Sylvain Saudan - Pioneering “skier of the impossible”

Sylvain Saudan, considered the godfather of extreme skiing, died of a heart attack on July 14, 2024, at his home in Les Houches, France. He was 87.

By descending precipitously steep and previously unskied slopes, Saudan helped create the new sport of extreme skiing. He came into worldwide focus in 1967 when he mastered the 55-degree Spencer Couloir on the Aiguille de Blaitière in France. Skeptics in nearby Chamonix didn’t believe his feat, so an airplane was dispatched to photograph his tracks.

Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Saudan did chores on his parents’ small farm and was on skis at age five. As a teen, he worked as a truck driver and earned certification as a ski instructor, teaching in Scotland in 1961. He would later credit Scotland’s icy slopes with honing his survival skills.

Saudan went on to tame a long inventory of forbidding faces and couloirs, culminating, at age 45, with his descent of the 26,500-foot summit of Gasherbrum I in Pakistan. He climbed for 25 days to reach the summit. His descent, most of which was at 50 degrees, took nine hours. In 1985 the feat was listed as a Guinness World Record for the highest and steepest slope ever skied.

Saudan exulted in the dangers of his pursuits and was a dedicated purist. He typically didn’t wear a helmet or carry emergency gear, embracing the credo, “One mistake, you die.”

In his eyes, he mitigated risk by inventing his own technique. Rather than make conventional parallel turns, which he felt gained too much speed and reduced control, he kept his weight on the back of his skis and swiveled the ski tips left and right, which he called “windscreen wiper turns.” “If I had tried jumping from outside ski to outside ski down the Couloir Spencer,” he told the press, “I do not think I would be talking to you now.”

Saudan had planned to retire after his descent of Gasherbrum I, but for his 50th birthday he skied off the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s highest mountain. Since his birthday was in September, there’s wasn’t any snow. “If you can ski on stones, you can ski on anything,” he noted.

In his later years, Saudan lived in the village of Les Houches, at the base of Mont Blanc, and ran a heliski business to British Columbia and the Kashmir region.