Snowlines

'Fascinating and elegantly written' WILLIAM BOYD

'A whole century of the Alps – war, ambition, exploration – found inside a single race. Akam has written in this book the truest account of ski mountaineering I have read' KILIAN JORNET, MOUNTAIN ATHLETE

Simon Akam was almost killed on Russia's highest mountain in 2017.

It was a narrow escape from a near-fatal accident on a commercial skiing expedition – and it provided a reckoning. Rather than turn away from the mountains, Akam resolved to go back. This time, though, he wanted to do it properly.

He would go with the right people – alpine natives. He would learn the right skills and serve a proper apprenticeship, aimed at true autonomy: months in France and Switzerland, perfecting his French and German while honing his mountain craft. His destination was the famous Haute Route traverse in the French and Swiss Alps, the very place where ski mountaineering was born, whose riveting history he would unearth and whose breathtaking peaks and valleys he would learn to ski – unguided – in preparation for one of the most difficult ski mountaineering races in the world: the Patrouille des Glaciers.

Woven through this personal journey is the story of the sport and the route itself: a tale that slalomed from Scandinavia to the Alps, east to Asia, west to the New World, and up and down to the poles. It is about how a select group of men, and a few women – often bound by dynasty as much as skill – negotiated the long twentieth century, on the mountains and off. It is about which of winter's myriad hazards can be controlled, and which cannot, and at what cost control is maintained. And it is about whether the mastery you believe you hold over your environment, your body and your mind is truly as strong as you think.

Blending high-altitude adventure with narrative history, Snowlines is a gripping account of risk, mastery and reinvention – and of testing yourself against a landscape that can never be fully tamed.

About the author

Simon Akam is a British writer. Born in Cambridge, England, he held a Gap Year Commission in the British Army before studying English Literature at Oxford University. He later won a Fulbright scholarship to attend Columbia Journalism School in New York. Simon has worked for The New York Times, Reuters and Newsweek and is currently a contributing writer for the Economist's 1843 magazine, where his coverage of the coronavirus pandemic was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.