It was about 10 years in the past that Christina “Lusti” Lustenberger started imaging the unattainable: Might she ski down the signature south face of Mount Robson, the best peak within the Canadian Rockies?
For these unaware, the south face seems as an imposing demise star of snow and granite, looming over all who drive the Yellowhead Freeway in British Columbia.
Dissecting the vertical monolith is a skinny, unbroken ribbon of white — snow, in different phrases — that Lustenberger thought simply is likely to be a route down from the highest. Not for mere mortals, thoughts you. However for somebody together with her snowboarding pedigree, nerves of metal and native savvy.
WATCH | B.C. skier talks in regards to the expertise:
A British Columbia lady is one among two excessive athletes who grew to become the primary to ski the south face of Mount Robson, the best mountain within the Canadian Rockies.
“Rising up in Canada, within the Columbia Valley, Mount Robson has such a deep historical past of climbing and snowboarding,” she informed CBC. “It truly is the King of the Rockies, and as knowledgeable skier and somebody who spent a lifetime within the mountains, you are drawn to such wild and excessive terrain.”
And so it was final week that after a decade of incubating the concept, Lustenberger and French alpinist Guillaume Pierrel climbed to the summit of Mount Robson. Then on Sunday, they skied down, turning into the primary to beat the south face.
“Even while you attain the summit, you are solely midway there. The ski descent took three and a half hours, and there have been a number of rappels, transitioning from ski to climb,” she stated. “The mountain simply places a lot stress on you.
Pierrel stated the pair’s success was all due to his companion.
“She’s already an enormous supply of inspiration for me, and that is why I am right here,” he stated. “We’ll put our identify within the historical past of the Canadian Rockies. So, yeah, it is such an honour.”
Mountaineering to the summit took the higher a part of two days, plus an in a single day bivouac on a snowy ledge. Climate was additionally a problem as a result of Mount Robson is so tall it might create its personal climate patterns.
That led to a false begin from a degree 200 metres under the true prime of the mountain. A blessing in disguise, that first try was deserted when visibility all of a sudden dropped to virtually zero.
“It was then that we determined we’d do a second try from a special method,” stated Lustenberger. “To depart that higher 200 metres was simply not passable. And so we felt prefer it was necessary sufficient for us to strive once more and full the imaginative and prescient.”
A former Canadian Olympic ski racer, Lustenberger has made a reputation for herself on the earth of utmost ski descents, bagging a protracted record of firsts from New Zealand to Baffin Island.
Final month, she appeared on the Sundance Movie Competition in help of the movie Trango, a documentary of her first descent from the Pakistani peak of the identical identify.
Earlier than Lustenberger and Pierrel, solely three males had ever efficiently skied down Mount Robson, all on the much less technical north face.
Which means two extra firsts for Lustenberger, who calls Golden, B.C. residence: the primary lady ever to ski down from the tallest peak within the Canadian Rockies and first to do it on the south face.
“Discovering area as an explorer and a steep skier, you begin to take a look at mountains in a different way. You attempt to think about your personal approach by them. The south face had been left. Nobody had checked out it to climb and ski. And we did,” she stated.
“We had the creativeness.”
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