PowderPeople | RIP Guillaume Le Guillou from La Grave

It all started with a bike festival in La Grave in the summer of 2007. Baschi Bender was invited as a photographer to the bike photo/video contest Fat Wheels and asked me to take part as a rider. Together with Jan, we set off for the Western Alps and spent the following days getting to know the special flair of La Grave, which can even be felt in summer.

Bruno Florit and Guillaume Le Guillou have been organising the Fat Wheels Festival every summer since 2004, which was actually mainly about having a great, unforgettable time in the impressive landscape around La Grave. Of course, a number of impressive bike pictures were also taken. Basically, the invited teams were completely free to decide where and how they wanted to compile the images in the two days leading up to the award ceremony - the only requirement was that they should relate to the specified categories and not exceed the specified limits of the valley.

And it was precisely this freedom and openness that we encountered in the people who have settled in this special, picturesque little village. One of them was Guillaume Le Guillou, known simply as Guigui, who first landed in Grenoble from the big city of Paris because of his passion for snowboarding and then finally stuck right here in 2004. He grew up in Brittany, but the family always spent their holidays in their holiday home in the mountains of Valloire - not so far away from La Grave on the other side of the Col de Galibier.

With his modest and affectionate character and his charming grin, a friendly relationship was immediately established - you couldn't help but take him straight to your heart. By 2007, Guigui had already made a name for himself as a photographer - both for biking and, above all, for snow sports.

His high-contrast - often black and white - images elevated winter sports photography to an artistic level and he found the perfect landscape below the summit of La Meije in La Grave. Whether it was the wind-affected snow surface on the wide slopes of the Girose glacier, the rugged steep faces in the narrow couloirs or the angular ice formations on the descents such as Pan de Rideau or the Col de la Girose. Guigui knew like no other how to capture the snow-covered mountains in all their wildness in (almost) every one of his pictures and to place the skier or snowboarder in the right position.

Since the early 90s of the last century at the latest, La Grave has stood for free skiing or freeriding of the original, somewhat anarchic kind with an unrivalled seal of quality: a completely outdated gondola from the seventies and exactly one piste with a drag lift on the glacier. All routes back to the valley lead through more or less serious off-piste terrain, which is so variable and therefore probably unique in the world.

Those who stay here or visit again and again love the freeride mecca for its freedom, personal responsibility, but also for its consistency and the special flair that prevails here, especially in winter. It seems that in such an original and passionate place, it's mainly just as passionate and honest people who stick around.

This flair had also caught us. It was precisely these friendships, which were intensified and experienced through many visits and adventurous descents over the next few years, that made it easy for us to come here again and again. And Guigui played an important role in this with his extremely hospitable manner. He and Anne always had a place for us in their small flat. Guigui took everyone with him on every trip - regardless of whether they were on skis or a snowboard, had a lot of experience or very little! The main thing was to have the same passion that he had for life in the snow.

Then, over his first coffee in the morning, he packed his overweight f-stop photo rucksack and off he went. There were hardly any breaks until the evening and the first beer at the Castillan, so that he could sufficiently indulge his two passions. After the last beer, the images from the day were analysed over the penultimate coffee at home and the plan for the next day was discussed. This went on day in, day out - at least as long as the conditions were good.

In it, he occasionally mentioned his desire to produce snowboards himself one day and found his own small snowboard company - not for profit, but simply to incorporate his own ideas into the shapes he loved to ride down the mountains. And to enrich the (snowboard) world with a few artistic pieces of jewellery that met his high standards of design and functionality. Above all, however, to finally have adequate splitboards for the ascent, as he consistently had to use snowshoes because there were simply hardly any splitboards in his favourite shapes at that time.

In 2019, his dream became a reality and he founded the snowboard brand Âme - with the same passion he had for everything before, he was suddenly a shaper, managing director, web designer, salesman, marketing boss and athlete all in one. He had acquired so many skills and contacts over the years that this became possible as his ultimate project.

From the beginning with a big focus on freeride á La Grave, seven different splitboards and six different snowboards were created within four years, some of which with special shapes, such as the La Grave-original swallow tail Makoblast in 185 cm, and also with limited designs, such as the Black Swan (art work by Alexander Jansson) or the Roam. These were very well reviewed and were sold on the international market and also won awards.

Nevertheless, a lot of money had to be invested each time in order to be able to develop another series and produce sufficient quantities. Guigui took this risk with the same conviction as the descents into the serious terrain of La Grave.

Guigui died unexpectedly on 20 January 2024. The Âme Snowboards will probably no longer be available in future, unless there is someone interested in the production materials that have been developed who wants to keep Guigui's legacy alive. He had already been working on new designs and shapes for the next boards. Anne is now trying to sell some remaining stocks of Âme snow- and splitboards at a reduced price in order to refinance the investment. If you are interested in placing an order or have an idea how to keep Âme Snowboards alive, please contact us via email. Every single purchase helps!