ANGELS OF THE AVALANCHE AGE

NOW MORE THAN EVER, SKIERS AND SNOWBOARDERS ARE VENTURING FURTHER IN THE BACKCOUNTRY—AT A MOMENT WHEN CLIMATE CHANGE IS MAKING MOUNTAIN CONDITIONS MORE DANGEROUS. THE RESULT: IT’S NEVER BEEN A BUSIER TIME FOR THE WORLD’S MOST ELITE HELICOPTER RESCUE TEAM.

- JOSHUA HAMMER

FOR DAYS IT had been snowing, but now the clouds were gone. And way up here, high above the tree line, where the storm had wreathed the mountaintop, the only evidence of the foul weather was the snow that it had left behind. It was everywhere, spread across the face of the peak and down the rocky ridges like a thick layer of frosting on a cake and glittering against a cerulean sky.

Joël Jaccard squinted hard in the bright light and shuffled in his skis. He took a long look down the back of the mountain, studying the way the high slopes of Roc d’Orzival—a 2,800-metre arrowheadshaped protrusion in the Swiss Alps— fell away beneath him. With his gaze, he traced a path down to the village of Grimentz, more than 1,500 metres below, taking mental measure of the obstacle course before him. Steep traverses, vertical crevasses, ice patches, and spines of black rock. It was a treacherous run, unsecured and unsupervised, suitable only for experts—the ultimate “free ride”, as he thought of it. Jaccard and his two friends had trudged to this off-trail spot by taking a ski resort lift to the highest station and then carrying their skis uphill for another 15 minutes. Now he was eager to get moving; he figured it would take them 30 minutes to reach the village.