With no ropes, no pistes and no one telling you where you can and can’t go, La Grave, France represents a very special type of freedom rarely found in other alpine ski areas.

La Grave enjoys an almost mythic reputation among freeriders. Interminable downhills, ice gullies and overhangs in the glaciers make the hearts beat faster of all those, who can get nothing out of prepared skiing slopes. Sam Anthamatten and Johnny Collinson on the traces of this legend