Sylvain Saudan

Sylvain Saudan was a Swiss skier and mountaineer born on September 23, 1936, in Lausanne, Switzerland, and died on July 14, 2024, in Les Houches, France. Nicknamed the "skier of the impossible," he was one of the pioneers of extreme skiing. Sylvain Saudan spent the first four years of his life in Lausanne. In 1939, the family left Lausanne for economic reasons and moved to Valais. At the age of five, young Sylvain received his first pair of skis. After completing compulsory schooling, he worked, starting in 1951, as a laborer on the construction site of the new international road at the Col de la Forclaz, and then as a construction driver. Throughout this period, he practiced skiing in his region (Les Marécottes, Verbier), participating in local competitions, and even becoming president of the Martigny-Combe ski club in 1959. In 1961, at the age of 25, Sylvain Saudan obtained his Swiss ski instructor's certificate. He initially worked in Crans-Montana. In the summer, he practiced mountaineering in the Swiss and French Alps. In December 1962, he traveled around the world and worked as a ski instructor in three resorts: Aspen, Colorado, Christchurch, New Zealand, and Glenshee Ski Centre in Scotland. He obtained his American mountain guide diploma in Aspen in the spring of 1963. During the winters of 1964-1965, 1965-1966, and 1966-1967, he worked as a ski instructor in Zermatt and Arosa. It was there that he achieved his first feat in the spring of 1967, on a particularly stee…