This Conditions Report is from Thursday, May 7, 2026.
“No one went left. There’s a reason!” Janne shouted back at me.
We were now approaching the rappel into the Cosmiques Couloir just a stone’s throw away from the Aiguille di Midi—a mountainous transport vessel of mythical status that offers those brave enough access to one of the most incredible alpine playgrounds on the planet.
And dangerous—just as we were getting on the tram car from the mid-station a massive avalanche was tumbling down the infamous North Face of the Midi.
“It’s just such a playground. It’s endless,” Black Crows rider and Chamoniard Sam Favret told me over a shot of Génépi at the Grand Montets closing day afterparty last weekend.
That it is, Sam—that it is.
Near the top of the couloir, you can either rappel directly into it from the left, or ski down a little bit to a sling anchor and then abseil in from the right.
The left looked way rockier, so everyone was going right.
A group of smooth Frenchmen were on the rappel when we got to the anchor but because Cosmiques is an “entry level” line that most of these wild Alps people ski before breakfast, they were already done by the time we got our own 60 meter rad lines out (we used 2 tied together and Janne was kind enough to show me how to tie the knot as we hung out above the cliff. I was taking notes).
Janne went in first, smooth, one foot hanging off his board over rocks as he kept his life on the rope.
While he was descending in through the sharp teeth of the beast, Freeride World Tour 4-time Women’s Snowboarding champion Marion Haerty crossed under our rope to get into the couloir with her partner from ANOTHER entrance, without a rope.
No big deal.
Then I was up.
It was a while since I used a rope to rappel into something with skis on, the last time being in Alaska earlier this spring, so it took me a second to get oriented and then once I did—it was smooth as butter down the rocky cliff into the chute proper.
Except for the sharks at the top I had to deliberate with.
I had to give them a little bit of my ski bases as tax.
Gotta pay to play.
Then we were into the line.
The top was misleadingly rocky, despite the half-meter of new snow that fell the day before.
Cold, dry, light, sexy powder snow.
In May, this early gets out of bed real fast.
Beer and barbecue season can wait a little longer.
Janne went first, making it look easy, frustrating me in this way as usual.
Then I went, tip-toeing through the rocks like a thief in the night, above the death cliff, to a perch above another death cliff, and then through a few more nefarious rocks to the clean and pristine, perfect 50º fall line run all the way for the next 3,000 feet or so until a turn on a powdery spine that revealed another beautiful pitch as a steep exit to the Bosson Glacier.
We huffed and puffed and felt tough.
Skiing strong until our legs had enough.
Followed by hashbrown burgers on the patio.
Life is rough in Chamonix.
From the time we traversed out from the Bosson Glacier back to the Midi midstation, we saw 3 large avalanche roll down the Midi North Face like fucked up waterfalls.
The first had us and another party in front moving quickly (sprinting) on the skin track back because we weren’t sure if we were far enough away or not.
We were, thankfully, but our timing was still a little too late for our liking.
A bit later, 2 of them broke at the same time, likely from speed riders flying on the North Face.
From afar they looked like 2 giant white cobras slithering down the mountainside in a memorizing dance.
Up close they wouldn’t look so pretty.
We drank cokes on the patio and enjoyed the sunshine a little extra.
Reflecting later, I think these Frenchies got it figured out:
When you live with your mortality staring you straight in your face every time you go ski, you tend to enjoy it more.
Maybe not at first, but afterwards, when the smoke clears and the adrenaline level recedes like the tide rolling back, you find that the you don’t sweat the small stuff as much.
You’re a little more immune to the day’s frustrations and petty annoyances.
Food tastes a little better; wine a little sweeter.
You laugh a little more.
Suddenly spending time with those you love is much more appealing, if not obligatory.
All if only for a day.
That is, if you survive to ski another day in Chamonix.
And live long enough to catch what is almost always one hell of a sunset setting afire the North Face of the Aiguille di Midi herself like the dying of a thousand suns.
