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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the mid-1920s, Paris was a center of intellectualism as a generation of writers, artists and expatriates\u2014some of whom were veterans of the bloodiest conflict in modern history\u2014shared ideas and defined a genre. Literary luminaries like Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were among them.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A century later, a mountain town in France is again a culture-defining center, but the genre is &lt;em&gt;alpinism&lt;/em&gt;, be it climbing, skiing or B.A.S.E. jumping. Chamonix, in the shadow of Mont Blanc has come to define modern mountain culture.\r\n\r\n\r\n\t&lt;strong&gt;MORE EDGE: &lt;/strong&gt;Skier Gus Kenworthy masters the art of being inverted\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The reason is simple: the terrain is unparalleled, with peaks rising 15,000 feet off the valley floor, creating the border between France, Italy and Switzerland. Jagged spires decorate the skyline while glaciers keep many of them white year-round. These glaciers are interrupted only by sharp folds called crevasses, adding to the challenge of the terrain.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThere\u2019s nothing in the continental U.S. that compares,\u201D says Nathan Wallace, a California-raised skier who\u2019s lived in Chamonix for the better part of 15 years. He says it\u2019s not just the big mountains that bring skiers here on pilgrimage, but the access.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;A cable car named for the mountain it traverses,&amp;nbsp;the Aiguille du Midi&lt;strong&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/strong&gt;was built in 1955 and still boasts the highest vertical ascent of any tram in the world, rising over 9,000 feet.&lt;em&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;It was designed more for the Everyman&amp;nbsp;to see the Alps. But it was a windfall for skiers and riders, as it culminates at the start of the Vall\u00E9e Blanche, a 9,000-foot run and the starting point to access Mont Blanc as well as any other project mountaineers can imagine.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200BThat access comes at a price. Some in the skiing community have called the region the \u201Cdeath capital,\u201D citing the sheer number of fatalities. In 1996, acclaimed Canadian ski mountaineer Trevor Petersen, who helped popularize the extreme skiing movement, died in an avalanche while descending the exit couloir on the Glacier Rond. In 2006 American Doug Coombs was killed trying to save fellow mountain guide Chad VanderHam in La Grave, three hours from Chamonix. And this year, in a heartbreaking episode, Oregonian Dave Rosenbarger, who\u2019d skied most of the toughest routes in Chamonix, was swept to his death on the Italian side of Mont Blanc.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It\u2019s a hard place to earn your stripes, with little margin for error. That\u2019s why there\u2019s a pecking order amongst the locals, similar to a difficult surf break, where one slip-up not only endangers the person who made the mistake, but those around them as well.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThere\u2019s a lot of territorialism or localism,\u201D says Wallace. \u201CI saw that really quickly and did my best to spend as much time as I could with locals despite language barriers and be part of what they were a part of and just be respectful. When people just show up on the tram you\u2019ll get others telling them to take it easy, know where you\u2019re going, be careful with your choices.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200BEven though he\u2019s descended most of the wildest lines in the region, Wallace is humble, quick to give credit to French ski mountaineers and their accomplishments, like Marco Siffredi, one of the valley\u2019s native sons. A snowboarder and mountaineer,&amp;nbsp;Siffredi knocked off plenty of firsts in the Valley including the first snowboard descent of Nant Blanc on the Aiguille Verte, a line averaging 55 degrees with steeper sections. He was the first to snowboard from the summit of Everest and disappeared during his second attempt there in 2002. Or Jean Marc Boivin, who helped invent extreme skiing without really knowing it with outrageous first descents like the Aiguille du Midi\u2019s Frendo Spur.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In Europe, the attitude is much different. There\u2019s no litigation following a mistake off-piste. No rules or gates or any barriers to the imaginations of extreme ski mountaineers.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThat\u2019s what draws people there,\u201D says Matt Hansen, an editor with &lt;em&gt;Powder&lt;/em&gt; magazine. \u201CPeople have the freedom to do whatever they want. It\u2019s such a huge, dangerous place, it attracts a certain individual who wants to express themselves creatively on the snow or rock or in the air, and no one is going to tell them no. If they die doing it that\u2019s the way it is. It\u2019s true freedom.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200BThe projects available to ski mountaineers are endless. Perfect days can come in myriad of ways. And they don\u2019t always have to be death-defying. \r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThe days that keep you here?\u201D asks Wallace. \u201CIt snowed a meter or two overnight, there\u2019s no one in the tram and you\u2019re with four of your buddies. It\u2019s cloudy all day and you\u2019ve been skiing near the valley floor. It clears up at 3:30 in the afternoon and you get a 9,000-foot run at sunset. It\u2019s better than any heli-skiing in the world.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Then, when avalanche conditions improve, so do the options for steep descents that include ski touring with mixed ice and rock climbing, followed by rappelling and 1,000-meter lines into Switzerland and Italy using public transport for shuttles. The options are endless\u2014and they\u2019re all discussed and dissected each evening in Chamonix\u2019s bars and eateries.\r\n\r\n\r\n\t&lt;strong&gt;MORE EDGE: &lt;/strong&gt;Show me the money: How action sports stack up vs. \"Big 4\"\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CPeople are doing really cool things, it\u2019s so fun and captivating to be around,\u201D says Caroline Gleich, an accomplished ski mountaineer based out of Salt Lake City who spent a month in Chamonix last winter. \u201CYou\u2019re around the most exciting people, it\u2019s like a drug. You want to stay at the party and keep doing the drug. The village is full of counter-culture rebels who aren\u2019t afraid to break the rules because there are none.\u201D\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/edge/2015/03/27/chamonix-france-mountaineering-skiing-snowboarding>