Bernhard Scholz

The news of Sylvain Sauda's death at the age of 87 from a heart attack is a loss for the entire skiing and mountaineering scene. Saudan's pioneering spirit and his courageous descents set standards and inspired many generations of skiers and mountaineers.

Anselme Baud is a legend of steep face climbing. Together with Patrick Vallençant, he achieved many first ascents in the Western Alps, and later also in the Himalayas. As contemporaries of Sylvain Saudan and Heini Holzer, they naturally kept a close eye on their activities. While Saudan sometimes flew to the steep face by helicopter, Baud and Vallençant pursued a more alpine style. Today one would say: by fair means.

It's warm, a summer's day. Sylvain Saudan welcomes us to his office in Les Houches, a small town near Chamonix. The office is right next to the police station and consists of a small L-shaped room with a large glass front. There are old skis in the corners, bookshelves full of files and a chest of drawers overflowing with odds and ends. Stacks of papers and magazines line the walls here and there. Large-format mountain photographs dominate the scene. It doesn't look untidy or sterile - someone is obviously going about their work here and enjoying the view over the village square.

PG author Bernhard Scholz is working (among other things) on a book about steep face skiing. He has conducted so many interviews, rummaged through so many archives and collected so much material that there is enough left over to put some of it online. On his blog Skialpinist you can find historical information as well as thoughts on terms and definitions. More will be added gradually, so it's worth checking back from time to time. He has put together an overview of the beginnings of steep face skiing for us:

Two years ago, La Sportiva launched the Spectre, a ski touring boot that feels almost like a ski touring boot on the ascent and almost like an alpine boot on the descent. Not only does it weigh less than 3 pounds, but it is also packed with innovative details.

In the third part of the ski building series, we finally get to the ski building itself. The actual construction phase, the laminating itself, is short and relatively uncomplicated. It is more important that all the parts fit together, as there is no time to make adjustments during lamination.

The ski dealer has closed his store, there's nothing decent on eBay any more and you can only buy really low quality ready-made skis anyway. Only the old models are being repainted anyway, the innovation engine is the small companies with their unaffordable special pieces, which will probably go bankrupt the day after tomorrow. The only thing left to do is build it yourself. Skis are no witchcraft at all, and are even quite simple to build.

Rudi Depowski had once again smashed his skis, shot irretrievably into the afterlife. A shark suddenly emerging head-on from the wonderful powder has split his best pole in two. New skis are not in sight, especially now that the biggest northerly jam since 1999 is looming within a week. What to do? Crystal clear: we have to build our own skis!