My downhill course creation

When I was around 20 years old, and long before there would be lifts in the high valley that saw me grow up, I had imagined a few versions of my own, ideal ski resort.

Today, we’ll talk about “Vorlaz”, a small resort, located at the bottom of the Lindarets valley and in which I was envisioning a pretty steep, fast and exhilarating downhill course.

While the FIS allows for a minimum vertical drop of 450 meters, World Cup races have to have at least 800 meters, but 750 meters could do in “exceptional cases”.

From that standpoint, mine would have considered “exceptional”. We’d start the race 20 meters below the top of Vorlaz peak (2 326 meters) and the finish would be on the flat area, where the pastoral hamlet of Brochaux is located (1 576 meters). This would have made it “exceptional” enough to qualify within the 750 meters minimum required.

In addition to having climbed the peak many times in summer and skied the mountain several times, I garnered a pretty good idea on how to set the course that would be both intuitive and hugging the natural terrain that would have required almost no drastic changes, and certainly no need for Bernhard Russi’s services. .

It would have been fast and hair-raising, the Frenchman Johan Clarey would have established a blistering record, but well, it didn’t happen and won’t since the access lift is still missing and I now live in America!

(to be continued...)