As filmmaker and local Tahoe adventurer Eric Perlman explains it, the beginnings of extremism was born in Chamonix in the spring of 1939 when two Frenchmen, Emile Allais and Camille Tonnais ascended 4,000 feet up the Glacier du Mileu to the top of the 12,680 foot peak called Argentiere. Strapping on their stiff wooden boards they descended down a narrow rock-walled needle of snow, over forty degrees of slope. It was beyond rational thought, but in one afternoon the two alpinists redefined the limits of skiing.

It was only fitting therefore that ten years later Allais would travel to the Sierra Nevada and become Squaw Valley's first ski school director. For no other ski resort in North America has become as synonymous for being a wildlife sanctuary for adventure as the former Olympic site.

"The atmosphere at Squaw Valley has always been a penchant for risk. It is matter of fact," explained the late Norm Simmons who became known in the sixties for his epic leaps off KT's Eagle's Nest.

"As a result you had a lot of top skiers, climbers, and adventurers hanging out, people like speed skier Steve McKinney, Bev Johnson - one of the first really good women climbers, Rick Sylvester, Dick Dorworth, Kim Schmitz, and Eric Beck, who was the first to solo Half-Dome. There has always been a lot of free spirits."

Tahoe's extremism in the early 70s was no more, but certainly no less, than what was going on around the world at the time. If anything, it was partially inspired by the go-for-broke attitudes of others.

Sylvain Saudain skied the West Face of the Eiger. Skier-mountaineer Chris Landry skied the East Face of Aspen's Pyramid Peak, long considered an impossible descent. Italian ski instructors Matteo Thun and Giorgio Ferraris successfully skied the sulfur-choked lava flanks of Stromboli as the volcano erupted, exclaiming later that "although our skis bases melted, our edges still held." Skier mountaineer Ned Gillette with Squaw Valley residents Jim Bridwell and Craig Calonica became the first humans to circle Mount Everest on skis. During the same period, Japan's Yichireo Miura, equipped with a parachute for a brake, schussed the South Col of Everest. Ski instructor Joe Meegan skied a frozen Niagara Falls. Kirk Hill set the world single-skier endurance record at Angel Fire, New Mexico, completing 434 consecutive runs covering 195,300 vertical feet, skiing non-stop for 63 hours until he began "losing contact with reality." No one could outdo Swiss adventurer Sylvain Saudain, who climbed without oxygen and skied down 26,470 foot Hidden Peak in the Himalayas. The descent took nine hours over 9,000 vertical feet, requiring more than 3,000 turns over slopes of 55 degrees.

All through these years, Squaw Valley remained a bastion for adventure. The sport of speed skier, arguably, was popularized more on Squaw's slopes than anywhere else. Watch any mainstream ski film made in the last two decades and more than likely the majority of the cast make Squaw Valley their home stomp. Skiers such as Scot Schmidt, Griff Davis, Kevin Andrews, Tom Day, Robby Huntoon, Eric and Rob DesLauriers, Kent Kreitler and Brad Holmes; and snowboarders Chuck Patterson, Damien Sanders, and Jim Zellers have become today's state-of-the art daredevils. Throw in bungee jumpers like Rowe Geisin and Jimbo Morgan (730-foot bungee jumps), and Everest climber-skier Craig Calonica and Squaw Valley continues to produce its own form of home-grown lunar madness.

Although Squaw Valley adventurers for close to fifty years have pulled enough incredible stunts to stuff a file cabinet, here are seven events that helped propagate the Squaw Valley legend.

SYLVESTER'S SLOT: Along the rocky buttress known as Little Granite Chief, near the Rockpile where the aerial cable car's Tower 1 stands, is an impossible steep sliver of a slope called Sylvester's Slot.

"The steepest part isn't the top," says veteran backcountry skier and Squaw Valley resident Paul Arthur. "Three turns down it funnels into a tiny narrow almost invisible line with rocks on both sides. It's a 60 degree grade at its critical point with zero recovery if you get in trouble."

Though it was first skied with ropes for protection during the spring of 1963 by ski instructors Edgar Boyles and Lito-Teja Flores, and again the following year by Decland Daly, it was Sylvester who it became named after his daring descent in 1970 while on his first year of ski patrol.

"Sylvester's Slot reflects a picture for those who had the desire for high, untracked lines," explains Paul Arthur who has done numerous first descents all over the west. "There are tougher things to jump into such as the East Couloir of Dana Peak, but Sylvester¹s was one of the early challenges, open only to a few and only a few who had the vision to do it."

BECK'S ROCK: "We all have our own daydreams. But how many of us are able to transcend our dreams and make them reality..."

So begins the opening narration of the ski film "Daydreams". Shot and edited during the winter and spring of 1974-75 by Tahoe native Craig Beck, the film contains to this day some of the most spectacular skiing and jumping ever put on film. One highlight has to be Dave Burnham's flip off the Palisades into 80 feet of air. The other is Greg Beck's 120 feet of air off what is now called Beck's Rock.

2 days afterward, Beck's best friend Mark Rivard had broke both legs trying to attempt the same feat.

"That big jump by my brother is still something that blows me away," admits Craig. "We measured it and it's 120 feet. I hit it just right and stuck the landing" Greg stated.*

SCHMID-IOTS: Hikers left from Beck's Rock atop the Palisades is the Chimney Chute. In the big snow year of 1983, while filming for Warren Miller, 21 year old Scot Schmidt took a leap down an eighty-foot corridor of rock known today as Schmidt-iots.

"There was a lot of snow, the conditions were premium," recalls Schmidt who now resides in Santa Cruz. "I'd been jumping a lot of stuff all day and was getting pretty comfortable. I started looking for a new line."

What he picked was a plunge never done before from the 9,000 foot band of cliffs which remain the predominant geological statement at Squaw. In between two large rocks on one side of the chute Schmidt shot down straight onto two pads or little ramps of snow which allowed him to launch out of the chute and into the side hill compression below.

"Looking back, it's considered kind of small by today's standards, although it's only been pulled off successfully one time since by Rob Gafney," says Schmidt. "But back in 1983 it opened some eyes."

CHINESE DOWNHILL: On St. Patrick's Day of 1970 the Squaw Valley Ski Patrol held the first Chinese Downhill. Nineteen skiers started en masse from the top of Gold Coast. There was no actual course nor any rules. The first person to enter the bar called The Pub and throw back a shooter would be declared the winner.

The late Norm Simmons, a former defensve back for the Houston Oilers, won the prize, a bottle of Commemmorotivo Tequila. He'd go on to win three out of the next four events during the races short-lived life.

"That first race we had no visibility and icy conditions. There was no grooming. I won, I think, because I kept my tuck through Mombo Meadows on down Mogul Hill. Most everybody else in their right mind stood up at one point and slowed down to ride all the bumps on Mogul Hill."

The next four years the start was moved to the ridgeline of Siberia Bowl and the finish at the Beer Gardens in the Olympic House, a vertical drop of 2,800 feet and a distance close to three miles.

The race became so popular that large crowds began to gather at Mogul Hill and at Tower Twenty to watch the races and sometimes spectacular crashes.Entrants to the race increased to the point it was a hysterical mob at the start. Very few competitors wore helmets.

"It was a crazy race," remembers Paul Buschmann, who became the only other winner besides Simmons. "I was 15 years old and kind of scared by all these crazy guys at the start jostling for position. I new that getting out in front was the key. The course was basically the Mountain Run, but right at Tower Twenty you could take The Waterfall, a steep little section where you could shoot down and come underneath the old Headwall station through the trees to Mogul Hill."

The final year of the event 61 skiers competed. However, during the race, one competitor went off-course and struck a spectator who had been warned repeatedly to leave the position from where he was watching.

The collision killed him.

"That was the end of the race. It was a real tragedy," remembered Simmons who was a ski patrolman at the time. "It really tarnished a rather fun event which up to that point had been very good natured and without any type of injury."

HOT DOG: The Chinese Downhill was glamourized years later in the major motion picture "Hot Dog", which was shot at Squaw Valley by Squaw Valley native Mike Marvin and utilized many local skiers as extras and stunts.

Though Playboy's Shannon Tweed received most of everyone's attention, it was local Robby Huntoon, doubling for the film's hero Patrick Hauser, who stole the picture. His most spectaculat stunt came during the filming of the climatic Chinese Downhill when he swept through Gold Coast on skis and through a huge glass window to get back on course.

"The stunt coordinator and I dreamed it up," recalls Huntoon who has done other stunts for films such as "Back To The Future" and "Greatest American Hero". "Gold Coast was a lot different then than now. I knew we could pull off something special."

Removing an uphill window and installing a door, Huntoon constructed a strip of snow three feet wide through the building and off the floor to the height of the window.

"We took out the plate glass, but could only replace it with real glass," remembers Huntoon. "There was not time or budget to send for candy glass."

With five cameras rolling, Huntoon ,on 223s, started from the top of East Broadway.

"I needed a bit of speed, enough to clear the Plaza Deck and hit the ramp I made at the bottom," says Huntoon.

It was a one take deal, but the former University of Vermont grad hit it perfectly, smashing through the several panes of glass he'd organized to soften the blow and onto his ramp near the Gold Coast lift.

"The ironic thing, I learned later," says Huntoon. "Was that the girl, an extra who was acting as waitress with a tray of drinks, and who was supposed to open the door for me to sail through, just happened to open the door accidently as I screamed into the building. No one had a radio inside to tell her exactly when I was coming. Someone noticed me out a window and yelled to her to open it."

WAYES WICKED WANDER: In his first free ski contest, Tom Wayes brought new meaning to the word "big air" when he uncorked his epic 100 foot leap in the Tram Bowl chutes during the 1996 All-mountain Extreme Championships.

"I wanted to do something huge. I'd had a poor first run. It was hard not to go for it," recalls Wayes, 26, a Squaw Valley resident, who, when not working for K2, tunes skis at Granite Chief Ski and Snowboard Service Center.

Wayes had noticed earlier during course inspection, a chimney of rock near the Medusa Chute, but above Ladies Lunge. He discovered a small stair step into the buttress where one could see the landing from the top.

"I'd wanted to do it the first time, but a cameraman on the spine had forced me to go around," says Wayes. Grabbing a pair of K2 215 skis, he sailed off the cliff, using two little trees as reference.

"I remember praying about clearing the second pad, but I believe I could do it. My mind was clear. I was in the zone," he says.

With several hundred spectators gasping, Wayes cleared the precipice. Though he extended to get full absorption on impact and kept on his feet, the landing looked and sounded like the detonation of a building. The landing chipped his elbow, but he managed to put his boards back on and ski down to the applause in the finish.

The crowd loved it. The judges couldn't buy it. Wayes was disqualified for skiing through a roped section which had been earlier declared off-course.

"I knew it was reckless," admits Wayes. "But I'm super-competitive and was really reved up. I have to admit there was a lot of hang time." ALL-MOUNTAIN EXTREMES, 1995, FINAL DAY: "Everybody knew this was the day to show off and go big," remembers Chaco Mohler, an organizer of the event that first year. "I don't think there has ever been a day we've had with such ideal conditions for big air."

All week long a spring storm had socked into Squaw Valley, interrupting and delaying the five day competition. On the last day, however, the sun broke out, the winds died, and competitors discovered ten feet of new snow waiting.

"I was initially disappointed," says Mohler whose filming of the event would earn him first place at the International Ski Film and Video Festival and the Far West Bill Berry Award. "We had scheduled the competition originally for the Tram Bowl Chutes but there was too much avalanche danger. Once I got up to Granite Chief and saw those conditions, however, I knew it was going to be far out. The anticipation, the energy up there was amazing."

The women won the battle of air. Morgan Lafonte pulled off a backflip from the buttress. Kirsten Kremer flew off the nose of Granite Chief. Chuck Patterson hiked the peak four times and won the combined in skiing and snowboarding.

"The gods created an ideal scene," Mohler explains. "The cool thing was everybody let go of the fact it was a competition and got into this showboating thing. With the audience and cameras watching it was Squaw Valley people going big off the mothership, Squaw Valley."

*Side note: I spoke with Greg Beck on 1-21-2003. He wanted to set the story straight with me. Many folks are saying that the jump was 150+ feet and that he was knocked out cold on impact. Greg said this isn't so. The jump was actually 120 feet, he was not knocked out and he skied away with an ear to ear smile.

-Dave LMS