'Gaffe!  Pas si près du bord, avant que je ne suis prête.'  : 'Bon, d'accord.  Viens vers moi, jusqu'ici.  Bouge plus, compris?'

Understood.

The slope dropped sheer beneath my feet, 55° to 60° to begin with, the glacier showing proud of the exiguous snow cover in menacing slicks that glittered in the sunlight.  To our right, though, the snow had found better purchase.  Looked skiable, though Rémy explained he'd rope me for the first fifty metres given I'd be going first and there was no telling how close beneath the surface the ice would be.  One mauvaise surprise is all it would take...

'Previens moi si tu sens que tu vas riper - s'il y a de la glace.'  Not just so that he could take the strain gradually and spare the belay, but for when it was his turn, unprotected, to ski those first few metres.

No question of proffering information in the event, as Rémy kept up a running questionnaire.  'C'est comment la neige?  Et là?  Dure comment?  De la glace ou un fond skiable?'

Unskiable, to the point where I halted to look up at Rémy for a decision.  Should I continue?  or backclimb?  Thinking aloud, making me party to the decision - both our lives at risk after all:  'Je paris que c'est que ce putain d'une première longueur.  Ca devrait aller plus bas.  Ca en a l'air.  Vas-y, Michèle, continue!'

His life in my hands, too.  Later, afterwards, when we were safe, 'Tu te rends compte?  Un Français qui fait confiance à une Anglaise?'  Having to trust to my reports on snow quality.  Having to let me pick my own route on the rope, as I could see the exposed ice hidden from his vantage point.

Some forty metres down, I belay.  On nothing.  The base still rock hard, refusing my axe.  I ram it in any old how and drop a sling over for form's sake, but put no weight on it.  Balanced on my edges above a spectacular arena of sheer slope, glinting wickedly where the sun caught ice, bordered with glaucous séracs to my left and a complication of arêtes and buttresses below where the slope plunged out of sight.

Not afraid, though.  To my surprise.  Able to look down, take in my surroundings.  Not concerned that I might lose my balance.  I know I won't.   The fear came before.  The day before.  Wondering if Rémy hadn't overstepped himself at last, overestimated my capabilities.  Contemplating the possibility of that fatal fall.  And the morning of the great day - up at 6, pointlessly, since our rendezvous wasn't till 9.15.  With no height gain we'd no need for an early start.  But better to read than lie in the dark rehearsing disaster scenarios on a loop.  Why had he specified helmets?  We'd never skied in helmets before.  Was it, as he said, for protection against stonefall in the two abseils we'd have mid-slope or, too, was it in case of a fall?  To give me some sort of a chance?   And the icescrew for belaying should the slope refuse purchase to our axes, so he said.  But, too, mightn't it be against the eventuality of something happening to him?  To be able to belay in relative security for as long as it took for the rescue services to find us?  Come to that, did anyone know where we were?  Had he at least told Claire?  I'd told almost no one, in case we weren't able to ski it after all.  To avert the evil eye, too.  Not the kind of thing one talks about till it's over.

Afraid for Rémy, though.  Grimacing with effort as he slideslipped on his axe towards me.  A double, triple chop sometimes before the pick would anchor.   Stopping now and then to relax cramped muscles.  'Ca casse ça!' breathing heavily.  No turns even for The Master.  Just effortful sliding, punctuated with pauses to study the slope beneath, to demand to know if I was sure there'd been no ice at this point or that.  His life in my hands.  Afraid for him.

Just above me, he asked me to shuffle forward, without touching my belay, to allow him passage between me and the naked ice - glace vive in French.  When I told him my belay wasn't worth diddley squat, 'Alors, bouge pas.  Je me débrouillerai.'

Watching him set up the second belay.  Clearing the snow from the ice beneath, battling with the icescrew, using his axe for better leverage.  Still not satisfied.   'Alors je skierai sans la corde.'  'Non, en cas où la glace est toujours proche de la surface.  Mais ici tu tournes.  En principe c'est bon.  Vas-y.   Seulement, tu previens en cas de chute.  Pas beton le relai.'

First two turns, unpleasant reception because of the uneven, icy base under a deceitful veil of fresh snow.  And then, suddenly, the base was gone.  Withdrawn deep below.  And I was skiing powder.  Turn after turn.  And Rémy had joined me, delighted with himself for a good call.  The slope was in condition after all.   He hadn't been wrong.  Of course, he hadn't.  He'd been watching it since the start of the season, to see how much of each successive snowfall stuck and where.   The line to take.

The exposure hadn't gone away.  Toujours pas le droit à l'erreur.  But then neither had my conviction that all would be well and all manner of thing would be well.  Utterly focused on the next turn.  Rémy looking up to watch me down my next series of turns, his eyes narrowed, then turning away to lead the next pitch.  A running commentary on route-finding, making me a partner in this enterprise.  Ski colleague.  He'd skied the slope once before, but only once.  With Jean-Sé, another guide extraordinaire and skieur de l'extrême.  Years ago.   Too, they'd set up their first abseil too early.  Rémy reckoned we could ski a snow-covered arête which would bring us to a lower point before commencing operations to switch from hanging glacier to the narrow couloir which offered an issue to the glacier below.  But the exposure would be total.

Rémy stood for a while, studying the alternative.  The hanging glacier itself, now displaying great plaques of green ice between the alluring stretches of smooth snow.   I held my breath till he turned away.  Didn't trust the meretricious allure of that easy-angled ramp.  Suspected ice beneath a couple of centimetres only of cover.   Preferred the vicious angles and contours of the arête any day.

A short slope of transformed snow above a sheer drop whose mouth was spiked with rocks.   Each turn totally focused.  Then a wait, while Rémy slideslipped the last few metres on his axe before pulling left and out of my sight on to a traverse.  A shout and it was my turn.  Acutely aware of the the cliff now just a few feet away.   Each axe placement solid in receptive snow.  Then Rémy, facing me the other side of a short traverse.  Nowhere for my axe now.  Just rocks:   mid-traverse, a big one pushing me out over the drop, just a couple of inches away from my left ski.  Rocks offering no holds.  Rémy fixing me with his gaze.   Willing me safely across.

'Je suis là, Michèle.'

Never says that.  Offering reassurance isn't his thing.  If you need it, you shouldn't be there in the first place is his view.  A sign, then, of the extremity of the danger I stood in.  Firing urgent instructions as I leant out over the drop to contour the boulder.  Don't know what he said.  Too concentrated on what I was doing, which I knew was OK.  Just, I couldn't spare any attention just then.

Beside him now as he prescribed my next manoeuvre.  An arm's breadth to turn in, between the lefthand limit of the arête and an ice plaque to my right.  There, exactly there.  Now.  'Tourne court.  Il y aura la plaque cinq centimetres au-delà de tes spatules à la réception.'

Then, two more turns down 55° before we could pull left onto a generous shoulder.   Balanced on the arête, I could see from Rémy's technique and the tracks he left that the shoulder was covered in deep crust.  He jumped high to smash through on landing, then caught himself cat-like before his blocked momentum could somersault him down the mountain.  The snow I'm most afraid of on a steep.

'Tu suis mes traces, mais précisément!'  Obviously.

When I caught up with him, Rémy was studying the rock to our right minutely.  For belay points.  Satisfied he turned away.  We could relax.  Take a break.   Eat the only food I'd brought:  a slice of dried pineapple each.  Rémy had nothing.  No water either.  There'd been no room in his sack, what with an 8.8mm rope and all the kit for several belays.  We knew there'd be at least two, probably more.  And nothing in place to help us.  A slope that's very rarely skied.  So pitons, then, and a hammer to knock them in; a length of old rope for slings and a knife to cut it.  Karabiners to link slings and pitons, multiplying the resistance of your belay: if one anchor fails, you'll still be linked into the others.   Three, ideally, but circumstances won't always allow...

'Putain, mais c'etait bon la neige!'  The pair of us on a high, adrenalin-charged and safe for the time being.  Firing off each other's enthusiasm, bound by a powerful sense of cameraderie.  Alone with our mountain.

Till the heli came clattering in.  Heard it whilst it was still a way off.   Thought it was on a rescue, but kept coming steadily towards us, hovered a moment, headed on up following the line of the slope we'd just skied, then circled down to us again.  Rémy gave it the 'No, we don't need help' sign.  Right arm at an angle above the head, left pointing towards the ground.  And held it for a while.  The heli clattered off, flying perilously close to the sheer granite of l'Aiguille du Plan before dipping its nose and plunging down and out of earshot.

Watching Rémy setting up the belay.  Technical business.  Selecting anchor points, tying knots, clipping in, threading the rope through, while I tied skis and sticks on to my pack and wrestled with crampons.

Then the heli was back.  No doubt this time: it was here for us.  Circling noisily overhead.  We'd taken our time over the belay.  No rush, we were skiing a north face so the sun couldn't muck with our snow quality and we'd needed the break, nerves stretched by the constant concentration.

'Mais, aussi, je pense qu'ils sont curieux.  C'est pas tous les jours qu'il y a des traces dans le col du Plan. Ils veulent voir ce qu'on est en train de foutre, nous,' grinning.  Told me afterwards that when he'd given the No sign for the second time, he'd had a thumbs up from the pilot - that's how close they'd come to us.

A lecture on how to initiate my abseil - kneel into the slope, avoid putting any weight on the belay till I was a few metres below the anchors, lest I dislodge the slings, and thereafter no à-coups/jolts - and he was gone.  Had to be Rémy who went first, as he'd be setting up the anchors for the second abseil whilst still hanging on the rope: a technical operation in which I lack experience.

Standing in the shadow of the rock, beginning to shake with cold, watching the line of sun creep towards me (the shoulder had a westerly aspect).  Fingers on the rope, checking its tension.  When it went slack I'd know Rémy was clipped into the new belay and it would be my turn.  Whiled away the time putting my noeud autobloquant in place - a brilliantly simple device involving a short piece of cord and a krab, for holding you static on an abseil, for whatever reason, from being knocked cold by rockfall to freeing up your hands to set up the next belay.

'Tu me trouves en plein bricolage, reste là!' hanging from my noeud autobloquant as he cursed a stubborn piton.  Got a crack to admit it at last but not convinced of any of his placements.  As he abseiled away from me, he had me shout minute-by-minute bulletins on the three pitons and their status quo.  Any signs of movement?   Yes?  Then, which one was it?  And when it was my turn, as soon as I hove into sight he was bellowing instructions for me to frôle le rocher.  Lean into it, downclimb wherever possible - anything to take the strain off the anchors.   In both our minds the story of Stef and Manu, two guide friends of Rémy's who'd come a cropper earlier in the season:  a snow anchor that had held for Manu, had pulled for Stef.  Why?  Because Stef had leaned out and put his whole weight on the abseil right from the start, when he was still close enough for the sudden strain to lift the anchor.  The further from the belay you get, the safer it is as your weight tends to reinforce the placements by burying them more deeply (snow) or pulling them more firmly down over the rock spikes (slings).  Dodgy piton placements, though, are going to remain dodgy throughout the abseil.

Touched down in the couloir to find Rémy chatting to two ropes of alpinistes, iceaxing and cramponing their way up the route we'd just skied.  The last of the four remarked, as he made his way past us and our skis, that he wouldn't change places for all the tea in China - or some such French equivalent - as he glanced down the 55° ribbon of snow tightly contained between towering walls of rock.

A few metres and we needed the rope again, to slither, skis still on, down a rock step.   A few more turns then another étranglement, which Rémy negotiated precariously on skis before shouting up to me to take mine off, use them as iceaxes, one in either hand, and downclimb, kicking steps in the reasonably receptive snow.  Then a long section of couloir, the angle gradually slackening as we went, before we burst out onto the avalanche cone.

Even then we couldn't rest.  With belt after belt of sérac and avalanche debris to negotiate, their presence a clear signal we weren't out of the woods yet but still in the mountains' sights.  Had to get out of the firing line of those rows of delicately balanced séracs before we could stop.  Still on a glacier, still crevasses to negotiate.

But once out the maw of the exit couloir, I'd relaxed.  Fell three times in quick succession on the cruddy snow.  Saw Rémy turn his head, knew he'd registered.   And after the whole of that steep without so much as a falter!  No comment till the middle station and the café terrace: 'Pas étonnant.  C'est la tension qui s'est relâchée.  Tu t'es laissée aller après plusieurs heures d'une concentration totale parce que tu te savais à l'abri finalement.'

Rémy high as a kite.  Ecstatic at having pulled it off.  Got me down in one piece.  At having provided us with brilliant conditions under which to ski it.   'Bien mieux que quand je l'ai skié avec Jean-Sé.'  After our celebratory drink at the middle station, we had to have another at the bottom.  Needing to talk himself down.  Go over it turn by turn: have the post mortem.  Two hours before we could bring ourselves to get in our cars and drive off.