En visite chez mon copain Tony à la Grave ce lundi, on est allé skier dans cette immense zone de hors piste qu'est La Grave.
Au programme, les incontournables couloirs trifides, le pan de rideau, un petit run sur le glacier de la Girose et puis la plongée par l'itinéraire de la Voûte (près de 2300 mètres de dénivelée entrecoupé de 2 rappels).
Les conditions étaient excellentes avec de la bonne neige à toutes altitudes, poudreuse de rêve au dessus de 2700 mètres environ, pas de vent.
Une halte au bar le Castillan pour boire une bonne bière en terrasse et croiser les doigts de pieds au soleil en échangeant nos impressions, puis une agitation s'est fait sentir, plusieurs gars se sont levés précipitemment et ont quitté l'endroit.
On a alors entendu un hélico s'approcher, et à ce moment, vers 17h00, un grande ombre a envahi la terrasse. L'ombre de la tragédie que nous devinions tous, sans avoir la moindre information.
Plus le sauvetage durait, plus l'issue semblaient désepérée. Nous étions en train d'assister, impuissants, à un sauvetage beaucoup trop long pour bien se finir. Depuis quelques minutes déjà, on murmure le nom de Doug Coombs...
En ce lundi qui fut si brillant pour nous, Doug Coombs, un des skieurs les plus respectés et les plus aguerris qui soient, a rencontré son destin...
A la Grave, où il s'était installé avec femme et enfant pour encadrer des stages de ski de pente raide, il était si aimé et admiré qu'il faisait naître et vivre des vocations de skieurs des grands espaces.
Moi qui le connaissais si peu, j'ai vu beaucoup de détresse sur de nombreux visages ce jour-là, comme si un père s'était éteint...
Celui qui s'adonne à la montagne et en arpente les pentes secrète a forcément ses héros qui incarnent l'humilité face à l'élément, l'expérience et la connaissance sans faille du milieu, de ce genre de héros que l'on croit immortel.
Pourtant, dans la Montagne, les héros meurent, et si souvent dans des accidents presque benins...
mercredi, avril 5
Doug Coombs: fin d'un mythe
Coombs feared dead
An Exum mountain guide and former ski ambassador for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Coombs long has been regarded as one of the best skiers in the world.
By Jim Stanford, Jackson Hole Daily April 04,2006
Mountaineer Doug Coombs, whose feats in the Tetons, Alaska and around the world made him a legend in skiing, died Monday in a fall in the French Alps. He was 48 years old. An officer with the mountain rescue team in Briancon, France, confirmed the death Tuesday. A second man, also an American guide, died in the accident.The French officer said the first man fell in a couloir, and when Coombs descended to help him, he fell, too. Coombs fell roughly 1,600 feet, the officer said.The accident occurred near La Grave, the tiny French resort where Coombs and his wife, Emily, operate steep skiing camps. A French mountain Web site, www.pistehors.com, reported that the two men were skiing at roughly 6,600 feet in the Couloir de Polichinelle in the Freaux sector of the Alps.
Friends gathered Monday night in Jackson for an impromptu remembrance of the man known for his exuberance, fearlessness and strikingly graceful skiing of the steepest slopes under even the worst of conditions. An Exum mountain guide and former ski ambassador for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Coombs long has been regarded as one of the best skiers in the world. He was a two-time winner of the World Extreme Skiing Championships and pioneered descents on several continents.“He was a great person to have at the top,” said Forrest McCarthy, a friend and fellow Exum guide. “He was always full of energy. He inspired so many climbers and skiers and guides, along with his clients.”
Coombs was born in Boston and grew up skiing in Vermont and New Hampshire. He later moved to Bozeman, Mont., to ski at the Big Sky and Bridger Bowl resorts and attend college at Montana State University.He moved to Jackson Hole in 1986 and began guiding for High Mountain Heli-Skiing. He and his wife started their renowned steep skiing camps at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and in 1993 founded Valdez Heli-Ski Guides in Alaska, where the couple would go each spring. In Alaska’s Chugach Range, Coombs is credited with pioneering more than 300 ski routes. Coombs served as ski ambassador for Jackson Hole until 1997, when a dispute with the ski patrol over skiing a closed area led to his temporary banishment. In recent years he quietly resumed guiding around the ski area.
Following his fallout with the resort, Coombs and his wife took their steep camps to La Grave and Verbier, Switzerland. The couple has a home in Jackson Hole and a 3-year-old son, David.Coombs spent time skiing and guiding in Jackson Hole earlier this winter. He gave a well-received presentation at the Barry Corbet Film Festival in January, rappelling from the rafters of Walk Festival Hall to thunderous applause to introduce his film, The Otter Body Experience. The film documented his first descent of the Otter Body Couloir on the Grand Teton with Exum guide Doug Workman.
Friends are setting up a Web site to collect donations for Coombs’ family. The site is http://www.dougcoombsmemorialfund.com.
His colleague McCarthy said Coombs was deserving of the title “the best skier in the world,” which many in Jackson regarded him to be.“He carried it with dignity,” McCarthy said. “He was always fun to be with, work with, climb with and ski with. In a lot of ways, he defined what a lot of people in Jackson Hole aspire to be.”
source: http://www.jacksonholenet.com/news/jackson_hole_news_article.php?ArticleNum=1402
An Exum mountain guide and former ski ambassador for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Coombs long has been regarded as one of the best skiers in the world.
By Jim Stanford, Jackson Hole Daily April 04,2006
Mountaineer Doug Coombs, whose feats in the Tetons, Alaska and around the world made him a legend in skiing, died Monday in a fall in the French Alps. He was 48 years old. An officer with the mountain rescue team in Briancon, France, confirmed the death Tuesday. A second man, also an American guide, died in the accident.The French officer said the first man fell in a couloir, and when Coombs descended to help him, he fell, too. Coombs fell roughly 1,600 feet, the officer said.The accident occurred near La Grave, the tiny French resort where Coombs and his wife, Emily, operate steep skiing camps. A French mountain Web site, www.pistehors.com, reported that the two men were skiing at roughly 6,600 feet in the Couloir de Polichinelle in the Freaux sector of the Alps.
Friends gathered Monday night in Jackson for an impromptu remembrance of the man known for his exuberance, fearlessness and strikingly graceful skiing of the steepest slopes under even the worst of conditions. An Exum mountain guide and former ski ambassador for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, Coombs long has been regarded as one of the best skiers in the world. He was a two-time winner of the World Extreme Skiing Championships and pioneered descents on several continents.“He was a great person to have at the top,” said Forrest McCarthy, a friend and fellow Exum guide. “He was always full of energy. He inspired so many climbers and skiers and guides, along with his clients.”
Coombs was born in Boston and grew up skiing in Vermont and New Hampshire. He later moved to Bozeman, Mont., to ski at the Big Sky and Bridger Bowl resorts and attend college at Montana State University.He moved to Jackson Hole in 1986 and began guiding for High Mountain Heli-Skiing. He and his wife started their renowned steep skiing camps at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and in 1993 founded Valdez Heli-Ski Guides in Alaska, where the couple would go each spring. In Alaska’s Chugach Range, Coombs is credited with pioneering more than 300 ski routes. Coombs served as ski ambassador for Jackson Hole until 1997, when a dispute with the ski patrol over skiing a closed area led to his temporary banishment. In recent years he quietly resumed guiding around the ski area.
Following his fallout with the resort, Coombs and his wife took their steep camps to La Grave and Verbier, Switzerland. The couple has a home in Jackson Hole and a 3-year-old son, David.Coombs spent time skiing and guiding in Jackson Hole earlier this winter. He gave a well-received presentation at the Barry Corbet Film Festival in January, rappelling from the rafters of Walk Festival Hall to thunderous applause to introduce his film, The Otter Body Experience. The film documented his first descent of the Otter Body Couloir on the Grand Teton with Exum guide Doug Workman.
Friends are setting up a Web site to collect donations for Coombs’ family. The site is http://www.dougcoombsmemorialfund.com.
His colleague McCarthy said Coombs was deserving of the title “the best skier in the world,” which many in Jackson regarded him to be.“He carried it with dignity,” McCarthy said. “He was always fun to be with, work with, climb with and ski with. In a lot of ways, he defined what a lot of people in Jackson Hole aspire to be.”
source: http://www.jacksonholenet.com/news/jackson_hole_news_article.php?ArticleNum=1402
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