Speedflying in the Alps

The author looks on as a classmate prepares for takeoff

It sometimes feels as though there isn’t much ground being broken by the new generation of outdoor thrill-seekers. Kite-surfing is arguably little more than self-piloted water-skiing; volcano-boarding is snowboarding on blankets of ash. Canyoning? Carpet-skating? It’s hard to take a step in one extreme sport without treading on the toes of another.

Not so with speedflying, which manages to fuse the air and land sports of paragliding and off-piste skiing to create something that is exhilarating – and unique. If you’ve visited the Alps these past few winters, you may have glimpsed its practitioners at work, their colourful kites guiding them over powder fields and rock faces, their skis touching snow every few hundred metres before they surge skyward once more. Chances are you’ve deemed them minority daredevils in the mould of people who leap off cliffs in wingsuits. But speedflying is taking off in more ways than one, and nowhere more so than in France, where an estimated 3,000 people try it every year.

The resort of Les Arcs is something of a hotspot for the discipline thanks to the efforts of François Bon, 37, who nurtured speedflying through his development of kite pack technology and advanced aerial techniques. Bon has taken kites to mountains as physically and mentally exacting as Mont Blanc (a four-minute descent) and Argentina’s Aconcagua (an 11-day hike followed by a five-minute flight down; see YouTube heroes, below). He’s also an official of the government-sanctioned French Free Flight Federation, and trains instructors for specialist speedflying schools like the one in Les Arcs.

Bon is now a certified local hero – skipping through lift queues alongside him is like going grocery shopping with George Clooney. After endless admiring handshakes, we reach the top of the 3,226m Aiguille Rouge and Bon shifts into business mode. He’s brought me here to watch him test-fly off the rock-scarred, near-vertical face that in a few days will serve as a backdrop for his Speedflying Pro competition, now in its fourth year. Just watching him traverse the narrow spine of ice to peer over the wind-whipped precipice is enough to make me uncomfortable. It’s something of a relief when he turns and shakes his head. “Too windy,” he says. “But it should clear up in time for your lesson tomorrow.” Bon is too busy to instruct me himself, but I’ll be in the capable hands of the local speedflying school.

Sure enough, the next morning brings blue sky and mountains drenched in sunshine – a far cry from the howling black clouds in my dreams, through which I passed the night plummeting, kite lines tangling uselessly behind me. I meet my instructor, Arnaud Baumy, at the speedflying school’s wooden hut high on the slopes above the resort. While he readies our packs I find myself chatting to a British teenager called Max, who has abandoned his parents for a day’s solo speedflying tuition. Max says he’s wanted to try it since seeing it on television a few years back; he feels he’s hit a wall with skiing, and views taking to the air as a way of opening up new challenges.

“That’s a pretty typical attitude,” says Baumy, handing me a kite pack big enough to carry a double duvet as Max darts off excitedly behind his instructor. “People who’ve never skied before think speedflying is crazy, but serious skiers recognise it as a logical progression from off-piste skiing. It allows us to access the whole mountain – including parts that would normally be unthinkable due to cliffs or crevasses.” Best yet: “It’s not that hard, provided you can ski competently. And the speed is like nothing you’ve ever known.”

My gear check takes place on a flat powder field a few metres off an easy blue run (speedflying is barred on public pistes). The François Bon-designed rucksack is first unzipped to reveal a kite carefully wrapped around its lines, then reversed and strapped on like a body harness. I’m encouraged to practise folding and packing the kit – a job that Baumy says should leave it looking like a tight mushroom, though mine resembles a prehistoric jellyfish. We saddle the gear and begin our traverse towards the menacing Aiguille Rouge.

Baumy tells me we’re going to perform a simple test run on the shallow base of the mountain, on the landing strip on which Bon’s professional competitors will be ending their 1,200m descents. We position ourselves a few hundred feet upwind of a café in which I’m already picturing myself weeping with gratitude into a cold beer. Baumy hands me an earpiece so that he can bark steering orders during the flight. I throw my kite on the slope in front of me – checking the lines are untangled and the inflatable air pockets facing upwards – and grasp the bright red brake handles, attached to the harness at thigh level and used to steer the kite through the wind.

At Baumy’s signal I point myself downslope and ski past the kite. One moment there’s only the sound of my breathing and the swoosh of my skis; the next there’s a sudden rush of air, and I stare in disbelief as my shadow is joined by that of the kite rising steadily above me. Baumy shouts for me to pull down on the left brake to level the kite – over the roar and flap of the fabric it becomes clear why the volume on my headset is so high. And then I feel it: a small but undeniable lifting of my skis off the ground, a momentary soaring that suggests the endless possibility of flight.

A few seconds later I’m performing a semi-controlled crash at the bottom of the runway – an action that leaves me trussed in kite lines like a roasting joint, the canopy fluttering slowly on top of me. I look back up the slope to signal my approval to Baumy, but my gaze falls instead on the distant figure of François Bon making the test flight he’d abandoned the previous day. It’s a line he clearly knows back to front, but even so the speed and style of his descent is astonishing – carving slashes out of vertiginous powder fields, launching himself over rock bands and soaring down jagged couloirs before coming in to land beside Baumy with the grace of a golden eagle.

It’s a display that single-handedly justifies the excitement surrounding speedflying. I scrabble to untangle myself for a second attempt at a sport which not only breaks new ground, but opens up the skies.

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YouTube heroes

François Bon, Aconcagua, Argentina, 2008
Bon reputedly kept his reasons for scaling the highest peak in the western hemisphere secret for fear his guides would refuse to accompany him. The tactic paid off: after an 11-day climb in treacherous winter conditions, Bon emerged at the summit in a rare patch of blue sky, unpacked his kite and swept down the south face in five minutes flat. See the footage at http://tinyurl.com/6ga4kj

For Bon’s descent of Mont Blanc at about 1km a minute, see http://tinyurl.com/ydykasg

Antoine Montant, Aiguille du Midi, French Alps, 2008
Montant is best known for his opening run in the film Claim, in which a descent of the Aiguille du Midi triggered a huge avalanche that Montant only just managed to soar away from. Footage on Youtube shows him smiling as he reaches the bottom. http://tinyurl.com/yejzmal

For more articles on winter sport and travel, go to www.ft.com/wintertravel

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The details

Les Arcs Speedriding School (0033 619 513 934, www.speedriding-school.com). Beginner lessons (competent skiers only, all equipment provided): half day (three hours) €85 ($115); whole day (five hours) €115; two days (10 hours) €220. Advanced lessons, guided and heli tours also available.

For more information: www.paradiski.com