutes later you can be at risk of death if you take the wrong turn on the slope. The stories of first descents made by various extreme skiers is pretty captivating, including the first descent of Grand Teton by Bill Briggs in 1971 - just google it to get a sense of his craziness and sense of adventure! Another interesting scene is three ski mountaineers getting caught in a mini avalanche on camera in Iceland.