Mike, on the Haute Route

If the trip to Chamonix during Blizzard of Aahhh’s piqued my interest in the big mountains, it was the time I spent with John Falkiner in Verbier in the ensuing years that cemented it. It was Falkiner who took me on each of those adventures and became my first mentor.

Mike, on the Haute Route, a little more comfortable with the descent than his first time in Chamonix.

Fortunately, I was intimidated by the alpine environment as much as I was drawn to it, and recognized that if you wanted to play there, you either had to hire a guide or educate yourself. I had more time than money, so I purchased Freedom of the Hills, which most mountaineers recognize as the unofficial text book of their sport, and studied additional books on route finding, navigation, first aid, knots, anchor building, avalanche hazard, and winter camping. Over the next several years, I took as many trips into the mountains as I could, and enrolled in avalanche, rock climbing, glacier travel and crevasse rescue courses, as well as wilderness first aid.

Haute Route crew

Climbing the same mountain over and over again may seem limiting from a learning standpoint, and in some ways it is. However, witnessing the dramatic transformation that a mountain undergoes is an education you don’t get from changing locations frequently.

The hazards on a route can change day to day and certainly week to week. So you can imagine the transition that occurs during the May through September guiding season, let alone from year to year. On one specific slope your primary concern may shift from avalanche danger in early season unconsolidated snow, to crevasse hazard as the snow melts and the bridges become thinner, to rock fall when the melting snow exposes previously buried rocks.

On belay

Though I cherished my time at RMI, as a skier, it was tough to walk down a perfectly good 9,000 vertical foot ski slope. After my second season, I quit guiding on Rainier and enrolled in AMGA’s newly formed ski mountaineering certification program. About the same time I met Swiss guide Martin Volken. He owned a ski shop and guide service that he ran out North Bend. He is one of the most capable and level headed people you could ever hope to be in the mountains with and I was extremely fortunate to have him as my next mentor. With the help of Martin’s preparation, I passed the AMGA ski mountaineering exam 10 years ago, and have been guiding for him ever since.

I still remember the thrill I got from being in a place where I had absolutely no business being while shooting Blizzard of Aahhh’s in Chamonix. In my eyes, that’s the job of a guide: take someone somewhere they shouldn’t be on their own, and make them feel safe and comfortable. It’s passing on that same exhilaration that makes guiding enjoyable 20 years later.

Bridge from the tram docking station, Aiguille de Midi, photo by Matt Farmer

We’d been in Chamonix for just over a week, chewing up the record snowfall by cycling the lifts at the Grands Montets. Even though I’d only skied Europe on one other occasion I felt at home, as the lower mountain felt simply like a huge US resort. With the upper mountain closed, the truly steep terrain inaccessible because of the high avy hazard, and the awe-inspiring but intimidating views concealed by storm clouds, I didn’t fully comprehend where I was, or the dose of mountain reality I was about to experience.

Days later, one of the largest slides to ever wreak havoc in the Chamonix valley came off the Bossons glacier and buried three-story buildings in debris. But it was what we heard in the bars that was unsettling: a Brit got caught in a slide on Tuesday; a Swede fell into a crevasse on the Argentiere glacier yesterday. Stump even fished a snowboarder out of a crevasse. Chamonix; “death sport capital of the world”. We were starting to understand. Then we heard the stats: the Chamonix valley claimed roughly 50 lives a year. Holy shit—one a week! I couldn’t remember hearing about a single person dying at a ski resort back home.

So when the clouds finally broke, it was with a little trepidation that I boarded the Aiguille de Midi tram with Greg Stump, Bruce Benedict, Scot Schmidt, and our guide, Murray Ball. Constructed in 1953, it rose 9,000’ from the valley floor to the shoulder of Mont Blanc in only two spans. Just getting on the rickety old box took a bit of courage. The views through the scratched windows shifted our concern from the tram to the mountains, as some of the most daunting, raw, alpine terrain on the planet unfolded before us. Enormous glaciers tumbled off the flanks of Mont Blanc, while towering seracs, sharp granite spires, and hanging glaciers dominated the landscape. To a city kid who grew up skiing moguls in American resorts, this wasn’t just another country, it was another planet . . . with a whole different set of rules.

Aiguille de Midi, photo by Matt Farmer

The decrepit tram reentered our consciousness as it bounced its way into the docking station of the Aiguille de Midi. A bridge with 200’ of air under your feet spans the 30’ from the Aiguille to an adjacent spire. From there, an ice tunnel delivers you to the snow. As your eyes adjust to the brilliant sunshine you discover you are at the start of long arête. A steep, rocky unskiable pitch is the comforting side; if you fell off the other side you wouldn’t stop for several thousand feet. Normally, there’s a solid path with a cable for a handrail. Even so, guides will rope their clients to descend. But the cable was buried under 10’ of snow. You can’t be serious—we’re not really going to walk down that?

I’d never had a harness on, had never held an ice axe in my hand, or even had skins on my skis. Hell, I’d never even used an avalanche transceiver. And despite being a pretty good skier, I’d never looked down anything as steep or committing as the Couloir Poubelle.

From the tunnel exit, the couloir dropped about 500’ and went from flat to close to 50º without so much as a warm-up turn. With cameras rolling, Stump asked Schmidt if he wanted to ski it. Scot confidently, even enthusiastically responded, “Yeah, I’ll ski it.” This wasn’t the plan. We were supposed to hike down the arête. Ski some pow. Maybe even make some warm-up turns. But now with the cameras running, Stump panned to me with the same question. If you’ve seen the footage from the Blizzard of Aahhh’s, you’ve heard the timid tone in my affirmative response. In fact, you can practically see the apprehension in my eyes through my mirrored lenses.

Mike on Couloir Cosmique, Chamonix. Photo by Martin Volken

I hacked my way down, then crashed when I hit a rock that yanked my ski off. My ski slid almost to the bottom of the couloir. Over my radio, Murray informed me that my ski stopped just below a bergschrund and directed me to come in from below and to the side. His thick Kiwi accent, combined with the more important fact that I had no clue what a bergschrund was, left me completely oblivious as to what kind of danger I was or was not in. I followed his directions, but only as I approached my ski did I understand what Murray was talking about. I was shocked to be looking into a narrow, dark, and unnerving crevasse. This was the start of my alpine education. I quickly learned that bergschrund was the German word for the uppermost crevasse on a glacier that separates the glacier from stagnant snowfield above.

We spent the rest of the day skiing through seracs and around crevasses in some of the most rugged and breathtaking mountains in the Alps. It was my most eye-opening and inspiring day on skis, and taught me two things: first, I was not only captivated by, but drawn to the high alpine environment. And second, that I had absolutely no business being there. Not a great combo for longevity. It was this dichotomy that prompted me to seek further knowledge and embark upon the ten-year educational journey that transformed me from a skier to a ski mountaineering guide.

Mike Hattrup, ripping it up in Alaska, circa 1996

I still remember the first time I saw a Seattle Sombrero.  It was during the early nineties, and just like disco left an embarrassing stain on the otherwise irreproachable history of rock ‘n’ roll, the light pollution of neon was brightening the world’s ski slopes.  So K2’s poster of team rider Dan Donnelly, six feet out of a halfpipe doing a mute grab, and sporting a chocolate brown, full-length, Aussie Driza-Bone jacket, and royal blue Seattle Sombrero pinned up on one side Aussie style, certainly grabbed your attention.  Not many guys could get away with that get-up, let alone snowboard in it during the neon years, but Donnelly made both look cool.

Within a week I was in the original REI store on Capital Hill picking out a Seattle Sombrero.  I had no delusions of looking as cool as Donnelly, but I was always partial to the Aussie cowboy hat, and with fleeting natural sun protection, was constantly on the lookout for a spring ski hat that protected my skull and was more functional than a baseball hat.  The Seattle Sombrero fit the bill, so to speak.  It was waterproof, provided great shade, and the chin cord allowed me to ski fast without continually sidestepping back up the slope to retrieve it.

Clearly, the Sombrero was not designed for skiing, but neither was the Marmot Ronald McDonald ice climbing suit that I occasionally skied in.  When I was just discovering the mountains beyond the lifts, it wasn’t easy to find technical clothing that was also suitable for resort skiing.  So I often opted for the technical features of more mountaineering designed clothes even though they lacked the ski features I desired.

The Sombrero is what put OR on my radar, but the variety of technical headwear and gloves, along with gators, or rather, Crocs, and more ditty bags than one could ever use, sealed my interest.  Moreover, it was a local Seattle brand whose headquarters were a short bike ride from where I grew up.  Although I found some of the products a bit high in “gwerb” factor (an actual self deprecating term used by OR employees at the time, to describe the lack of styling found in some of their “function first” products), I sent them a proposal and we began a relationship.

Ironically, after 15 years my desire for technical, more functional ski clothes is what drew me back to OR.  Technical backcountry clothes—minimalist jackets and pants with good venting, technical fit and bomber protection are relatively easy to find, as are good resort ski clothes.  But for that space in between, the sidecountry or lift access backcountry, I couldn’t find the right blend of technical features and resort features in one garment.

For riding lifts and hiking in or out of bounds, or dropping off the backside, I wanted resort features like comfort, great freedom of movement, protection while sitting on a cold, wet chair, and pockets that were ipod compatible, goggle friendly and roomy enough for skins or an extra hat—after all, my jacket was essentially replacing the pack I might not be wearing.  But I also needed backcountry features like breathable fabrics, efficient venting, bomber protection, and a helmet compatible hood that could be taken on and off easily.

So if you’ve been suffering the same quandary as me—having to decide between backcountry features or resort features, fit and styling—stay tuned, we’ll have some functional designs that should satisfy your adventurous spirit, no matter how big or small your ambitions.

**Check back for more episodes from the Hattrup Channel, posting to VertiCulture soon.