I guess you could call Chamonix a ski resort but it's unlike any other ski resort I've been to and believe me, I've been to my fair share. Having witnessed the triumphs and tumbles of riders in places like Alaska and Jackson Hole, I arrived in France thinking I knew what steep meant. But while there are certainly heavy mountains in other parts of the world, the difference here is the level of commitment and respect the terrain demands. While a fall on another mountain can serve nicely to pad out the bail section in next year's video, a rider going down in Chamonix can easily raise issues of what to do with the footage of the death.

Back in the epic spring of 1999, the mountains here were in no mood for forgiveness. First there was the rogue avalanche that buried the nearby village of Le Tour killing 12 men, women and children. Then came the fire that toasted 39 people in the Mont Blanc Tunnel. That was followed by the burning of one of the town's historic old buildings, which was an integral part of the centre ville. Amidst all this, friends and family were routinely being chewed up and spat out by a mountain range notoriously unkind to fundamental error. By early May, the ghosts of the season's deceased roamed the streets and haunted our dreams.

In spite of this — or perhaps in defiance of it — lines were being sent that hadn't seen action in years. In one memorable barroom conversation, Chamonix's illustrious photographer, Philippe Fragnol hinted to me that two local high mountain guides, Jérôme Ruby and Dede Rhem, were planning something major. It would be a project at least as big as their astonishing first descent (skis or snowboard) in June 1995 of the North Face of Le Triolet, a 60-degree sheet of hard blue ice interspersed with dustings of variable snow that, at an altitude of 3870 meters, drops 900 meters before petering out at the head of the Glacier d'Argentière. Those who understood anything about steep descents at the time knew that Jérôme and Dede, though worlds away from the bright lights and corporate sponsorship of "extreme" contests and the X-Games, were unquestionably the king mack daddies of extreme snowboarding. It was a status intensely coveted by a handful of Chamonix hardcores — riders far beyond the realm of what most of us would consider sane — who, in the Spring of '99, were looking to build their own reputations.

As the spring progressed, the epic conditions in the mountains continued to improve. By that time most of the locals could already be found at the town's local sport crag clipping bolts and sunning meaty white thighs and rippling abs left over from a season of hard skiing, while the truly committed were hunkered down in high mountain refuges waiting for Mother Nature to smile upon them.

Rumors flew through town like bloodthirsty bats emerging from a cave at dusk: elusive, unsubstantiated, impossible to pinpoint. Meanwhile from the balconies of the refuges, the inspired few patiently scoped their lines. Beneath the lenses of high-powered field glasses their lips could be seen moving as they prayed for a brief window of good weather, which would stabilize the snow: "Just three nice days..." Their intensity was unsettling to everybody but the guardians of the refuges who had seen it all before.

Then like a flash of heat lightning from a cloudless, west Texas sky, local photographer/zenmaster René Robert materialized out of nowhere with a couple of sheets of slides that he thought I might like to take a gander at. Second descent of Le Nant Blanc on the North Face of the 4122m Aiguille Verte apparently. Seems as though legendary extreme skier Jean Marc Boivin made the first descent back in '89 or something. This was more than we had all been hoping for. This news was massive. I ripped the sheets from his hands and spread them across the light table.

"Who claimed it? Jérôme and Dede, right?"

"Non. A friend of mine named Marco Siffredi. He soloed it."

"Soloed the Nant Blanc??!? Who?"

"Marco Siffredi. Local kid who's been working his way through the classics all spring. After he ticked off all the majors he started sending everything in sight: Isolée Couloir on Mont Blanc du Tacul, the Diagonal on the South Face of Mont Maudit, Southwest Couloir on the Aiguille de l'Epéna. He's laying down first descents like they're just another afternoon in the snowpark for most riders."

"Never heard of him."

"Pas de surprise. He's only been riding for four years..."

"No frikkin way!"

"Seriously. The kid's off his head."

"What's his name again?"

Now to understand what all the excitement was about, I should probably digress briefly to try and give you a better picture of just exactly what it is we're talking about here. The word "steep" doesn't even begin to describe the Nant Blanc because not only is the pitch far beyond what more than a handful of riders have ever even dreamed of dropping into, it's sheer exposure is so terrifying that most so-called extreme riders would never consider it. Even a fall on the relatively benign lower slopes would mean an unstoppable 300-meter rag doll over a bergshrund and down into the rocky bottom of the glacier below.

But the real danger lies in the appallingly exposed top section of the route where a blown edge, a miscalculated turn, or a momentary lapse of concentration and the rider might as well have jumped from an airplane without a parachute. Oh and one more thing: the only way to truly understand the condition of the snow on the route is to climb it first. Yep, that's right; drag yourself out of your warm sleeping bag at an ungodly hour and spend the next seven or eight hours front-pointing your way up a cold, dark face of mixed rock, snow and ice. This highly technical climb alone is enough to leave most serious alpinists completely shattered by its completion and the thought of strapping a snowboard onto your wobbly legs and dropping into a descent so gnarly that it has only ever been done once before is truly beyond the realm of most riders' imaginations.

Having said that, Marco (who was a tender 20 years old at the time) describes the route this way, "I wanted to do the Nant Blanc because it was the most difficult route I had heard of. The famous extreme skier, Jean-Marc Boivin was the first to ski it ten years ago and it was his biggest descent.

The north faces in Chamonix are different than anywhere in the world. Even when there is really good snow in the rest of the valley, like we had during the spring of '99, on the north faces there might only be ten or twenty centimeters, sometimes only five. Five centimeters of snow over ice, and sometimes the snow is soft and sometimes it's compact. You just have to have a little snow, as long as it's not ice it's okay.

When the conditions began to look as though the route might be possible, I made a few attempts. I went up once and there was no snow, just ice, and I had to wait. Another time I went and I got halfway up when a storm came and it started snowing. But before rapping off, I was able to climb high enough to know that the snow was good enough for a descent so I left my sleeping bag and my ice tools at the foot of Les Drus in preparation for another try.

Five days later, in the middle of June, I went and slept at the foot of Les Drus. At 3:00AM I got up, started to climb and by 10:30 I was at the top of the Aiguille Verte. I climbed with a friend who then descended down the Whymper Couloir off the back of the Verte towards the Mer du Glace. We climbed the classic route, the Charlet-Platanov [ed. note: The Charlet-Platanov is a 900-meter route that has a French rating of V, 2, 4c Mixed]. So after arriving at the top at 10:30, I waited because I wanted to descend at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon when the sun would hit the face and soften the snow a bit. But clouds began to build and around noon I decided to go ahead and drop in.

The route started off flat — it was like 45°, really flat — until I reached a very exposed, 50° to 55° traverse underneath a ridge that lead to a little 50° to 55° gully. The gully carried out onto a 50° to 55°ramp, which ended at a 60-meter rappel past a vertical rock band. Just past the rock band is where I came to the steepest part of the route: 500 meters of 55° to 60° with a section of 65°. After that I came to another rock band where I had a little jump before making the final turns back to the rimaye. The total descent took me two and a half hours."

Nope. Chamonix is far from your ordinary ski resort. Certainly it has its share of ski bums and scammers, bon vivants and ne'er-do-wells, rebels and renegades. But the town is also home to an elite crew of riders who benefit from the valley's rich tradition of alpinism. Locals like Marco, Jérôme and Dede as well as foreigners like Todd Mason, Jarkko Henttonen, and Ode Siivonen combine technical winter climbing skills with extraordinary snowboarding ability to enable them to take on otherwise impossible routes. Some of these riders may go down in legend, others will surely die trying, and the rest will probably discover that there are more important things in life than a potentially lethal combination of raw courage, exceptional skill and unbridled desire.

One particularly late night, Fragnol and I were talking about the unusual nature of this place. Perhaps it comes from the hedonistic philosophy that seeps into your soul when you live with the possibility that one night you might conceivably find yourself sitting by the fire eating corn flakes when your house just happens to get buried by a freak slide. We spoke of the fullness that comes with living life on the edge up until the point where the line is crossed and what was once fullness turns to void. With great difficulty he told me the story of how, through the lens of his camera, he had watched as his close friend, the near mythical Bruno Gouvy, lost an edge on the Aiguille Verte and fell to his death. After a long silent pause, he looked at me and with tears in both of our eyes, he said, "Life in Chamonix can be very beautiful. It can also be very, very difficult."

— Trey Cook, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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