Steep Page #8

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Andrew McLean is a throwback.

He calls himself a ""ski mountaineer. ""

Like Bill Briggs, like the first extreme skiers

around Chamonix,

his passion is simply to climb

steep mountains and ski down them.

No helicopters,

no starring roles in ski movies.

Just Andrew and friends exploring

the remote corners of the world on skis.

I've never really taken skiing that seriously.

I've always just looked at it

as kind of like a hobby and, you know,

I'm going to get a real job and a real career,

and, you know, get with the program.

But what always happens is, you know,

I'll have the opportunity

to kind of get with the program

and then there will be like a ski trip.

And it will be like, well, you know,

I'll do the ski trip first

and then, you know,

I'll get with the program.

You know, 20 years later, you know,

it's like skiing always takes precedence

over getting with the program.

At some point you just have to realize like,

well, okay, you know, maybe this is,

you know, more of a full-time thing,

and I should just accept it as it is.

It's my destiny.

Ski mountaineering, I look at it

as kind of between-the-cracks exploration.

All these mountains,

people haven't been into them.

They've never been skied.

They've never been explored.

You can be a modern-day explorer.

And it may not be as significant as going

to the moon or the bottom of the ocean,

but from just a common standpoint

it's a great method

to get out and explore the world.

Andrew McLean has explored

remote mountains on seven continents.

This is the peninsula of the Giants

on the north coast of Iceland.

This is where Andrew and two friends,

Matt Turley and Dylan Freed,

have come to climb and ski.

I like doing steep skiing

and I like doing remote skiing,

and I like doing

complicated, technical skiing

which could also be considered

dangerous skiing to some people.

It doesn't seem that dangerous when

you have been doing it for a long time.

It seems almost commonplace.

But taking a dangerous situation

and kind of figuring out how to do it safely,

that's the ideal.

Andrew McLean,

he's the real extreme skier in the bunch.

He's going on these trips

that are a million miles away from anything.

You're skiing 55-degree slopes.

You slip up, there's nothing there

to save you. You're done.

There's not very many people out there

pushing that envelope and for good reason,

because many of the people

that have pushed that envelope,

they're not with us anymore.

Andrew McLean continues that tradition

of skiing the ultimate extreme.

Having friends die and seeing friends die

and being involved in accidents

definitely does give me pause.

When I was involved in my first

avalanche fatality, I just was like,

""That's it, I'm not skiing anymore. ""

But I think I'm a slow learner.

You know, I just rationalize it.

I have what's called creative rationalization.

I always think,

well, you know, this was an accident.

It happened because

of these foreseeable circumstances

and those won't happen again.

But it's always something else that happens.

This was Andrew's 15th day

in the mountains of Iceland.

Holy crap.

-Dylan, you okay?

-Andrew!

-Andrew, Dylan.

-You okay?

-Dylan, you okay?

-Yeah, I'm all right.

Holy...

Holy sh*t!

Oh, my God.

Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

I'm very glad to be alive.

Glad you're all right, Dyl.

There, Dylan.

-That was cool. Full value, huh?

-Oh, man.

If I really want to avoid being caught

or dying in an avalanche,

it's not the idea ofjust scaling back

on my skiing activities.

It's more completely stopping.

I know it's dangerous, but if I give it up,

what's the future going to be like?

Is it just going to be sitting at a desk job?

You know, you need to figure that

what's going to take the place of that.

Where are you going

to get the same adventure

or same excitement out of your life?

It's just something about mountains

that really appeals to me

on a very basic DNA level.

I'm just a mountain person.

Those of us that want the risk

and want the challenge

are going to do it one way or another,

whether it's in the mountains

or it's on a racetrack

or floating down the river.

This should be a common thing

for man to be doing.

I think we get a little bit too safe

in our lives these days.

I had a romantic vision of the mountains.

The mountains represented something

different from a mass of rock.

To me the mountains were the possibility

to discover life and discover myself.

It's a different world.

It's extreme. You risk your life.

But if we decide to live this way,

it can give you

a lot of pleasure and emotion.

And that's what you need in your life.

I'd be lying if I said I was never scared but,

you know, I think the risks are well worth it.

Gliding down a slope with such peaceful

and graceful ease, no resistance.

Something I've done all my life

and I want to continue to do

to the day I die.

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