Jake Fojtik

After hours of bullet trains, sweating, running, and dragging across train platforms, I arrived in Innsbruck late, on a cool spring night. Max, Lily, Atwater, and Alex (the Canadian) were at a chili kebab joint waiting for me. Atwater and the Canadian lived and worked in Denver, and Max and Lily had spent the last few years in Jackson Hole, living and working in the ski industry. I’d spent the last 6 months in Milan, Italy, in my first frustrating semesters at medical school. We drank at the Tribaum craft beer bar, joking and laughing and telling stories about our times in Colorado, Jackson, and Italy.  We settled on the inbounds skiing at Stubai as out objective for the following day.

I’ve skied in and out of bounds on 4 different continents and I can say with ease that Stubai is among the biggest resorts I’ve ever ridden. The initial tram lashes some several thousand feet up the mountain from the valley floor. The pistes spread out in all directions and terrain types. Groomed pistes back to the base of the lifts. Steep, rocky, couloir, cliffs, and bowls beneath chairline. Massive booters and rail gardens on the glacier on the backside (any self respecting European freestyler should be familiar with the Stubai Zoo). To know this resort intimately requires weeks, if not seasons of exploration on the myriad aspects, lifts, areas, parks, cliffs, bowls, and couloir, let alone the immediately accessible sidecountry and backcountry.

Following a few laps on the chairline cliffs, our crew set out for mellow sidecountry laps, eyeing the aprons of untouched snow just above the tops of the chairlifts. After 20 minutes of skinning we cruised down blank whites field back to the piste, and went back up for seconds. On our 2 sidecountry laps I managed to crash and pop my ski off twice, and lose a pole in the pow.

At the mid-mountain lodge, we feasted on pizza, kaiserschmarrn, and beer. Next to us, pulsing techno music spilled out from the apres party at the ‘rave yurt’.

Back in Innsbruck, all the beer and liquor stores closed before we could properly consume. In the hostel dorm, two Spaniards complained about the smell of my socks, long underwear, and, well, me. We laughed with them, then went to Machete’s, a burrito joint near downtown for dinner, and waited entirely too long for out food. Atwater was unwillingly chatted up by a neon-clad Austrian college girl named Mona, still chemically-altered from the Ugly Ski Day debauchery up the road at Axamer Lizum.

Skipping the Nepomuk’s delicious breakfast (leftover cakes and pastries from the bakery), we left to catch the early bus to Axamer Lizum. Atwater and I made a scene gathering breakfast at the only open shop we passed - complete with shouting, payment failures, and throwing random meats, cheeses, and breads on a plate and running out the door after our bus - in order to get breakfast.

Our first line split two rocky monoliths, involved a thousand-foot boot pack, a traverse across a near 50-degree hanging snowfield, and a blind entrance with a double fall-line. We nicknamed the line “the emperor's toilet bowl”, because of its proud, dominant position above the Axamer Lizum Sidcountry, and because of the blind, commenting entrance - once you dropped in, you got “flushed”. The couloir intimidating access belied glorious skiing - the craggy pillars protected the line from the sun, keeping the snow cool and fluffy, despite several days of unrelenting sun prior.

Atwater, the Canadian, and I added a second couloir to our docket for the day, again finding soft snow on the north-facing aspects on sun-protected slopes.

That night, Max, Lily, Atwater, the Canadian, and I moved from the Nepomuk hostel to an AirBnB in old town, by Palais Trapp. The apartment was in an old, classic Austria palace, complete with a full state garden, fountain, and intricately painted walls. The property value was brought down several percentage points upon the arrival of 5 swarthy, sweaty American ski bums.

Sophie, from Boulder, Colorado, joined us in the evening, and Max’s cousin, Lukas joined us for dinner. We ate traditional Tyrolean food in old town. After dinner, we waited for the 6th member of our party, Katie to arrive. She has a bit of an epic on the way, first landing in Munich, then Milan (farther from Innsbruck than Munich) without her ski gear, then taking a strange combination of trains through Italy, Austria, and even Slovenia, to arrive at 9am the following morning.

We set out for Axamer Lizum again. Sophie and I cooked breakfast and coffee at the BnB to avoid anymore cafe catastrophes as seen the previous morning. Weather, it seemed, did not want to cooperate with us today. Before we left the city center, a thick grey layer of clouds smothered and drowned the mountaintops. At the top of the Axamer Lizum train, a pervasive fog swallowed the the summit of the resort. We ate cake and drank cappuccinos while waited for the weather to clear.

Still, a little bad weather wasn’t about to stop us from a day of skiing. We set out for another north-facing couloir, steep, inset, and most, importantly, narrow. This gave us two much easier navigation if conditions turned to complete whiteout - we could follow a wall until we reached the bottom of our couloir, ensuing we wouldn’t accidentally ski off a cliff or get lost. As we skied to the bottom of the line and started skinning up, it started to snow. As we climbed, snow and fog thickened. Once we dropped in, we leap-frogged down the couloir, maintain eyesight and ear-shot contact between our group in spite of the omnipresent grey fog.

For our second line of the day, we tried to ski the ‘secret couloir’ - a line that links the backcountry zones back into the resort proper, but cuts a diagonal path above a several-hundred foot cliff band. The couloir itself isn't particularly challenging or steep, but a wrong turn, or dropping in at the wrong spot can be accidentally fatal. We skinned to the top of the line, and waited for the fog to clear in vain. As we waited, Atwater lead us through some Yoga flows, while the Canadian played classical Italian music on his phone. The fog only deepened, and after a brief discussion and some snacks, we unanimously agreed to bail on the couloir. We skied back to the resort on mellow slopes in a complete whiteout.

The slopes we took back were no steeper than 20 degrees, but still we inched along, unable to see more than a few meters in front of us. The white-grey blanked enveloped everything. There was no definition between ground as sky, no horizon to be gleaned, no features seen to help with orientation. Even the towering spires and monoliths, the jagged ridgelines, and craggy cliffs so unique to Axamer Lizum were eaten by the blinding fog. Lacking depth perception, I was taken in the throes of vertigo, and spent 20 minutes trying to vomit on the side of the piste. Dizziness and nauseous plagued me for hours after.

Unknown to us, Katie had finally arrived at the BnB while were skied, without any ski gear. She told us how her luggage was lost in Denver, and she’d flown to first to Munich, then Milan (again, Munich is much closer to Innsbruck than Milan), than spent the next 10-ish hours on trains essentially circling Innsbruck. I had school back in Milan the next day, and took a train out of Innsbruck later that evening, after leaving some avy and ski gear to Katie to use while she waited for her stuff to arrive.

10-ish days after Innsbruck, following another week of the med-school doldrums, I threw two pairs of skis and all the sharp, pointy things I own (crampons, ice axes, ice screws) into bags and left for Chamonix. It was my second time to the steep skiing mecca this season, and my fifth trip to the valley ever. Each of the prior trips, however, I felt like I hadn’t down Chamonix ‘right’, or on my terms. The first two trips, I was with my family. Even though we skied the Vallee Blanche and Courmayeur, I wanted more. The third trip, I was skunked out of climbing and skiing by shit weather and a closed Aiguille du Midi (don’t go to Chamonix and expect to get rowdy during shoulder season).

My trip this season yielded one of the best powder days I’ve had in my life. I lapped Le Tour from bell-to-bell, racking up face-shots and powder turns. No more than 30 people were at the resort that day, and we found untracked lines every single lap from 9am to 4pm. Still though, it wasn’t what I’d come to Chamonix for, and it wasn’t quite what I wanted. During my time in Utah, Colorado, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, the lines that stand out the most are the one where I was the most scared. Though powder days are certainly more fun, the terrifying, steep, technical descents elicit some visceral intensity and focus I can’t seem to find in other types of skiing. They stick with me longer, sharper, and more profound in memory, and carry a feeling of ‘achievement’ and attachment to the mountain absent in powder days. I came to Chamonix seeking these descents and experiences.

I met the crew at the Milan train station, Max, Lily, and Sophie this time. Katie had rotated in and out, returning my gear before her departure from Milan. Sophie, Max and Lily had just come down from Lake Cuomo, on the tail end of a week spent skiing and eating delicious food in the Italy between the Pizzini and Briancha huts. We schlepped some hundreds of pounds of gear across four trains and three countries, and dropped into the Chamonix valley from the north side, via Vallorcine and Martigny.

The Folie Douce, our hotel, was a monument to the comfortable and the weird. a 20-foot painting of angels and cherubs circling a DJ at a turntable and a red suit welcomed guests in the lobby. Just down the hall, a silks dancer warmed up, and a DJ was already spinning beats behind the bar. No one was dancing.

Our living space was roughly the size of a 4-person train compartment, with 3 ‘bunk-beds’ built into the wall to maximize space. I’ve shat in bathrooms larger than our room. It was like sleeping in a well-designed, high-fashion submarine. We tripped over each other’s gear, put our boots on and off in the hallway, and stored our skis in the shower at night to save room.

From the petit hotel room, we set out for the Aiguille du Midi, the central artery deploying skiers and climbers to the high mountains, routes, and glaciers that give Chamonix its terrifying reputation. It’s the launch point for Mont Blanc attempts, the highest mountain in the European Alps, and the first stop for some of the gnarliest ski descents in the world. Despite heinous winds, weather cooperated today. It was the first and only day of my time in Chamonix the Aiguille ran unfettered by weather.

After obligatory cafe stops, we skied the Vallee Blanche. It’s a Chamonix classic, and one of the most scenic descents anywhere in the world. The descent follows some 12 miles of the Mer du Glace glacier  from the Aiguille du Midi to the Montenvers train station at the toe of the glacier. From downtown, after our breakfast pastries and coffees, the cable cars ferried us 3000 meters from the valley floor the Aiguille du Midi.

About halfway down the VB, we stopped at the Refuge de Requin, a hut perched high above the glacier floor. We ate berry pie and warm coffee as we sought shelter from the unrelenting wind. After the hut, we sought to climb and ski something small in the glacier valley, and we skinned up towards Aiguille du Tacul, hoping to ski one of the nearby couloirs. After about 30 minutes on the skin track, we found crevasses increasing in size and complexity. I was leading the train, following some tracks as they snaked through the glacial minefield. A couple slips on the bulletproof portions of the side-hilling skin track, and almost swept me into a crevasses due to my own clumsiness more than once. This was in the afternoon, maybe between 12 and 1 o clock. Some aspects were still bulletproof wind board, while flatter and more southern aspects were starting to thaw and melt. After crossing a crevasse the size of a car and notching melting melting along the snowbridge, we stopped and decided to turn around, as we’d left our ropes in the hotel room. The valley was starting to warm up, and the snowbridges were starting to melt. Without ropes, we agreed it would not be safe to continue through the icy jigsaw puzzle. We followed our tracks out of the glacier, and skied a steep, short couloir back to the Mer du Glacé.

At the bottom of the VB, we shed our skis and started the long climb to the Montenvers train. We took a detour and explored the ice caves below the Mer du Glacé for a bit, and practiced drilling ice screws and setting V-threads in the perfect blue glacier ice.

I skied the VB before, and I remember the climb out of the Mer du Glacé to the Montenvers train station. I don’t remember climbing for so long. Over the past decades, since the glacier has receded, staircases have been bolted into the rock cliffs flanking the toe of the Mer du Glacé to allow skiers to walk from the glacier to the train station. It’s about 600 vertical feet from the surface of the glacier to the train station. Every year, the staircases grow longer and longer. When I last skied the Mer du Glacé, the climb was several flights of stairs shorter. There are plaques, bolted onto the wall, commemorating the memory of the glacier, indicating where it used to be. The first plaque as you climb, from 2015, is already nearly one hundred vertical feet above the glacier. In just 4 years, the glacier has been erased and planed. As we climbed, we found more and more plaques - 2004, 1998, 1965, higher and higher up the valley wall. When it was built, the Montenvers train station was even with the surface of the Mer du Glacé. Now, it takes roughly 600 feet, 3 dozen flights of stairs, and an entire gondola to connect the train station and the glacier. After a beautiful day skiing, filled with good decisions, spectacular scenery, and delicious pie, it was a crushing reminder that the beauty and majesty of the Valley Blanche won’t last.

After riding the Montenvers back into town, we stopped back at the Elevations 1904 bar for beers and fries. The Elevations bar is a popular hangout with local pros and guides, given its proximity to the Montenvers train station.

In an attempt to avoid the wind up high on the Aiguille du Midi, we set out to explore the Argentiere Basin, just north of the Grand Montets ski resort. We met with Seamus, Slator, and crew of CU skiers that Sophie, Max, and Lily knew.

The Grand Montets is the easiest way to access the Argentiere Basin, but the Plan du Jordan, the cable car dropping which dropped skiers at the mouth of the basin, burned down last summer. The basin can still be accessed by skinning up from the other lifts of the resort. When we tried to skin, we found awful conditions above the lifts, and slogged to access the basin. Re-frozen windbuff made skinning and sidehilling miserable. Once we rounded the corner, and accessed the basin proper, we were slammed by a brutal down-valley wind. Bits of ice and rock flew at us like BB pellets, stinging any exposed bit of skin. We sought to ski a north / north-east facing line on the near-side of the Argentiere Basin, but found gaping bergshrunds surrounding the entrance, and slick black glacier ice on the walls we hoped to ski. Lily had the good sense to turn around, while Max, Sophie and I continued, eventually topping out at the former top station of the Plan du Jordan. We dropped in, and skied a buffet of variable snow conditions, from bullet-proof windbuff, to chalky pow, and breakable crust, back down to the resort. After, we waited for the sun to come out, and skied slushy resort laps and hid from the wind.

Once we left the resort, Sophie had to leave town to head back to the US, while Max, Lily, and I had to move from the Folie Douce to our AirBnb, our home for the next 5 days. We met up with the boys - Jack, Nick, Noah, and Roger - friends of our from CU, who had been in the valley for the past 2 days. They spent the night at a hut, and were psyched to be back in town. We got beers with them, and finished the night laughing as Jack promptly got up, ran in and started dancing once the live band at the bar  started play “wipeout”. 

After our defeat at the GM, weather only got worse. All six of us made our way to the cafes to wait for the Aiguille du Midi to open. The plan was to take the cable car up, than to ski into Italy, eat pizza in Courmayeur, then take the Hellbroner back up, and ski out the Vallee Blanche. Howling winds and thick cloud layer at the Midi kept us away from the high alpine terrain, and kept us eating pastries at the cafe. Our optimism dwindled, and we ditched our Italian plan as the weather showed no signs of relenting. The boys elected to get out of the wind, and go climbing up valley near Vallorcine. Max and I initially decided to go to Les Grand Montets for slush laps, before changing our mind to head up to the hut with Roger.

Max, Roger and I geared up, we met at the Aiguille du Midi base station and waited again in vain for the tram to open. With no luck this morning, we gave it another hour, waiting in the sun at the cable station, before bailing altogether. after, went to the GM again, and ripped slushy resort laps for hours. It was vindicating, skiing without a pack and harness, but disappointing to have been rebuffed from the high alpine lines again.

We cooked and ate in the AirBnb that night, and talked about the pessimistic weather forecast.

The Midi didn’t even open then next day. We were up and ready in time for first tram, but crushing winds again kept the cable cars in their bays. We met with Slator and Seamus and their crew again at the cafe, and they recommended the QC Therma, which had just opened in Chamonix. Our 3-day passes gave us free entry to the spa, and access to the happy-hour of free food and drinks offered at 12:30 and 6:30pm every day. We spent nearly 5 hours wandering between luxurious pools and hot tubs usually not afforded to ski bum rabble like us.

That night, we plotted maps and scoured guidebooks for something to ski. We bet on the Midi begin closed again (we were right), and thought our best chance of success was to get as far away from the Mont Blanc massif as possible. That night, my girlfriend, Niki, and I talked on the phone. She was on the verge of leaving me, and rightfully so. I hadn't put nearly the time or effort that I should have into our relationship. We cooked a massive Bolognese pasta meal, and got ready for our first day of real skiing.

The boys and I went to Le Tour to climb and ski a line in the Aiguille Rouge area, an inset, north facing couloir. A few kilometers from the bus stop. Nick ran to get Seamus early that morning, as he had no cell service and no way of communication. Nick woke up Seamus and told him to get ready to go skiing and we were leaving in 20 minutes. Somehow, they made the bus, with a bag of pastries and coffees.

After some walking, booting, and skinning, we reached the base of the couloir. A tasty looking snow strip running from base to peak of the Aiguille Rouge massif. 3 technical chokes pinched the couloir off along its length. Somewhere along the approach, Noah dropped his helmet down a gully.

We booted up the couloir, and found snow that wouldn’t take more than the front few inches of a kick step. The firm supportive snow made for easy bootpacking, but likely would produce subpar, possibly dangerous skiing conditions. We passed the first 2 chokes without issue, but stopped at the third - a half pitch of mixed ice and rock climbing giving access to the last few feet of the couloir. Without ropes, there was no way we could safely climb the third choke. We decided to transition and ski down.

It was certainly the steepest thing I skied in Chamonix, and certainly the best conditions we’d had this trip. But still, it fell short in magnitude and intensity of what I’d come to hope from the valley. Short of even lines back in Colorado. Not to say I was wasn’t happy skiing, I was thrilled, and hooted and hollered my whole way down. But I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

That evening we ate sourdough pizza, and planned our next moves. Again, the weather forecast looked unfavorable, and the Aiguille du Midi was closed the next day.

Annecy. Our last day in Chamonix. Well, mine at least. After the discussion with Niki the other night, and our dire weather forecasts, I booked the earliest train out of Chamonix for tomorrow morning. Max and Lily followed suit, after reading the weather predictions for the next few days: near gale-force winds up high, possible snow even down in the valley, whiteout conditions pretty much anywhere above treeline.

Max, Lily, Nick and I rented a car, and drove to Annecy for the day. Jack, Noah, and Seamus went climbing for the day. Exploring Annecy was a nice change, the city, its canals, and colorful flowers were beautiful. But still, it was disappointing known I would leave the Chamonix valley the following day with only a handful of skiing days in the bag.

That night, we cooked in the apartment again, and talked about risk acceptance and avalanches in the backcountry. The Teton boys told me about the slides they’d had this year, ones on Teton pass that’d taken out the road and endangered commuters. We talked about systems, and reducing risk and variables, and how to minimize risk.

We left Chamonix the next day. When we woke up, Chamonix got the refill it so desperately needed, with a few inches of snow already covered the ground. The higher peaks were socked in again, and snow was falling quitely, steadily, from the cold grey sky. Our train crept silently out of the valley.