Three figures stand atop the north face of Mont Blanc du Tacul above an array of skiers, ant-like, peppering the Bossons Glacier below. Skier’s left of the standard route, they eye a seemingly impossible line—a hanging face truncated by monstrous seracs, replete with airy exposure. The face is not only convoluted, but it is also discontinuous.

The crew’s packs bulge slightly behind their silhouettes. Chamonix’s amphitheater of granite spires, glaciated faces and impossibly steep couloirs is not a surprising place to see gear in excess. But this trio of skiers has neither the rock protection and ropes of the alpinists, nor the bivy kits of the summit-bound crowd below. In their packs they carry only thin sheets of nylon ripstop fabric and carefully assembled webs of Kevlar and Dyneema…

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