Is this Europe's scariest ski run?
Swiss freerider Sam Anthamatten drops in, makes a couple of turns down what looks like a near vertical slope, aims for a seemingly intractable rock band, pauses, jumps it, flies on, jumps again, spinning through 360 degrees – but then crashes hard and tumbles head over heels several times before stopping… and then getting up again to continue.
This is the final of the annual Freeride World Tour ski and snowboard competition, taking place on the rocky north face of the 3,223m Bec des Rosses in Verbier, Switzerland.
There are naturally no pistes on this mega mountain, which has hosted the Xtreme Verbier competition for 22 years, and most routes down are over 50-degrees of intimidating steepness. Most skiers would consider 35 degrees to be quite steep enough on a piste.
But the riders taking part in the final of the Tour have to do more than just get down that face. They need to impress a panel of freeride judges, paying attention not only to the difficulty of the line they choose to take down the Bec, and the massive jumps they might take over cliffs, but how in control and fluid their run is, and their technique. They have to ski or snowboard a fine line between taking risks to show off their skill, and staying in control, and their GoPro footage is a heart-thumping insight into what that feels like.
Only the best can take on this steepest of faces, and for this season’s final, which took place April 3, 2017, there was less snow cover than usual. Ahead of the event Anthamatten, skiing with a group of us on a behind-the scenes weekend organised by tour operator Much Better Adventures along with FatMap and Athamatten’s ski sponsor Faction, told us his strategy would be to “find the good snow”. While there was some powder, the Bec is a pile of rocks in the summer he said, and those rocks would be a hazard for riders to look out for. He wasn’t wrong.
Before Anthamatten’s run, one of the top contenders for the men’s skiing title, Frenchman Loïc Collumb-Patton, crashed spectacularly, catching rocks on a jump and tumbling over and over – before coming to a halt and eventually skiing down, luckily minus only one pole. The follow-up photos he posted of his helmet are testimony to the severity of the fall.
A post shared by loic Collomb Patton (@loic_collomb_patton) on Apr 3, 2017 at 7:22am PDT
The following two skiers pulled off incredible runs – eventual men’s ski Tour winner, Léo Slemett of France including a huge 360 at the top, and Reine Barkered of Sweden, who won the men's ski competition on the day, skiing a ridiculously fast and technical line.
But Anthamatten, riding after them, crashed attempting a 360 spin off a rock that he’d planned to hit differently. “The goal would be to make it bigger and spin slowly,” he said afterwards. “But I was on the side of it, so I didn’t know how much rotation I needed.”
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Spectators over the valley at Col des Gentianes in the ski area, watching live and on big screen, made a collective gasp, sighed as Anthamatten shook himself off after a series of tumbles and continued with the run – even though the fall meant he couldn’t win – then groaned again as everyone realised he’d lost a ski.
He could have just taken it easy after the fall, but that’s not the mindset of a pro. “For me the fall meant it’s over, so I don’t take big risks anymore,” said Anthamatten afterwards. “But if I have a fun line I still want to do it, still want to ride it to the bottom. I don’t prepare myself for one day to do just half of it. For sure I lost my points, but on the other side I want to show myself if it’s possible or not.”
While the riders are able to check the run and plan their line from afar before the event, it’s not until they get to the top that they see what it’s really like. Everyone watching the run thought it was going to plan until the crash, but in fact lots of decisions were being made on the hoof. “The upper part of it was a little rockier than I thought so I couldn’t get to my top feature, so I just skied fast, tried to make some points that way.” But with the extra speed, he over egged the 360. “On a 360 if you have too much rotation, you fall. That happened.”
A post shared by Telegraph Ski and Snowboard (@telegraphskisnowboard) on Apr 2, 2017 at 6:18am PDT
The Bec des Rosses is said to be the the most intimidating face on the Tour. “As a skier if you look at the mountain it’s impressive, even for myself," said Anthamatten. "You can do an easy line down, it’s doable for a lot of good skiers, but if you’re going to jump a 15m cliff in a 50-degree slope, well it’s intimidating for sure. I haven’t had the real good run on the Bec des Rosses in competition, so it’s always a real mental fight for me. It’s still one I would love to do well.”
In the meantime, as a regular in the Timeline Missions series of movies, he’s just returned from an exploratory visit, along with Léo Slemett and Italian skier Markus Eder, to the Caucasus mountains in north-western Georgia. The aim of the project is a first ski descent of the 4,700m Mount Ushba. “First we heliskied down there in April, to gather good footage skiing wise and have some fun. Then the second trip there is in May/June, to ski that peak. It’s been climbed lots of times, but never skied.”
All the runs from the Freeride World Tour are streamed live during the events, and are still available to watch at freerideworldtour.com.
