Jean-Louis St-Arneault
"I’m a first in line psycho"
50 metres. This is the distance between Jean-Louis Saint-Arneault's apartment and the cable car at La Grave. He may be 40 years old, but every morning, the Quebecer puts his snowboard in the queue of the ski lift to be first. He waits for an hour and a half in the warmth and then runs to get to the front. "I'm a first in line psycho, I'm constantly seeking the perfect view of nature. I don't want to be affected by someone else's trace, the piste has to be pure. It's like a search for aesthetics."
Learning began from a young age. At the age of 2, thanks to his passionate parents, Jean-Louis spent every weekend on skis. At the age of 13, the snowboarding stage began with a spontaneous gateway into the world of snow parks. He then joined a club, but not the kind of club where the instructor holds your hand, criss-crosses the track horizontally and leads you in single file. "A bus would come and pick us up and we would be dropped in the mountains with no one there." At the age of 20, he finally left Montreal for the Rockies. He headed for Fernie where he met a good crew of skiers who he began to ride the powder with. He then left the parks and started to climb the peaks. The objective: to make routes. "I was only hanging out with skiers so I had to ride behind them. As I had to go fast, I kept up with their pace." While watching videos, one place caught his eye: La Grave. A single ski lift and no pistes; the very symbol of the Freeride spirit in the heart of the Hautes-Alpes. "I didn't even know it was in France, I pronounced it in the American way. I met a French girl, we got married and moved to France. We ended up in Tignes but I only had La Grave on my mind. I went there, she stayed." There, the Canadian backcountry village feel gripped him like the harness he would end up putting on. No powder and no equipment. “That's where I discovered the mountains for real. That was 14 years ago and since then, the journey has never stopped.”
“The most important thing is to listen to the mountain and your instincts.”
At the time, it was impossible for Jean-Louis and his urban view of the sport to imagine carrying a backpack full of ropes. He spent his first 25 days at La Grave alone. "Everyone else was on swallowtail boards, I was on a small board. Nobody wanted to ride with me." Then all it took was one day, one Kicker over the guys' heads. "They saw me fly. I got lost in the forest, it was crazy! By the time I came back down, everyone had spread the word. They gave me a harness, a guy started putting a strap on me and off we went!"
Since then, Jean-Louis has become familiar with a pair of crampons, ice axes, quick links, pitons, wedges, a screwdriver, a crevasse rescue kit to get his mate out if he falls into a hole, contact adhesive and string. Even the laces of his snowboard boots do the job. "On a day in the forest, I go with at least a shovel which converts into an ice axe and a probe. If we go on a mission, I take the whole rucksack with me, including the 60-metre rope, and a friend with his." Going on a mission is like riding a slope without knowing the conditions. "On a 2000 metre climb, you have to be ready for anything. I'm willing to put myself in danger to go and save my mate. If I get caught in an avalanche or in the ice, I also know that they will abseil down and come and get me. It's the high mountains, everything can change quickly; a rock fall that turns into an avalanche, a big glacier, a 50-metre abseil... Every time I’m in this cable car, I know how I'm going to go up but I never know how I'm going to come down. You have to accept the danger and the risk. The most important thing is to know how to read the signals, listen to the mountain and your instincts.
"I just wanted to be like the pro riders who influenced my youth and throw gear into the crowd! I kept the bottle of Chartreuse though."
Taking the risks seriously, never by yourself, is one of the only rules that governs the Freeride scene, as is the case of the Derby de la Meije, the iconic race that brings together over 1000 people every year in La Grave. "1800 metres of ascent. There is no predefined route. It's up to everyone to find their own route with 10 people departing every 10 minutes." Rooted in the French Freeride heritage, the Derby is about the reward after the effort, the adrenaline rush which warms the heart. It is the spirit of Freeride in one event. Jean-Louis remembers in particular the 2012 and 2014 editions where he was crowned winner on home soil. "It's cool to be able to put your name on that list and to have been the last local to bring home the title. The best thing is rekindling the fire among the people of the village. On my second podium appearance, I threw all my prizes into the crowd and donated my prize money to a local charity. I kept the bottle of Chartreuse though," he says. "I just wanted to be like the pro riders who influenced my youth and throw gear into the crowd! I have always struggled and worked hard to live my passions. Obviously, you don't take yourself seriously when you’re flipping burgers to pay for boards."
When Jean-Louis Saint-Arneault mentions the Freeride community and his team, he also mentions his meeting with the legendary Paul Gascoin, who many consider a living legend, notably one of the first to wear the Oxbow Harlequin suit in 1985. "The first time I saw him, he bought me a beer, I didn't know who he was. Later, we went for a ride in the sunset. We finished at night-time. Paul is a pioneer who I got to know as a human being. Paul and I are the same: we live for the first trace. He is proud that I am taking over the torch. I am too."
