Sylvain Saudan was a Swiss skier and mountaineer born on September 23, 1936, in Lausanne, Switzerland, and died on July 14, 2024, in Les Houches, France. Nicknamed the "skier of the impossible," he was one of the pioneers of extreme skiing.
Sylvain Saudan spent the first four years of his life in Lausanne. In 1939, the family left Lausanne for economic reasons and moved to Valais. At the age of five, young Sylvain received his first pair of skis. After completing compulsory schooling, he worked, starting in 1951, as a laborer on the construction site of the new international road at the Col de la Forclaz, and then as a construction driver. Throughout this period, he practiced skiing in his region (Les Marécottes, Verbier), participating in local competitions, and even becoming president of the Martigny-Combe ski club in 1959. In 1961, at the age of 25, Sylvain Saudan obtained his Swiss ski instructor's certificate. He initially worked in Crans-Montana. In the summer, he practiced mountaineering in the Swiss and French Alps.
In December 1962, he traveled around the world and worked as a ski instructor in three resorts: Aspen, Colorado, Christchurch, New Zealand, and Glenshee Ski Centre in Scotland. He obtained his American mountain guide diploma in Aspen in the spring of 1963. During the winters of 1964-1965, 1965-1966, and 1966-1967, he worked as a ski instructor in Zermatt and Arosa. It was there that he achieved his first feat in the spring of 1967, on a particularly steep slope on the flanks of the Rothorn.
Between 1967 and 1973, Sylvain Saudan racked up a series of "firsts," at a rate of one or two per year. Although an experienced mountaineer, he was first and foremost a skier, which led him, whenever possible, to use available means of transportation to shorten his climbs. He notably resorted to helicopters, a practice he criticized by purists. Since his "firsts" didn't earn him any money, in 1971, Sylvain Saudan earned his living from ski lessons in the winter and from mountaineering in the summer. He also owned a ski shop in Arosa, Switzerland. Later, he opened a restaurant in Chamonix: L'Impossible!, and also organized heliskiing expeditions to Kashmir.
His early exploits received little media attention. Nevertheless, the films made during the descent of the Gervasutti Couloir and especially the Aiguille de Bionnassay opened up a parallel career for him in the fall of 1970: that of lecturer. After the Alps, Sylvain Saudan set out to conquer the peaks of North America, then the Himalayas. In May 1979, he led an expedition to Dhaulagiri. On May 13, 1979, an accident at 7,600 m resulted in the deaths of two Frenchmen and a Sherpa. In 1982, he skied 3,000 m up Gasherbrum I, or Hidden Peak, making the first complete descent of a peak over 8,000 m. His exploits earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records. On August 13, 2016, he received the "Alpine Merit" award from the Diablerets International Alpine Film Festival for his lifetime achievements. In 2017, the Whistler Blackcomb resort in Canada named a couloir after him. Sylvain Saudan died on July 14, 2024, in Les Houches (Haute-Savoie). His ashes were scattered on the Aiguille de Bionnassay.
