Letters: Tribute to Sylvain Saudan

On the morning of July 15, I received a sad phone call from Marie Jose Valencot, informing me that my friend and her longtime partner, Sylvain Saudan, had passed away the previous night.

Her voice made me recall when I met the legend for the first time. The year was 1989. I had read that Sylvain was running a helicopter ski operation in the Himalayas of Kashmir, and the article said, “For more information, call 50530469 in France.” I recognized this to be a number in Chamonix, and I dialed. A female voice told me via a recorded message to leave my name and telephone number. Sometime later the phone rang.

“Allo, is zeese Jeemie Petterzon? Yes? Good. Zeese is Sylvain Saudan. My girlfriend told me you called. I am calling from a ... What you call it in English? A phone box in Paris ... excuse me, I must put in some more coins.” ... clink, clink, clink ... “now we are okay?”

This was heli-skiing in the Himalayas operated from his private apartment in Chamonix. No travel agent. No secretary … and calling me from a phone booth instead of from his hotel room. As I chatted with Sylvain from his phone booth, I felt an immediate sense of comradeship. He was one of us. This legend was perhaps the greatest ski bum of all time, but a ski bum, nevertheless.

The Guinness Book of Records has no category for ski bums, but under the heading of skiing, Sylvain has been listed as follows: “Steepest Descent-Sylvain Saudan (b Lausanne, Switzerland, Sept. 23, 1936.) Achieved a descent of Mt. Blanc on the northeast side down the Couloir Gervasutti from 13,937 ft. on Oct. 17,1967, skiing gradients of about 60 degrees.” Sylvain has appeared previously in this record book for other remarkable skiing feats.

Skiing, nowadays, has more different tangents than ever before. There are specialists and competitions in cross-country, telemark, ski jumping, downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super G, ballet, moguls, figure eights, aerial acrobatics, freestyle, ski cross and speed skiing, as well as extreme skiing. But not many people can claim to be the founder of one of these categories. Sylvain Saudan is truly the father of extreme skiing—and one can make a good case for the fact that this particular kind of skiing is the discipline that is most representative of the consummate skier.

Sylvain described his steep-skiing exploits as neither a quest for fame nor financial remuneration, but rather as a natural progression of his life of skiing. As he insisted, his ever-increasing renown was a mere byproduct of “doing what I want to do.” He simply loved the special challenge of extreme skiing. Whereas most excellent skiers would feel a sense of satisfaction having successfully negotiated a slope of 40 degrees, Sylvain told me, “For me, what is steep, is if you make a mistake, you are dead.”

He viewed his frequent dance with death as a gift. “People who face death,” related Sylvain, “know exactly zee value of life.” Perhaps this statement partly explains why someone who loved life could take so many risks. 

Jimmy Petterson
Gothenburg, Sweden

Editor’s Note: For more on Sylvain Saudan, see page 30.

Letters to the Editor: We’re All Ears

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