It remains my favorite run in the world, topping the Tasman glacier in New Zealand, the ego-busting run from Zermatt to Cervinia, the comfortable cruise on the Sella Ronda in the Dolomites. Not that the skiing is all that hot. But how many places can one have a vertical drop of 9,200 feet through diferent kinds of snow untracked powder, chopped up stuff in and around crevasses in the glacier, down through blocks of ice the size of destroyers, and finally on alternately slick and muddy stretches in the trees. If Warren Miller had a highlight reel for his 50 years of filming in the snow, the astounding scenery of the Vallee Blanche will surely make the cut. Sheer cliffs funnel skiers down through massive snow and ice formations.
Intermediates can handle the run, but a guide is essential.
He knows where holes are hidden in the snow and he can lead the blind in the event of a sudden whiteout. Ladder of excess One one trip down the Valle Blanche, made from the Italian side, I tore a binding off a ski and lost the screws in the snow. It was near the end of the run, but too far to walk out. My guide jerry-rigged a repair, filling two of the holes with matchsticks and cannibalizing two screws from the other binding. I manged to ski the rest of the way down, without being allowed to lift either ski, for fear of tearing both bindings loose.