Intro

The Monte Rosa is relatively unknown to North Americans, but it’s the second-highest peak in the Alps and serves as a shaggy, glacier-capped buffer between Switzerland and Italy. To the north, its icefalls rumble toward Zermatt; to the south, couloirs helix above hibernating villages. In the late 1990s, my friend Joe Sagona and I went to explore the area’s astounding off-piste potential, and we connected with an American ski guide who’d married an Italian girl and moved to the tiny town of Alagna. One day, the guide inexplicably chose paying clients over freeloading friends, and he sent us up the rusting Monte Rosa tram with a young Swedish apprentice.

On our first run, the fledgling guide led us to the top of a 50-degree-plus slope with sketchy snow and massive exposure below, a textbook do not fall zone. As the Swede fumbled (and failed) to rig a deadman anchor so we could rope in, Joe and I stared at the line. Joe