Adventurers embrace chills and thrills in France

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First published in The Toronto Star, January 2010.

Southern France. Just above us, there’s a guy with his two feet attached to a snowboard and his skinny torso tied to a giant kite. He’s travelling rapidly uphill. It’s an ordinary slope we’re on - no signs of electronic rigs or other weird feats of engineering.

“Doesn’t that defy the laws of gravity?” I ask Johan, who is busy setting up gear beside me.

“He’s in luck”, he replies. “The wind is going in the right direction”. He seems delighted with the notion of fiddling with the rules of nature.

Johan Civel is the 2008 French snow-kiting champion, and right now he’s doing his best to explain the mechanics of the sport to me. “At an altitude of 2058 metres, it’s not for the faint hearted up here”, he grins.

It’s a clear crisp morning in Col du Lauterets in the Hautes Alpes, where the Snowkite Masters event takes place each winter.

The slope is dotted with gigantic colourful parafoil kites, specially designed for unusual people who like flying high with their feet dragging in the snow.

Johan has been hanging from these slopes for the past eight years, and started a school here in 2006. The majority of his clients are either French or English, but an occasional visiting Scandinavian helps keep things multicultural.

I’ve only just got vaguely comfortable on skis, so although I’m asked if I’d like to give it a go, I’m a little slow on the uptake.

“I did kite surfing once”, I tell him, with an understandable urge to probe deeper into what I might be taking on. “Is it very similar”?

Johan looks at me, a skeptical expression spreading across his wind tanned face.

“Well, …….in a nutshell, no. How quickly you master snow kiting is really about your skiing level. If you’re a skier or snowboarder who can master a red slope, you could find yourself on a gentle descent with the snow kite within a few hours”.

That’s all I need to hear. Given that I’m happier on gentle blue slopes that leave me refreshed but alive, than red ones that only stress me to the point of hysteria, it’s safe to conclude that my debut snow kite appearance would be best postponed to some other year.

I won’t be giving up the day job soon, then.

Two days later, things go more my way. My opportunity appears when I get to Piau Engaly, a village in the Haute Pyrenees. The slopes around it are dotted with skiers, and all is as it should be. Then I spot a little group huddling around something I can’t exactly see.

It turns out we’re 2400 meters up, where a small lake lies surrounded by slopes, and an ice diving centre is run by Pierre Onclerq.

Travelling under rather than over is more my thing, and I like water, even when it is at sub zero temperatures.

Within an hour I’m with Pierre and his partners at the side of the hole cut in the ice. He’s already kitted out in his finery – a full-length black drysuit with head and footgear included. On his instructions, I retire to the nearby hut to don my own black rubber regalia.

Pierre took his first ice dive in 2005, but is also an avid fan of cave diving. I’m detecting a pattern here, some kind of odd passion for underground pursuits.

Skiers are whizzing past as he and two others set up the rig. Pierre and I are going to dive together, both tightly tethered to the surface by a special harness under our scuba kits.

“This is strictly a team effort” he explains.

About to take the plunge into the unknown, the hazards of going it alone are all too clear. For a start, there are only a limited number of exit points should anything go wrong, which is a prospect I’m trying not to dwell on.

“Remind me why do people do this again”, I shudder, an icy fear suddenly taking hold.

“It’s life affirming to be on this mountain diving amidst the skiers”, laughs Guillaume, one of the two others gripping the tether. “It’s so much fun!”

Pierre takes the leap. My turn, it’s now or never. I scuttle to the edge of the hole, hunch down, and jump.

Below there’s an eerie silence as the world of the land born disappears. My heart is pumping blood at a rate of ninety, and I can hear my own breathing like it’s the only thing reminding me I’m human.

The light is different down here, mysterious. There’s a bluish tinge in the rays that penetrate the surface. The ice cover overhead must be nearly two metres thick. Glancing upwards, I’m afraid to linger too long on what lies above, but the vast, luminous, white desert view is spine tingling - in a chilly kind of way.

Then the shoals appear. Trout - brownish-grey and spotted. I suspect they’re checking us out, Pierre and I, wondering why these amphibious-looking nuts would choose to swim under ice burgs.

We stay down about twenty minutes, although it seems like less. It’s just long enough to do a scout around the lake, and short enough to skip risking hypothermia.

Back in the land of air-breathing skiers, the slopes are even busier than before we took the plunge. It’s midday, and the sun is warming up the atmosphere. I can’t believe I’ve just spent nearly a half hour of my normally unadventurous life under a ceiling of ice, with only a crazy cave-loving accomplice and a bunch of fish for company.

Pierre is getting ready for his next dive. There are two off duty firemen waiting to brave the depths. You get all kinds here.