There are a few juicy excerpts on the site, if you like it go out and buy the book.... From Chapter 3 - "For Itchy, deep powder is a near religious experience. It is absolute freedom, because you can ski where you want: rocks are blanketed; tree stumps blister-packed; pit-falls filled. And it is merciful, the snow allows you mistakes and welcomes them, envelops them in its love. It liberates, lightens the load, lifts even the everyday burden of your own weight. It lets you fly with an abandon that you couldn't hope to get away with on normal snow. It is forgiving and allows him to feel forgiven. Drops that would jar his spine, or smash his knees into his chin, instead catch him and cradle him. And everything is as white as the light that Itchy may one day walk towards in that final drop, where he would not hope to be forgiven as fully.

"Spot on," Aussie Mark says, just the three of them in one of the Bochard bubbles, "today is totally spot on."
He wipes off the snow stuck to the top sheet of his board with his big, gloved hand and watches it drop to the rubber matted floor. Then looks up with a smile that splits his Labrador's face into toothy mayhem.
He's a funny looking sprout, Aussie Mark, there's no doubt about it. Has a curly pony tail, like some 80s wide-boy and wears his jeans tight, when almost everyone else in Cham buys them about five sizes too big. Not that he's wearing them now, of course. Only Parisians and teenagers wear jeans for skiing. It's not a good look. And you're not paying respect to the mountain if you aren't wearing waterproof and properly insulated gear. You have to remember, the mountain can crush you at any moment. It's not exactly hankering to, it doesn't even notice you're there. To a mountain which has existed since the continents formed, a human being is not even as significant as a micro-organism is to a sperm whale. But Itchy is in no doubt that when it's going about its business - of eating giant squid and being enormous - a sperm whale regularly destroys whole congregations of micro-organisms. And it is certain that the ill-prepared, badly-dressed, ones die first.
Sean wears this bright yellow jacket, which is top of the range, double duck-down, but still makes him look like a motorway maintenance worker. Aussie Mark wears a mishmash of makes, but all black; his board's black too, with a naked lady and dragons on it - like the album cover from the rock band he seems to want to be in. Itchy has worn Billabong for years, but only because it's always the best looking of the technical gear, he has no brand loyalty. What's that line he read in Moby Dick?: 'I have no allegiance but to the king of cannibals, and I am ready at any moment to rebel against him.' Moby Dick, now there's a sperm whale. Moby Dick would be Mont Blanc.

"Are you dreaming again, Itchy son?" Sean says, as he straightens and then lights the spliff he built back in the car.
Overpoweringly sticky fumes fill the bubble. Itchy opens the window.
"Nah, bro, keep it closed. Let's hot-box it," Aussie mark says.
"Piss off," Itchy laughs, "I'll be sick."
Sean and Aussie Mark pass the joint between them for the rest of the journey, Itchy doesn't have any. He doesn't smoke at all now. Used to have the odd fag, when he was young. Smoked a lot of draw his first year at university, that only year at university - but stopped after that. Dope makes you get introspective; he didn't want to get too introspective after that.

They click into their skis again. Itchy has fat stiff Factions, with the contours of a sexy but mournful girl their only graphic. Sean rides plain white, unbranded test skis, which he bought off a pro. They wait while Aussie Mark ratchets his boots down onto his board. Snowboarders are always on their arses. The Scandies call them seals, and you can see why: sprawled over the slopes in little colonies, flapping and clapping about on mittens and knees.
There's no animosity between skiers and boarders now though, never should have been, maybe there never really was. Only in the minds of gromits and middle-aged billys.
As if to prove it, Itchy and Sean team up to drag Aussie Mark to the start of the traverse into the bowl. Him holding on to one of each of their poles as they skate along. There are a few more tracks around now, a few more whooping riders. But the snow is still light and perfect powder. Insubstantial, weightless; and yet the most substantial, the most important thing in the world; iridescent in a thousand colours, all white.
They carve long arching turns through the billowing mass, riding at the very edge of their ability to stay upright. Short-swings and neat bootlace tracks are strictly for punters. Tracks don't survive long enough in Chamonix to be admired.
They cut over to drop down into the Dream Forest, named years before Itchy arrived on the scene. On a powder day it is truly a dream - a series of banks and pillow drops, twisting through the trunks. Occasional sink holes which emerge only at the final second. Sudden escape maneuvers and small boulder-hucks. All among spruce trees, the dark green of bottled wine, sugar-coated like a witch's cottage.

Even though it's one of the first days on the hill, and Itchy and Sean are knackered, they keep going till the lifts close. Aussie Mark is built like a bull-mastiff and never tires. The home run in one shot is almost more than Itchy's thighs can take. They are shrieking at him to stop, screaming with the burn of lactic acid. But pride bites even stronger and he follows the others down, face scrunched in pain like a screwed up bill.

Buy the book at all good book stores and especially from Amazon for only £7.69

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.