tracked only by local guides and the kids who cared nothing for avalanche danger. He felt his heart surge atthe thought of it: silence amid the blanketed conifers, the mass of snow trembling above the trees like a wave poised to curl.
He set off alone with a backpack and his usual gear to the rented villa in Le Praz. Stefani had given him her key the previous night, and told him where to find a change of clothing. They both knew she was not the sort to rise early, even for the best new fall of powder in the world.
And so Jacques Renaudie saw Max that morning as he swept his doorstep, riding the platter lift out of town in defiance of all rumor.
“The concept of skiing within-bounds is pretty much an American one,” Max told her somewhere around mid-morning, as they paused for breath in their hike up a crevasse. Their skis were slung over their shoulders and in their packs they carried water, protein bars, ropes and picks and beacons. Stefani’s back was aching.
“Boundaries exist for the National Forest Service— which owns the land most American ski areas are built on—and because too many skiers have died in backcountry avalanches.” He wore his helmet again today, and had forced her to wear one as well. “If you map out your terrain, and fire avalanche cannon every morning in peak snowslide season, you can control the snow pack and fend off the worst disasters.”
“Simple risk management.” Stefani briefly considered the idea of Oliver Krane standing in the path of an avalanche. “Whereas in Europe, nobody worries about skiers dying?”
“In Europe, the
pistes
were carved by villagers first and by ski corporations only after World War II. Look at the concentration of houses. It seems random, but it’s uncannily scientific. If you watch a tidal wave of snowchurn down the mountain for centuries on end, you build where the wave never passes.”
She gazed out from their perch—a small plateau perhaps twelve feet square in the granite face. From this distance, the map of the Trois Vallées was a storybook illustration—hamlets of stone and sloping roofs tucked into the clefts between the hills; deep forests of fir with heavy mantles of white; and the power cables of ski lifts soaring from ground to air.
“The closest you could come to flying,” she mused. “A kid airborne on a pair of skis. Did your father ever see you race?”
“No,” he said curtly, his eyes fixed on the landscape.
She spared little breath for conversation after that. She was too intent upon following Max’s footsteps. It was important to pay attention to every toehold and outcrop that could be grasped with gloved fingers. She did not ask him where they were going; he had pointed upward to a rocky cornice three hundred feet above a glade. Higher still, there soared an open granite head-wall flush with old hard-pack and new powder.
“Switzerland,” he explained, “if you climb far enough.”
She supposed that when they had skied down through the thick growth of trees that marched toward the valley below, they would turn around and repeat the exhausting climb. It hardly mattered. For now it was enough to track the man in front of her.
“Do you do this often?” she asked when at last they stood on the cornice edge.
“I’ve been up here three times this winter.” He pulled his skis from the harness on his back. “Let me go first, and pick your own line later.”
She was just clicking her boot into the bindings of her new T3s when the crack of a gun ricocheted off the head-wall. The sound echoed, gathering force.
“What’s that?”
Max’s head was craned backward, his eyes fixed on the snow above them.
A second crack. Stefani heard, quite clearly, the bullet singing over their heads.
“Go.
Go, go, go!”
Max shouted, and pushed off the cornice as though a starting gate had sprung.
She dove after him, unable to look at the mass of white shuddering behind, the grip of fear suddenly at her throat. The silence
He set off alone with a backpack and his usual gear to the rented villa in Le Praz. Stefani had given him her key the previous night, and told him where to find a change of clothing. They both knew she was not the sort to rise early, even for the best new fall of powder in the world.
And so Jacques Renaudie saw Max that morning as he swept his doorstep, riding the platter lift out of town in defiance of all rumor.
“The concept of skiing within-bounds is pretty much an American one,” Max told her somewhere around mid-morning, as they paused for breath in their hike up a crevasse. Their skis were slung over their shoulders and in their packs they carried water, protein bars, ropes and picks and beacons. Stefani’s back was aching.
“Boundaries exist for the National Forest Service— which owns the land most American ski areas are built on—and because too many skiers have died in backcountry avalanches.” He wore his helmet again today, and had forced her to wear one as well. “If you map out your terrain, and fire avalanche cannon every morning in peak snowslide season, you can control the snow pack and fend off the worst disasters.”
“Simple risk management.” Stefani briefly considered the idea of Oliver Krane standing in the path of an avalanche. “Whereas in Europe, nobody worries about skiers dying?”
“In Europe, the
pistes
were carved by villagers first and by ski corporations only after World War II. Look at the concentration of houses. It seems random, but it’s uncannily scientific. If you watch a tidal wave of snowchurn down the mountain for centuries on end, you build where the wave never passes.”
She gazed out from their perch—a small plateau perhaps twelve feet square in the granite face. From this distance, the map of the Trois Vallées was a storybook illustration—hamlets of stone and sloping roofs tucked into the clefts between the hills; deep forests of fir with heavy mantles of white; and the power cables of ski lifts soaring from ground to air.
“The closest you could come to flying,” she mused. “A kid airborne on a pair of skis. Did your father ever see you race?”
“No,” he said curtly, his eyes fixed on the landscape.
She spared little breath for conversation after that. She was too intent upon following Max’s footsteps. It was important to pay attention to every toehold and outcrop that could be grasped with gloved fingers. She did not ask him where they were going; he had pointed upward to a rocky cornice three hundred feet above a glade. Higher still, there soared an open granite head-wall flush with old hard-pack and new powder.
“Switzerland,” he explained, “if you climb far enough.”
She supposed that when they had skied down through the thick growth of trees that marched toward the valley below, they would turn around and repeat the exhausting climb. It hardly mattered. For now it was enough to track the man in front of her.
“Do you do this often?” she asked when at last they stood on the cornice edge.
“I’ve been up here three times this winter.” He pulled his skis from the harness on his back. “Let me go first, and pick your own line later.”
She was just clicking her boot into the bindings of her new T3s when the crack of a gun ricocheted off the head-wall. The sound echoed, gathering force.
“What’s that?”
Max’s head was craned backward, his eyes fixed on the snow above them.
A second crack. Stefani heard, quite clearly, the bullet singing over their heads.
“Go.
Go, go, go!”
Max shouted, and pushed off the cornice as though a starting gate had sprung.
She dove after him, unable to look at the mass of white shuddering behind, the grip of fear suddenly at her throat. The silence
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