For more than 15 years now, Aurélien Ducroz, a freeride skier from the Chamonix valley, has been descending the snowy slopes of the world's mountains. Twice world champion, four times winner of the Verbier Xtreme, this mountain specialist granted us a short meeting on the edge of a very big avalanche.
Managing the risks of these all-too-often deadly snowflows is something that Aurélien Ducroz does on a daily basis. Knowledge of the mountain, of the snow, of the weather, researching information from mountain professionals, everything is a question of preparation and work beforehand.
And then, it's also a question of safety equipment, a triptych including the Arva, the shovel and the probe which you must know by heart how to use so as not to leave anything to chance during a rescue operation.
Some figures, the time to free a victim with the Arva, the shovel and the probe is estimated at 11min against 60min when equipped with an Arva, knowing that the chances of survival of a buried person are 91% when it is cleared in less than 18min.
So it is around this question of safety, essential when venturing into the mountains in freeride, that Aurélien Ducroz presents us his way of managing these risks of avalanche.