A compilation of stories from around the globe by my amazing friends and I.

Enjoy the read:)

“ALIVE”

by Cambell Cassidy

Our five-day trek from Sorata is an epic affair, ten mules, eight porters and our guide. My dominant feeling is one of need. Since the end of the European winter last month my enthusiasm has been in sharp decline but as we trudge uphill every day the need is beginning to come flooding back. The need to be high on the mountain and the need to be back in control again. As the distance to Illampu decreases I can feel the mountains on either side begin to press in on my mind, compressing it’s wanderings into a small, hard, dark core of focus that blots out much of the beauty and majesty all around me. I can also detect these changes coming over my companions. Todd, the definitive gung ho Australian, is markedly less chatty and the guide’s moronic ramblings are now just background chatter to me.

Base Camp offers me my first view of the entire North Face of Illampu. The thousand vertical meters of hanging glaciers peppered with rock bands is very imposing and the sight sets me back a little. I can see our chosen line defined by a narrow chute flowing down from a skyline dominated by huge swollen cornices. They remind me of teeth, not happy smiling teeth but thick fat molars designed for crushing and pounding. The snow beneath the cornices is fluted with deep runnels where the cornices have released, thundering down the north face, and carved deep permanent paths in the ice. I can feel the exposure yawning from here.

Crossing the Del Notre glacier to reach the foot of Illampu is a worrisome task. Weaving a safe line between the huge obvious crevasses and constantly scouting the snow for hidden chasms is a slow and tedious task but we make it safely across and back in three hours and try to rest up. The high background level of adrenaline flowing through me, even at Advanced Base Camp, makes sleeping even less likely than usual at this altitude. My previous cravings of need and desire have now given way and been replaced, supplanted by vicious streaks of greed and aggression. Sleep won’t come, but I can feel my resolve growing. Todd is still awake in huddled into his down jacket trying not to

touch then moisture-coated walls of the tent. We agree to abandon counting sheep and make our play for the face. It's two am when we begin to cross the glacier by the light of our head torches.

The entirety of the North Face of Illampu is above me and the easy angled lower reaches make for fast progress. The snow, which looked so ideal from the glacier, is alarmingly firm and closer to ice than snow. The firm snow is good for fast travel uphill but whither it will yield to ski edges in totally different matter. Five hours after leaving the tents the sun is just coming up. The shadowy blue-black pigments of the whole face bleed out into a watery orange hue, which stops me in my tracks and takes away what little remains of my breath. The burning grind upwards has so far given me little pleasure but now in the softening light of dawn I can feel the spirit welling up inside of me and now as each axe blow becomes more demanding the rush of my emotions surges to fill the gaps and shore up the physical drain. I look around to my partners they too have developed grins from their grimaces.

The summit is now only a 100m above us. The face feels vertical but is probably only around 75deg. The runnels in snow, visible from base camp, are actually deep chutes carved out of the ice, with the light of dawn comes the realisation that we will not be able to ski this section. The runnels are too steep, with insufficient snow cover on the ice and too narrow to accommodate the skis which now like seem like lead weights hanging directly down on to my ice axe straps.

We’ve achieved less than 50m in the last hour, I now need to rest after every three movements, but the warm rays of the morning sun have now disappeared and we are under the huge cornices, which project some 20m out from the summit ridge. A slow, aching 70m traverse brings us to a notch in the cornice, where a freak of the wind has left a narrow point of access. I try to squeeze into the notch but my skis foul against the cornice. I try again but the final meter seems beyond me, Todd aligns my skis into the notch and encourages me to try for it again. One more pull and I am standing on the flat summit. All thoughts of despair and the descent are instantly vanished and I fall flat

down on my back and look directly up into the blazing noonday sun. My breath has almost returned to a natural rhythm by the time Todd and Xandi join me on my high altitude beach.

Todd clips into his board on the summit and the look on Todd’s face frightens me; it is twisted into a snarl of determination as he rappels over the cornice. My fondest, dearest wish is that the boilerplate ice we have climbed has somehow been transformed into soft, forgiving corn snow, as I edge my way over the cornice the front points of my crampons rasp metallically on the glacier ice.

On the third stance, 150m down from the summit, Todd’s board is biting on either side of a runnel with barely 20cm of edge when he unclips from the belay. The screeching of his edges on the ice is a terrifying new noise as he sideslips down a few meters. I am transfixed. Seventy meters of side slipping and he throws a monstrous turn. I shiver involuntarily, despite my high tech gear as his body arcs round from his toe edge to his heel. He is not going to stick this one. Finally his board answers the laws of physics and torques round into line with his body, edges smacking into the ice. He slips downwards for a few meters and his shoulders and lower body relaxes. Proof, conditions are very marginal but ‘skiable’. I make one more rappel into the widening runnel before putting on my skis. I cut a small ledge into the ice and recover my skis from the sides of my pack. Taking this weight off makes me feel about a foot taller and then I am standing here. This is it then, months of preparation, punishing training, the lung busting slog to the summit, the fear and desire all crystallize into this one moment. Xandi brings me back from my reverie. He is pulling off his pack and reaching for his camera, “Xandi, no pictures mate. It’s time to survive, to stay alive....”

CMC 18/06/00 1159wds

TODD’S LAW

by Cambell Cassidy

Sod’s law states that in any given set of circumstance the most probable outcome will be the least desirable. In the world of Todd Mason, more often that not, the reverse is true. Have a look at how Todd spends his days. For a start how about professional snowboarder, pro rally driving, surfer, wave sailor, mountaineer, telemark skier, moto-cross rider, are we tired yet? Try extreme skier, downhill skateboarder, rock climber, yacht skipper, mountain biker, ski mountaineer and world traveller. Noticed anything missing from this mouth-watering schedule? No nine to five job no mortgage re-payments, no rat race? Is this all just a comic book fantasy or can people really live their life this like this?

The first myth to debunk is that this is just a playboy, jet set thing. Some rich kid on a wish fulfilment fantasy and a platinum card. If it were a fantasy, then it would be a pretty good one but the reality of things is that Todd’s dad isn’t Jean Paul Getty. In fact, Mr & Mrs Mason were divorced when Todd was twelve and Todd grew up in a small, flat, landlocked, mining town in Western Australia. His father’s workaholic tendencies were inherited by Todd, the grommet, and he entered a boat building apprenticeship at the young, criminally young in some countries, age of fourteen. Hundred hour weeks followed as Todd toiled in the boat yards around Perth. While his contemporaries were still in school Todd was already out in the real world, building boats and dreams. The teenage years for many kids mean the experimentation with the grown up vices of chemicals, drugs and solvents. Todd was no exception. In his case though, these chemicals weren’t recreational drugs or alcohol, but the reagents used to glue ocean going motor cruisers together. His day of reckoning came at the tender age of eighteen. Todd woke up, for his customary 4.30am start, to find each of his fingers the size and colour of a banana and his feet the size of rugby balls. His vision was temporarily affected and his outlook changed forever, like Paul on the road to Damascus. The accumulated daily ingestion of industrial toxins had poisoned the young man’s body to such an extent that it was clear to him that he needed to get out and the time to get out was now. Incidentally, to give us a clue to his future potential Todd left the boat building business with the satisfaction that he built the largest composite hulled catamaran ever launched, an achievement that is yet to be bettered.

Get out, yes, but to where? For a lot of people the life on the beaches of Western Australia is an ambition in itself but for Todd this was just the place to start from. As a general rule, finding snow for most Ozzies means travelling. A trip with his brother to the backwater delights of Wanaka, on the South Island of NZ (www.skinz.com), provided Todd with his first taste of the mountains, snow, skiing and temperatures below 20degC. This alpine emancipation of mind and body can be a powerful hook and for Todd it bit deep. He returned to Oz to wind up his business and liquidated his assets. He bought the first of his ten round the world tickets, kissed his mum and took off for the USA.

Everyone and I mean everyone has had their baggage sent to Bombay while they were flying to Bologna, not Todd. In his eleven years of travelling round the world: he has never lost his bags at Heathrow, never been mugged in LA, never robbed by bandits in Chile, and never been pickpocketed in Delhi. This good karma started on this first

round the world adventure when he landed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Home to some of the deepest and lightest champagne powder outside Bolivia. Jackson Hole is also the official US government breeding ground for sick skiers and boarders, but Todd wasn’t privy to this information at the time. Jackson just seemed like a very good place to be in 1990. This is still the case. (www.jacksonhole.com) In the town of Jackson, Todd quickly became part of the local’s scene. He met, now, legendary skiers like Micah Black who took the fledgling charger out and showed him what ripping was all about. For a teenager, in their first season, Todd completed some remarkable descents such as the Corbetts Couloir & the Grand Teton. The hook that bit on the icy mountains around Wanaka was driven irretrievably home some 8000miles away in the deep, cold, smoke powder of the Rocky Mountains. His first season completed Todd now had the chance to gather his belongings, to head home and to re-join the rat race. He blew it. Relaxing and watching the snow melt wasn’t in keeping with Todd’s programme and he took off for a late season raid with the local rowdies. Most of who later formed the core of the inspirational ski media empire, Teton Gravity Research. (Makers of such films as Uprising, Harvest and this year’s hottest ski movie ‘The Realm’(www.tgr.com).

The western cowboys saddled up their iron horses, in Todd’s case a Honda 750cc Four Super Sports, complete with his snowboard on his back, and pointed them north for 10 000 miles. To the, then, relatively unheard of mountains of Whistler & Blackcomb in Canada (www.whistler.com) for an end of season shredding session. This epic trip is a technicolor confusion for Todd even to this day. He can remember some gigantic spring days and gnarly descents but for most of the time just keeping in touch with his companions, the nearest thing to backcountry royalty the US scene possessed, occupied most of his time.

Having a serious winter lifestyle wasn’t enough for the boy raised round the legendary surf breaks of Western Australia like Margrets River. Still on his motorbike Todd rode the length of the Pacific coast all the way from British Colombia, taking in some summer boarding at Mt Bachelor and Mt Hood, to the relaxed sunshine of Southern California. He arrived in South Central LA on a hot summer night in ’92 with his snowboard still on his back. Pulling up for gas, he noticed a tension in the air and a great many loitering, menacing youths. He had missed the outbreak of the LA riots by two blocks and was greeted, in one piece, with nothing short of amazement by his friends. The Todd Mason good karma machine was still blazing along on all cylinders. Through these same friends he was hooked up with a job on the Jeep off road rally team. Racing modified versions of the 4x4s, normally seen no further off the road than at the local supermarkets, across the deserts of Southern California. Todd worked the pit for one race season, before graduating to co-driver of the Kia Team (www.kia.com). They have since become invincible in the classic Baja Desert Race and the team has gone on to compete successfully in major international events such as the Paris-Dakar Race, which Todd hopes to be involved with next year. Rallying professionally for Todd is the culmination of a childhood driving moto-cross machines round the bush as soon as he could get both feet on the ground over the little trials bikes and he enjoys nothing more than scaring his fellow snowboarders round the tight mountain roads.

The real alpine coming of age for Todd started with his first visit to the spiritual home of extreme snowboarding and freeriding, Chamonix, France. (www.chamonix.com).

The razor sharp, minaret spires of the Aiguilles (French= Needle), the massive white bulk of Mt Blanc and the imperious rock tower of the Dru are like nothing Todd had ever experienced. For the first time in his travels, the word ‘Home’ became a possibility in the Mason dictionary. Here was a place where his charging snowboard style could express itself in the, almost limitless, steep off-piste playground and his iron ‘shipwrights’ fingers climb the warm French granite and thick blue icefalls. A home to mountaineers and mavericks for centuries surely this was a place tailor made for Todd Mason. On the back of a trickle of sponsorship dollars Todd ‘did’ Chamonix. Completing the rounds of the major local test pieces and stretching the boundaries which culminated in the third, snowboard (fourth overall), descent of the Mallory Couloir on the North Face of the Aiguille D’Midi. This elevated Todd to a new and rarefied domain. That inhabited by the few alpinist skiers and boarders who can really call themselves extreme. What had gone before was simply an apprenticeship. The death of a close friend on the Grand Jorasse brought this sharply into perspective. Todd was now at the top of his profession and this was a pinnacle where the safety net had been removed.

Despite a wary attitude to the idiosyncrasies of competitions and judged events Todd attended invitational events such as the Verbier Extremes (10th) and the Rip Curl World Heli-Challenge (2nd) as this is the road to sponsorship cash. The nomad in Todd is ever restless, though. New Challenges took him to South America to conquer Andean volcanoes. His ocean going roots are still evident with surf trips to Bali, Mexico, Hossegor and back home to the southern swells for sailing, fishing and of course, more surfing. The media have not ignored the Todd Mason phenomena either. His film and TV credits include Eurosport, Nuit de la Glisse and Australian TV. He has often been used as a model and his action shots have featured in almost every Snowboard magazine on the planet.

In ten years of pushing himself in the mountains all over the world he has never broken a bone. His karma machine seems unstoppable. Todd puts this down to his own attitude. His mother kissed him goodbye from Perth in 1991 and a decade later her words of his advice are the cornerstone of his life, “live your dreams” she told him and he is doing just that. The karma, he explains, is all about being positive. Think, act and be positive and it will come. Todd also has a solution for people who are not getting what they want from life, “if I’m not enjoying it enough, I just open up the throttle a little more...till I am having fun” Is it all about having fun? There are a few drawbacks and sacrifices that are part and parcel of this lifestyle. These mainly revolve around cash. Menial, low paid work in bars and restaurants. The constant round of telephone calls and faxes to sponsors. There never seems to be a lot of cash, but there always seems to be just enough for one more adventure. An all time low point in cashflow was in Las Lenas, Argentina, where the lack of cash forced Todd to hold a yard sale, on the lawn outside his motel, of all his worldly possessions in order to pay for a plane ticket back home.

Home is a bit of an issue with Todd. He doesn’t have one and he is proud of this. Instead, he is working on a long term plan involving bases. He is well on the way to setting up a network of bases, in his favourite spots round the world, which contain a stash of his bigger tools; cars, motorcycles, snowboards, surf boards, etc. His plan is to have these bases in California, Chamonix, Western Australia and the like. Then to

travel like a gypsy, without his caravan, between these choice spots living life to the full.

You want to hate him already, don’t you? Jealousy, envy, the green eyed monster. I can feel it myself. Who would not want this kind of life? Outdoor everyday, in the mountains, in the ocean, on and off the road. Ten years on a staple diet of adrenaline, a permanent tan, high altitude fit, his choice of beach babes and snow bunnies. He must be an insufferable, arrogant, macho man by now. As in Todd’s Law the reverse is true. Todd is a modest, charming, reflective, tolerant guy. His enthusiasm is contagious and the extraordinary lifestyle he has chosen is not exclusively for him. It is a place where he would like you to join him.

BOLIVIA 2000

by Cambell Cassidy

Tired, more tired than I can remember. The summit is now less than twenty metres above me now and I can see the entire north face of Illampu yawning away beneath my front points. My companions, Stian Hagen (Nor) and Xandi Kreuzeder (Ger) look just about spent. The fat swollen cornices which from below looked like a huge row of teeth outlining the summit ridge, have revealed themselves as fantastic wind swept prows. Like breaking waves that have been frozen in the very instant before they come crashing down. In the shadow of this surreal natural barrier my hopes of reaching the summit of Illampu fades along with my reserves of energy.

When Stian first came up with the idea of going to Bolivia I was skeptical. The concept of going on a snowboard trip to Bolivia seemed a little far fetched, I was more familiar with the idea of the Andes mountains in places like Patagonia and Chile. I didn’t even realise that the chain extended into Bolivia, but a quick check on the map will reveal many unfamiliar peaks in the 6000m plus range. Living in Chamonix I enjoy unrivaled access to the best off piste riding in the world. Daily I can take lifts which drop me off in the high mountains but in the last few years the steep hanging glaciers and the narrow icy couloirs which were the realm of the very few are becoming the target of the more and more riders and skiers. The explosion in freeride has drawn hundreds of talented riders to the Chamonix valley, before you could be guaranteed first tracks on any number of steep lines but now you are lucky to even get some

powder before the line is scraped back to blue ice. The traditional method of avoiding the crowds, boot packing, doesn’t even work anymore. Mountaineering is now a must for freeriding and since I come from a beach based background, in Western Australia, taking up climbing was a pretty big thing for me. Learning to climb in Chamonix is a lot like learning to drive at a Grand Prix but Stian Hagen, who is a great climber and one of the best skiers I have ever had the pleasure of making turns with, showed me the complexities of rope work and how to climb steep ice without overworking my arms and legs. However climbing at 2000m, well within in the range of rescue helicopters, in the Alps is not climbing at 6000m in the Bolivian Andes and my doubts about what would happen to me at this kind of altitude were foremost in my mind as we flew in to La Paz, Bolivia.

The airport at La Paz is literally breathtaking. Stepping off the plane at 4000m, the worlds highest airport, will make you believe that you have been punched in the windpipe. Collecting my bags I am embarrassed when I cannot shoulder my huge F2 board bag and a ten year old boy effortlessly takes it from me and carries it over to our guide’s Landcruiser. I am a professional athlete reduced to an invalid. In order to get our bodies used to this altitude we will need to spend some time lower down exercising and allowing our blood chemistry to adapt to the lower oxygen levels. The spin off from this is that we get to live and experience the unspoilt beauty of the high plains of Bolivia. Our programme is to spend ten days hiking up to Lake Titichacha the highest lake in the world and the home of the Incas, the world’s oldest civilisation. This proves to be one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. Climbing off the trail every day to the unnamed peaks and passes. Sleeping low but climbing higher every day. The energy of group grows everyday. The white capped peaks in the distance are becoming more and more the focus of our attention and the everyday realities of driving the mules and camping are now not the quaint fun they once were but more of a

hassle. The feeling of detachment, of being far away from home and in a strange land is fading the reality of being in Bolivia in winter and being ready to climb and ride.

The walk in to Illampu is a complex, almost military affair. We have ten mules, a guide, a mule skinner, Fredi (our Danish film maker), three porters, Xandi, Stian and myself. By the time we reach the Del Notre glacier I am fully focused on the mountain and walking well ahead of the main mule train with Stian. The petty differences that have distanced us from the guide are now forgotten and when we finally see the whole North Face of Illampu for the first time and the line we picked from grainy photographs back in Chamonix is revealed as a thin ribbon of white extending down from thick runnels into a massive hanging glacier and down to the del Notre glacier. The snow looks superb, even and unbroken, sparkling in the sun. The summit ridge is capped with cornices which look uncannily like teeth, molar teeth, designed for crushing and pounding, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it. We established base camp in the rock strewn lateral moraine on the opposite side of the Del Notre glacier. This is our first major obstacle, traversing the glacier. The job of finding a safe and repeatable route through the maze of crevasses and seracs is Stian’s. The glacier is less than two kilometers wide, but our first crossing takes us nearly six hours. Tiptoeing through the icefall is like walking on another planet. The dangers are well known but unseen, each step is a gamble and I am glad that Stian is with me. At the far side of the glacier we pause only to stare up at the peak before turning tail and charging back across the icefall, retracing our steps and crossing in a hour what has taken us six. The tents are a welcome sight and in the mid afternoon we fall into them and some well earned sleep.

The sleep may be well earned but at this altitude it is still elusive and when I wake at midnight, Stian is awake. The temptation to brew up some tea and pack my Lightglide is

irresistible. The conversation is a short one. We light the stove, explain the plan to Xandi and Fredi and it is barely one o’clock when we strike out across the glacier by the light of our head torches. Following the already broken trail is quite straightforward but still nerve racking. The additional physical strain of climbing the easy angled lower reaches is almost a relief to the nervous tension of the icefall. This is soon forgotten about as the angle North Face creeps upward and the strain on the legs and forearms begins to block out all the other sensations. It is still dark but we are making excellent time. The snow is not snow at all but hard boiler plate ice. This makes for simple, fast front point climbing but the thought of snowboarding down it is a nightmare. This thought is running through all our minds but unspoken as every breathe is precious and we climb on in the dark.

When the dawn breaks we are some three hundred metres from the summit. The snow is still rock hard but with the arrival of the sun the hope that the snow and the ice will turn to soft corn snow is rekindled. The dawn also brings the awareness of a new hazard that had not figured in our plans. The cornices on the summit are now cast in shadow and beneath them flutes carved from the underlying glacier ice, by their release, are actually huge, deep gullies in the snow tapering up into the skyline. Making traverses from one to the other on a board will be almost impossible. The runnels are narrow white couloirs, committing to one will be like committing to a rock couloir. Once inside one there would be no option but to follow it down. There would be no easy escape either side if the snow was to slide or rockfall was to rain down from above. The other immediate reality was that riding from the summit would be nearly impossible, even in the best of conditions. The angle of the face was by now well over 60 deg and closer to 70 deg in places. We would have to rappel several pitches before we could strap on skis and boards. All these thoughts were running through my mind when the

darkness started to lift but as the sun began to rise, the face began to glow in the fire colours of orange and reds. The fears and doubts and the problems were gone in the warm light.

Stian climbed up beside me and told me all the problems that were occupying his thoughts. They were identical to mine and he suggested that we retreat and begin our descent from lower down. I knew he was right. It would have to be on easier angled snow that we would begin the descent proper but in the fresh morning light with the summit just above I turned into a mountaineer. I would not be denied the summit. If Stian had suggested turning back thirty minutes earlier I would have turned around, then and there, but now I had the hunger for the top. The next two hundred meters were the hardest two hours of my life. Stopping every couple of minutes to regain my breathe and reassess the situation, I would have been happier to be roped up and belayed but digging out the gear from my pack was more dangerous and too draining on my physical resources to consider. Falling now was certain death, it had been for several hours now, but the thought was trivial, the overwhelming emotion was need. The need to be on the summit and succeed. This need forced me on just as I forced my companions on.

We were beneath the cornices which ringed the summit and from where I stood I could lob my ice axes onto the summit but how we were going to overcome these overhanging cornices was not immediately obvious. Just climbing beneath them was problematic. We traversed right and left looking for a weakness in these fortifications. The adrenaline which had been carrying me since dawn was fading with my hopes when Stian spied a small notch between the cornices. This could be the route. I tried it once and jammed myself into the gap. I forced my axe high into the ice and pulled. The placement was good, and I summoned all my strength for the pull. I could feel myself rising, until the Lightglide fouled on the overhang

jamming me tight. I was stuck. Panic flooded into every part of me and suddenly the exposure which had hardly made a dent in my confidence all day was terrifying. I tried to back down and felt my board pull me out and off the ice. I pulled back up into the notch. I kicked a crampon into the left wall and brought my axes round burying them high into the side wall. The nose of my board still wedged in the cornice above me made a hideous noise as I twisted round. My arms and legs were like jelly as waves of fear coursed through me. I stepped quickly up on my axes and suddenly I was above everything, emerging from the snow like an underground animal. I was safe, and I was up. Everything dissolved into pure emotion, so turbid that individual emotions were unrecognisable. I heaved and twitched and sat down, utterly overcome and spent.

Stian and Xandi joined me and we just sat there for an hour not talking or moving just sitting letting the rush take over and the landscape flood in. I have never been happier. The cold began to bring me round, out of my reverie and back to the summit. Our discussions earlier that morning were well founded. There was no descent possible from the summit. We would have to rappel several pitches into the runnels before begging the descent. We took a few pictures and rigged up a transverse snow stake as a belay. I strapped on my board on the summit and watched as Stian rappelled over the cornice and back onto the North Face. Xandi followed and with a last look around I clipped into the 5.5mm abseil rope and worked my way down. Clearing the cornice was tricky with my board on but once on the face the only problem was the screeching of my edge as I descended down to Stian and Xandi. We rapped two more pitches before I could feel comfortable standing on my board. The angle of the face was around 60 deg and I decided that this was it.

My axes in my hand and my toe edge gripping at the nose and tail for about 15cm each, I unclipped and began side slipping down the runnel. I could see that it flared out some 20m below me and that the expected softening of the snow had not happened. This is what it was all about. I slipped down into the widening runnel and headed slightly sideways to the wall. I looked over my shoulder and threw the turn. I was facing the other way in a microsecond, but my board took an eternity to come around and I could feel the nose dropping before the edge had made contact with the snow. My guts sank, and I could, again, feel the exposure whipping at me. After what seemed like two lifetimes the heel edge scraped and bit into the ice. I relaxed down onto the edge and breathed. My heart was pounding and as I let the edge slip I could not see anything beyond the walls of the runnel. My mind was as sharp and clear, and I threw another turn. I had descended 150m and made two turns before the runnel became wide enough to make linked turns. I stopped and looked up at the face and saw that Stian and Xandi and made two more rappels and were digging a ledge to put skis on. I waved at them, but I don’t think that they saw me. The snow down here was starting to soften a little and the tearing sound of metal on ice had gone. I could feel my legs, which ached from the endless front pointing of the ascent, loosen up and pushing my board through the three centimetres of corn snow became a delight. The angle of the face was becoming more manageable and the grin on my face wider as I descended from the life threatening situation of the upper face down on to the snowfields below. Gigantic turns and massive speed, stopping only to catch my breath and check on the progress of Stian and Xandi, this really was living my dreams.

Suddenly the ride was over. I had descended 2000m from the summit of Illampu at 6386m in less than one hour. The ascent had taken eight hours and only the del notre glacier stood beyond me and my tent and sleep, “no worries mate!”