2011 was my first trip to Chamonix That was like my first burst of the Chamonix ski experience, and I was just blown away. And for me, that was the ultimate moment of like this is where I need to be. Before that trip,
I remember watching all these videos of skiing in the Chamonix valley
and immediately I was hooked. It goes back to growing up ski racing. You know, there's so much behind
just the sport itself. It was just a natural progression
from ski racing in to ski mountaineering because it's all the same components, just different terrain. As soon as I moved here in 2019, I slowly became part of the community. Community that didn't speak the same language. Not everyone spoke the same language, but they took me in
because of the passion we shared Where we live here in the Alps everyone is very passionate
for the mountains, especially for ski touring, steep skiing and when you start getting into winter
environment, dealing with avalanche, the high mountain environment in general,
you need a lot of trust with the people you're going into the mountains with
and it doesn't come from day one. It's something that evolves and builds
and eventually you find yourself around a small crew
like I have, that have similar passion, similar mindset, and of course, a similar amount of motivation. Yeah, I grew up in a small town
in northern Maine called Madawaska. Beautiful landscape, really known for its hunting and fishing
and also for its pulp and paper industry. And that's what my parents did. My mom and dad didn't grow up skiing. It wasn't until my brother and I started
that they really started to ski a lot more. And to this day, my dad still skis. It was 100% a family endeavour And every weekend
we got in the car and were roaming around northeast Canada on ski trips. And fortunately I was able to join
a ski club and I started racing over
in New Brunswick. It was all about ski racing,
you know, hitting the gates hitting the gates, training, training. Eventually, when I moved to Colorado
to Steamboat, I really discovered this whole other aspect of skiing,
which was backcountry skiing. It wasn't till my second year
in Steamboat Springs that I realized
this is what I wanted to do. Like I want it to be a ski guide,
whether it was cat skiing or even backcountry skiing. Dropping in! And along that path, I learned about this
whole other type of guiding, which was guiding in the Alps
and becoming a UIAGM mountain guide. In 2014, I finished the guide program and here I am now, full time mountain guide in Italy. Hey, how you doing? What's up, dude? So, plan is to walk up to the rifugio Chabod Going into the mountains
as a mountain guide all the responsibility is on me. That said, I really want to keep the communication open with my clients. We need to always be a team, be in unison,
especially in places like the Alps, where there's a lot of people,
a lot of things going on and that's Gran Paradiso Exactly! The Aosta Valley is in the middle of the
most beautiful 4000 metre alpine peaks We have Monta Rosa to the east, the Matterhorn in the north east, Grand Combin in the north, and Mont Blanc and Gran Paradiso, which is the only
4000 metre peak entirely in Italy This has meant that the profession
of mountain guide has always been really important from a
historical and cultural point of view This past winter we had such a poor snow year in the Aosta valley, it was really
beneficial to have good fitness and be able to go ski touring. as that gave us more options
than using the lifts It's not well known, but ski touring as we know it comes from the Aosta Valley, with one of
the great Courmayeur guides, Toni Gobbi Thanks to him, ski mountaineering as a sport spread internationally I hope that now with some of the top skiers,
and Mike is one of them and we're really proud to have him
in the Aosta Valley guides company, that it gives the sport a new boost - So you speak Italian now then?
- Yes, now it's better! Ski all the way down to the bottom? Yeah exactly one pasta and one vegetable soup If you play in the mountains
a certain amount of time a year, especially as a professional,
it's only a matter of time that you’re going to be involved in an accident,
either as a rescuer or the rescuee No matter how you stick to your checklist,
there's always a percentage that things can go wrong. The more exposed you are more chances
of something happening. The most terrifying accident that I've been a part of
was the most recent. With a few of my friends. We got caught in an avalanche
pretty close to home here As we were climbing the couloir,
I was in front I remember it like it was yesterday,
you know, at one foot on the rock, one foot on the snow, and then all of a
sudden the mountain unleashed. It was a force
that I have never felt before. You know, every everyone talks
about how the force of the mountains and whatnot, and you understand that
and you think back, okay, yeah. Been caught in this avalanche here, this avalanche here... but I've never felt more power from a mountain
than what I felt in this incident. It didn't initially affect me
until kind of the midwinter where other accidents started happening. Another friend got caught in an avalanche and unfortunately he didn't make it. And then later on that season,
two very close friends of mine got caught in an avalanche,
didn’t make it. And for me, that was that was a moment
where I had to bring it in I had to figure out
is this something I want to pursue is this something I want to continue doing to myself, to my family
to my friends, to my community? and no one can make that decision for you. I think if we walk another
15 minutes and we can get up to where we can see all of the couloir I think back to all these incidents
and analyse and self debrief
and try to figure out what went wrong. It's kind of shaping the present,
of course, but as well as the future, because I'm always going back
to these moments. When all’s said and done, I still want to pursue my passion
for skiing. I want to pursue it with my family,
my friends, my clients. We need to understand that the mountains
do take a lot, but they also give a lot. And we need to learn to find balance not all days need to be in the
steep skiing realm or training on the piste Skiing has been a huge part of my life since I was around six years old and it still gives me the same thrill
as it did the first time I ever put on skis!
