Patrick Vallençant

Biography

Patrick Vallençant, born in Lyon on June 9, 1946 and died on March 28, 1989, was a French mountaineer, mountain guide, and ski instructor, a pioneer of extreme ski mountaineering. At fifteen, skiing became a major focus of his adolescent life, and three years later, he left school for the mountains. From the ages of 18 to 20, Patrick Vallençant enrolled in the High Mountain Military School... but was expelled! With his partner, Marie-Josée, they worked as ski instructors in resorts: in Switzerland, in Les Menuires, and in Val d'Isère. Patrick also began to explore off-piste skiing and a new discipline: ski touring. In 1969, he was in Val d'Isère and discovered climbing. In 1970-73, he enrolled at the ENSA (National School of High Mountains) to learn his long-cherished profession as a High Mountain Guide. It was in 1971 that Patrick Vallençant began to tackle what had previously been impossible: on May 10th, he skied down the north face of the Grande Casse, a first. Forty days later, he repeated the feat by first ascent of the north face of the Tour Ronde. Throughout the 1970s, he thus amassed an impressive collection of "extreme firsts" in the couloirs of the Alps and those of the Andes. The Coup de Sabre, the Gravelotte couloir, and the Whymter—all with gradients between 55 and 60 degrees—shine like so many technical gems stolen from slopes then considered inviolable. After the descent of the Couturier in 1973, the conferences and the "major media tour" began, introducing this extreme discipline to the general public. Patrick Vallençant founded "Les Stages Vallençant" in Chamonix, a leisure facility for learning to climb steep slopes. In 1983, he created the high-end Degré 7 ski clothing line, a reference to the highest climbing level at the time, featuring fun, trendy colors and high technical standards. In 1989, Patrick Vallençant tragically died in a rock climbing accident in the Cévennes.