Ever since Patrick Vallençant, Anselme Baud, Pierre Tardivel and others launched the movement while people like Doug Coombs, Shane McConkey and others brought it further, extreme skiing has fascinated a lot of people including this writer. Incidentally all these people and many more died on the mountain. A question that I think is not fully answered is: What is extreme skiing? We all heard of the easy clear sounding definition “if you fall you die”. That would somehow settle it; that If you are on a line where a fall could/would be fatal you just skied an “extreme” line. Alright, so is it any-fall-on-this-line-will-kill you or is it a fall-on-this-line-can-kill-you? I think the difference is not insignificant as a lot of places you could die on are not necessarily that extreme. Also, what is an extreme skier? Someone that got lucky a couple of times on some hardcore lines or should it be a more regular occurrence? If so, how regular? Is an extreme skier someone that does X number of descents down a Y degree line or higher that are no shorter than Z elevation loss? As a caution to anyone feeling frisky you can see Garett Bartelt's fall by clicking here.
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