Arc’teryx Alpine Academy
Mountain living, community feeling
Arc’teryx Alpine Academy
Some places emotional rather than physical. And as much as it may seem a real cliché, it is exactly what happens in towns like Chamonix. I like to paint it in my thoughts like the mountain cabin where you know you will go for your summer adventures. If we then associate that cabin with a moment of the year in which you know you will be able to experience the most beautiful days of the sunny season, we obtain the Arc’teryx Alpine Academy.
AAA in short
It was the first time for me at this event, that is now on its twelfth edition. Enthusiasts from all over Europe and beyound were able to experience four days of training, inspiration and connection in a community sharing the same passion: mountains. The format is simple: 43 clinics are distributed over the four days in which you can participate with different durations, difficulties and types of activities. There is the Alpine Village where anyone who passes can test equipment and clothing for free, attend world premieres of mountain films, listen to the words of the best athletes and mountaineers in the world that are part of the Arc’teryx team. There are musical evenings and workshops with free access. 120 alpine guides have come from all over France to lead the various clinics from mountaineering to climbing, hiking, trail running and much more.
From Warsaw and Oregon
I like to tell what the Alpine Academy is by tracing the outlines of those who have sought, awaited and lived these days even when they normally live thousands of kilometers away. Two Polish guys with whom I trampled the snow of the Vallée Blanche glacier, and Lauren from Oregon, who took the chance of AAA to spend a few weeks in the Alps. In Warsaw, there are no trails or glaciers and traveling to find them is never easy, after a few introductory mountaineering courses they discovered that the mountain is a really nice place to stay and where to move and with that, every year, they return to Chamonix for three days of concentrated clinics where they can learn and experience the mountain in company of people from all over the world in an amazing location. Their backpacks are full of everything that has been added to the list of essentials year after year, and what they don’t have they can borrow from the Arc’teryx Gear Library where CAMP and SCARPA equipment is also available. The days are filled like new packs to take home, full of moments and new notions, the evenings enlivened by the images of the movies projected at the Alpine Village or by the music of the outdoor concert at The Scene. They do it every year, like it was the only way to really start summer. Lauren, on the other hand, runs, skis and climbs in the Pacific North West, where there is certainly no shortage of playgrounds for all her activities, but there is something here that you cannot find elsewhere, and so with an intercontinental flight she finds herself running in company of Arc’teryx trail runner Johanna Åström in the woods that leads from L’Argentière to the center of Chamonix for a Trail Running & Spa clinic.
Different worlds that intersect at the foot, among and on the same mountains
The forty-three clinics distributed over the three days involve many Arc’teryx athletes and have exciting titles at times incredible: night in portaledge with Nina Caprez, trail running on the trails of the Tour du Mont Blanc with Stian Hagen, glaciology and permafrost, crevasse rescue, climbing session with Jonathan Siegriest, mountaineering for beginners up to real multi-pitch climbing, high altitude photography. But that’s not all: for the creative lovers of upcycling and design, Nicole Mclaughlin flew from the States to hold the “Circular by Design” workshops with her art. This mix also happens in the Arc’teryx athletes’ team, where freeriders took their first steps on rock and trail runners experienced the thrill of moving, for once, with slow steps on a glacier. Once everyone has come back from their trails, climbing routes or boulders, we all meet at the village, where in addition to the upcycling workshops, there are bouldering challenges for all tastes, lots of interesting talks and the possibility of exchanging ideas and thoughts with professionals and athletes with whom, in those days, there are no barriers and with whom you can, if you want, sit down and share the day’s adventures while waiting for the films to be shown in the evening. Then, toasting those moments with the same cold beer, we sit on the lawn of the Arc’teryx The Scene live concert.
The first weekend of July
Languages merge, skills are enriched and stories intertwine. Far from competitions, preconceptions and barriers, the Alpine Academy in Chamonix is that moment of summer that you wait for the same way like when you were little and when it ends you feel a little lost. The nice thing though, is knowing that next year you can go back and nothing will have changed: same weekend (the first of July), same place, same desire to discover, new encounters and new people.
