Freeskiing
Find out why 25 years of Xtreme Verbier is a must-watch
Watch the most exhilarating and stunning moments from the world's scariest freeride contest and learn all about the true history of the legendary Xtreme Verbier event.
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"Oh, no, no, no," came the collective outcry from the public, as a small figure kept tomahawking down the dogleg couloir, crashing head-over-heels, over and over again, finally coming to rest after what felt like an eternity in a small, very still heap. Swedish freerider Sarah Linden, known for her calm, confident and powerful riding in the steeps of Chamonix, had caught an edge on the Bec des Rosses and was catapulted into an unstoppable fall, hundreds of metres down the chute.
A helicopter flew in and guides transferred the injured athlete onboard to airlift her out. People have tears in their eyes. Would she be OK? Hours later, confirmation comes from the hospital – fortunately nothing broken, but a severe back trauma and a heavy concussion.
This first major accident in the third edition of the Bec des Rosses contest could have been the last, but it wasn’t and almost 25 years later, here's the full story of the Xtreme Verbier.
When Philippe Buttet and Nicholas-Hale Woods first had the idea of running a snowboard competition on the Bec des Rosses in Verbier, Switzerland, they called for the professional opinion of two mountain guides from neighbouring Chamonix, Dédé Rhem and Jérôme Ruby. At the time, both were exploring how far the limits of gravity and human daring could be pushed, with axe-in-hand steep skiing exploits that have remained unrepeated and unchallenged until today, like this first (and only) descent of the Triolet North Face captured in the image below.
First descent of Le Triolet’s north face
© Philippe Fragnol
Unsurprisingly, the two infamous snowboard mountaineers deemed the face of the Bec des Rosses rideable and so the first invitations went out to the biggest names in big mountain riding for a contest: winners of Alaska's King of the Hill, like Matt Goodwill and Julie Zell, AK legends Tex Davenport and Jay Liska, Freestyle world champ Reto Lamm and Alpine Snowboarding world champ Martin Freinademetz, as well as steep snowboarding aficionados like Jason Schutz, who was known to secretly claim solo first descents of seemingly unrideable couloirs in La Grave without ever talking about it.
Arriving at the first comp, riders were shell-shocked by the sheer challenge. Would this face be rideable at all? Given the poor snow conditions, Bec des Rosses looked more like what its true identity is during summer – a renowned rock-climbing venue.
"I remember so clearly when I came to Verbier the first year, I was really scared of that Bec des Rosses face. It was just rocks and stones all over. I remember that I clearly wanted to go home, but it was too late. I was there and I had to do it, recalled freeriding legend Eva Sandelgard.
I remember so clearly when I came to Verbier the first year, I was really scared of that Bec des Rosses face. It was just rocks and stones all over
The Bec des Rosses
© Freerideworldtour.com/J.Bernard
The pure stats of the Bec des Rosses have been quoted at nauseam. Between the starting point at 3,223m and the arrival nowadays, the vertical drop stands at 600m, with a 45° to 55° incline. To illustrate this steepness, when you stand on the tiny, pointy top of the Bec, you can't see more than a couple of meters of snow in front of your feet. The rest simply drops away and the next visible point is the arrival 600m below.
Each year I come back, I'm horrified. Are we really going to ride that face?
Xavier entering the face of Bec des Rosses
© Freeride World Tour / Hadik
This extreme steepness and its resulting lack of view down the face means that each rider has to memorise their line based on binocular-observations from the mountains opposite in the days prior to the Xtreme Verbier contest.
"The biggest challenge with the Bec is that the top is so unbelievably steep that you’re dragging your arms and then there's the no landmarks, no trees as guides. It's all just rock on a big open face, so to find your way down that and find your way with speed and fluidity is an incredible mental challenge," says former Freeride World Tour competitor Cody Townsend. "It takes so much experience to be able to figure out how to get down safely."
Reine Barkered
© Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
While freestylers get most of the attention, there's no doubt that within the scene, big mountain riders are the most respected. In a sport where charging the hardest on steep and gnarly terrain is the name of the game, it takes amazing skills and a special kind of relationship with fear to make it out ahead of the pack. And thus, the story of the Xtreme Verbier is better told in experiences, anecdotes and stories than with facts, figures and medal counts.
To find your way down that and find your way with speed and fluidity is an incredible mental challenge
From seeing riders arrive at the peak, green with fear and throwing up their breakfast, to the heartfelt good luck hugs to each other before competing against each other and riders radioing up snow conditions and dangers to the ones following them, regardless of the fact their adversaries might in turn scoop the win as a result, Xtreme Verbier isn't like other contests. "One missed step could be the difference in walking away, or flying away in a helicopter. It's not that fun," sums up FWT legend Sammy Luebke.
Julien Lopez at the Xtreme Verbier
© Tero Repo/Freeride World Tour
There's moments like when guides tested the snow stability of the face and accidentally triggered a massive avalanche that almost buried Kaj Zackrisson, who was on face inspection just at the bottom of the hill. "I got super scared, turned around and skied away, and traversed up from that avalanche. But then, in the next chute, over came an even bigger avalanche," he recalls.
As fellow skier Cody Townsend remembers: "I looked up and it was literally like a billowing wave and I just see this massive amount of snow coming down on us. And I realise that I think I'm going to be alright and I look to my left and I look to where Kaj is, and Kaj is right in the middle of it. And I was just like 'Oh no Kaj, no!' I came racing down towards him and all of a sudden just right around this little rock I saw him and I was just thinking 'Oh my God, I can't believe he's there'. I was almost certain that he was going to be buried 20 feet deep and it was going to be a body recovery situation. I was just so happy to see him. We just hugged and hugged."
One missed step could be the difference in walking away, or flying away in a helicopter. It's not that fun
There's also Steve Klassen’s incredible story of participating from the very first competition all the way through to 2019's event, when, aged 54 and just six months after a hip replacement, he finally launched and stuck the big 16m cliff on the exposed upper part of the face that had escaped him all those years.
Klassen was so meticulous that in the early years he'd fly over all the way from California just to take pictures of the face weeks before the comp and learn every rock in every snow condition. Using that info, he planned his runs to time with the first sunlight hitting the face, pulling off big, magical slashes right at border of shadow and light – and winning. Klassen participated in Xtreme Verbier 12 times, won five of those, and used his first price money to build an extra hot tub for a bear that would habitually come by and smash his own tub at home.
Steve Klassen, 54-years-old, competes for the 18th time in Verbier Xtreme
© Adam Klingeteg
There are stories of the daring exploits etched all over the mountain. The 'Hollywood Cliff' is named after showman Axel Pauporte, who'd appear anywhere with his fat, golden disco glasses. The 'Gilles Voirol Cliff' was named after Verbier's own young, promising rider, while the 'Xavier De Le Rue Cliff' was baptised by the freeride legend's incredibly exposed, massive air over a large, steep stretch of rocks. There's the 'Reine Cliff' and the 'Seb Michaud Cliff' in the heart zone, where the mogul skier pulled one of his signature Backflips – clearing a rock maze upside down from a distance of probably 50m – and while landing safely, lost the season's title for taking too huge of a risk.
Watch Xavier De Le Rue ride down the Bec des Rosses from a drone in the player below:
2 min
POV & Auto Drone Xavier De Le Rue
POV & Auto Drone Xavier De Le Rue
While many the greats of snowboarding and skiing have participated in one or more of the other Freeride World Tour stops, from The Art of Flight star Travis Rice to freeskiing’s biggest legend Candide Thovex, snowboarding great Peter Bauer to Sverre Lilijquist, fearless Angel Collinson to uber-stylish Markus Eder, Olympic champion Julia Mancuso and many, many more, not of all them have dared to set foot on the infamous Bec. There’s a very good reason for that.
While rarely mentioned, the history of the Xtreme Verbier also includes horrific accidents.
Sarah Linden's fall was the first that stuck in the mind, but crueller ones followed, like when Jérôme Ruby dropped into the steepest part of the mountain, right above the middle couloir – a forbidden zone, off-limits due to lack of snow and sheer danger.
Ruby trusted his mountaineering skills and knew he could billy-goat his way down, but he didn’t know that the screws of his binding would come out of his board, catapulting him down 120m with accelerating speed and creating a momentum that ripped not only his board but also his boots from his feet during his fall. He cleared four 20m rock bands before smashing at last onto the flatter outrun in bad shape. Several face and knee surgeries later, Ruby came back, working for years on the Freeride World Tour as a key member of the safety team.
"It's the biggest, burliest face in the world that you’ll ever have a freeride comp on," succinctly sums up Jeremy Jones of the Xtreme Verbier field of competition.
Probably due to strict rules regarding helmets, back protection, avalanche backpacks and other safey equipment throughout the more than two decades of competition, luckily no Xtreme Verbier competitor has suffered irreversible harm from a fall.
It's the biggest, burliest face in the world that you’ll ever have a freeride comp on
Verbier Xtreme 2015 winner Aurélien Ducroz
© Carlier/Swatch Freeride World Tour by The North Face
Because the Xtreme Verbier indisputably holds the crown in freeride competitions and attracts world's best skiers and snowboarders, its history is also inextricably linked with the wider history of freeriding and its protagonists. Many Bec des Rosses stars have left us prematurely due to avalanches or accidents filming, from Gilles Voirol and Dédé Rhem to Olympic champion Karine Ruby, Teal Copeland, Marco Siffredi, who went on to claim the first integral snowboard descent of Mount Everest only to vanish on its flanks a year later, tour winner and shining star Estelle Balet, and the ever kind, gentle Mathilda Rapaport.
The Freeride World Tour recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a beautiful and humbling edit, featuring and whole lot of people important in the event's history, including the founders and key staff, mountaineering legends and world champions, and even Gilles Voirol's dad, who's come to every single event since his son died in an avalanche and who's been treated with love and respect by everyone on the tour.
Watch the 25 candles edit celebrating the Xtreme Verbier family and their fallen heroes below:
7 min
25 candles for 25 years
Twenty-five icons unite to illuminate the Bec des Rosses in honour of the 25th anniversary of Verbier Xtreme.
Watching the Freeride World Tour and especially the Xtreme Verbier today, it's incredible to see how the riding level, fluidity of riders and the magnitude and variety of tricks have evolved. It seems as if the skiers especially are almost straightlining off the peak, clearing huge cliffs seemingly in passing, unstoppable and unphased. Looking at the wider freeride scene, it's equally incredible to see young freeriders following in the footsteps of their heroes, with hundreds of boys and girls earning their stripes in the ranks of the Junior Tour and progressing up through the Freeride World Tour Qualifying Tour all the way to the big show.
"It's definitely everybody's dream to stand on top of the podium in Verbier, it's the oldest extreme contest running and its where it all started," confirms Sammy Luebke.
Marion Haerty in Verbier
© Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
Seeing this emergence of talent and the lightning-fast progression of performance, it's easy to forget what it takes to face the Bec des Rosses. It's easy to judge the style, the speed and the risk taken, but for anyone observing from the outside, the true challenge of the mountain and this unique competition are extremly hard, if not impossible, to grasp.
Neither can the true story of the Xtreme Verbier solely be written as a story of extreme exploits, heroism and unforgettable wins, or prestigious titles. The history of the Xtreme Verbier is a story of unbreakable friendships, of a family of riders going through thick and thin, through losses and moments of joy and light. No matter what the future holds, anyone who's ever participated in facing the Bec des Rosses, who's participated in facing his or her own fears, will forever be part of that family.
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