Badasses
Sep 30

R.I.P. Remy Lecluse

By Trevor Hunt Badasses 1 Comment »

Relative to most sports, ski mountaineering (the steep kind) is very small. The history is well documented. There are really just a few French grandmasters that invented the sport and have since taken it to successive levels gnar. There are strong communities elsewhere in Europe and North America, but because of Chamonix, the French have always ruled the sport. So when one of these guys dies while skiing, it’s a big deal (even if the ski media doesn’t realize it).

But our sport isn’t about who’s best. There’s no quantifiable glory. No bullshit gold medals. That’s the beauty of it. Why it transcends mere sport.

Remy showing how it's done.

Remy didn’t have the flash that many of his contemporaries had. He just skied an endless number of descents.

I’m ok at what I do skiing-wise. But when people ask me for advice on skiing the steeps, I shrug my shoulders and tell them to go watch Youtube videos of Remy Lecluse. His steep technique was efficient, effortless and flawless. You got the sense that he was so competent, he could never fall. In the end it was an avalanche while tent-bound.

I’ve only followed his career for the last 5 years. His early days were featured in Pierre Tardivel’s book, Memoiries de pleine pente, with the other masters. He’d been actively skiing the steeps since the mid 80’s, and more recently him and Plake formed a partnership and headed to places like Peru and India. Fransson states in his tribute to Remy, that he had over 500 firsts . . . crazy!

As far as Manaslu is concerned, from the pictures I’ve seen the peak seems to have significant objective hazards. The week prior to the avalanche, after hearing about the 50cm of fresh snow that had fallen on a previous 50cm of powder, I remember thinking out loud about the risks those boys were taking. But you can’t judge these things. The Himalayas is totally unique in the world of mountains, where the general rules we try to follow in Canada don’t apply. From my own experiences I know the mindset changes after a month or so of acclimatization and thousands spent on transportation and porters. High-altitude wears you down, decision-making becomes affected and priorities relax. But the massive serac-fall that created the avalanche, seems to be a freak occurrence separate from the snow conditions.

Another legend gone.

R.I.P. Remy Lecluse, Gregory Costa

May 27

Local Badass: Steve Corbett and the first quadruple backflip (1974)

By Trevor Hunt Badasses, Squamish Comments Off

“Interviews with local badasses – an attempt to uncover some reality in the media-hyped world of ski heros. People who have pushed the limits of skiing with little fanfare.”

Note: Last week, for several days, footage of Steve’s first-ever quadruple back flip was on the internet. Around 30,000 people on youtube watched. The footage was then pulled due to copyright infringement. Hopefully soon we will again be able to see the footage sans music.

I’ve known Steve for over five years, and have always been fascinated with the story of the quadruple back flip. The footage actually spent several years in my own basement, in 16mm form, waiting to be dusted and the feat revisited.  Growing up on Whistler, and airing the “Camel humps” many times, I realize Steve’s jump is an amazing piece of Whistler’s history.  These humps were partially blasted to make way for the Harmony chair, and you’d now have to negotiate a cat-track, moguls and snow-plowers on the in-run.

What fascinates me most about Steve’s accomplishment is the idea of progression versus the timeless. Progression is one of the main taglines media and athletes use when hyping skiing. Always going faster, bigger, with more spins! But certain aspects of skiing resist progression. With steep skiing, the progression of technology and technique translates little in the progression of the sport. No matter how fancy your ski set-up is, it still going to take a huge set of balls to ski the king lines. Not much has progressed in the angle of ski descents since the grandmasters like Vallencant and Boivin in the 70’s and 80’s.  Steve’s quadruple backflip is in this realm of the timeless. His 1974 feat easily stands beside anything you’ll see at the X-games today.  It resists this notion of progression, because it takes an iron set of balls to take 160 feet of air and flip 4 times, no matter how you’ve trained, what gear you ski on, or what decade you were born.

I was lucky enough to see the footage while it was up. The flips combined with the incredible airtime is unbelievable, and easily matches anything I’ve seen in any ski movie. Other quadruple back flip videos are on the internet, but they are usually freestyle aerialist-type jumps, where the person is pitched straight up and travels very little distance down hill. Whereas Steve’s jump is laid back and massive!!

Trevor Hunt – Was it common knowledge at the time that no one had done a quadruple backflip?

Steve Corbett - We were pretty sure there had never been a quadruple. A diving coach from UBC told me it was impossibe and that it had never been done on a trapeze or diving board or trampoline. I think Tom Leroi  and Herman Golhner (sp?) had each done triples. They were famous from old films like “Ski the Outer Limits” and “The Mobius Flip”. My close friend Roger Robertson also threw a triple at a jump contest at Whistler in 1973. My friends wanted content for their ski film so I did a triple at the camel humps for them. We wanted to break new ground so I did the Quadruple in 1974 for a film called “Skiing in the Minds Eye”. I was 18 and The owners of the film company were 18, 18 and 20. We made a 90 minute film and sold out two nights at the Queen E theatre in Vancouver and a bunch more across Canada.

TH – How did you get so adept at rotating?

SC - We had a swimming pool at home.

TH – Whistler Village and Blackcomb didn’t exist at this point, nor the Peak chair or the Harmony Chair. Did it feel like you were in the middle of nowhere?

SC - You know what it was like back then you’d take a shovel hike up to a good spot and build a jump and have fun, so I was in my happy place.

TH -Do you remember any of the emotions before and after the jump?

SC - We had waited for a nice sunny day with fresh snow and at Whistler that can be a while, so I was happy to finally make it happen.

TH -How long were your skis? What kind?

SC - I took up a pair of short skis but they were a little slow for escape velocity so I swapped for a pair of 200 cm Fischer Attacks.

TH – Any memories of the party afterward?

SC - Nope.

TH – The million dollar question – did you land it?

SC - Well I did hit the ground, being a committed gravity user and all. My skis hit first but I was leaning forward and rolled once in the powder and then surprisingly stayed straight and standing after that. I was worried that I’d have to do another take so I was happy when the film guys cheered. Its hard to ski powder with big long skinny skis and no poles after doing my first quadruple so take it easy on me there. I think I had hiked and packed the in run about 7 times that day and thrown a double, a triple and then the quadruple so I was pretty tuckered.

TH – I love the stomp, then somersault, then ski away landing!  Good enough in my books. Thanks so much Steve.

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