Hans Saari Memorial
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Hans Saari 1971 - 2001

Exum Guide Hans Saari, a Bozeman resident whose passion for extreme skiing launched him on expeditions around the world, was killed on 7 May 2001 on the Tardivel entrance to the Gervasutti Couloir on Mt. Blanc du Tacul near Chamonix, France. Hans was 30 and already was gaining a reputation as a preeminent ski mountaineer and extreme skier, and building a career as a freelance writer. On the day of the accident, Saari was skiing with fellow Exum Guide, photographer Kris Erickson. The Tardivel entrance to the Gervasutti is a radically steep face that leads into the already steep and difficult Gervasutti Couloir. The slope was snow covered, but a small section under a shaded serac turned out to be ice. As he began his descent of the Tardivel, Hans stopped under the serac on this icy section. He recognized his error immediately. His edges were barely holding in the ice but he was only a few feet from safe, soft snow. He was reaching for his ice axe when the tails of his skis skidded out. Hans tumbled over backwards then plummeted down the slope and over a rock face into the main Gervasutti Couloir. He fell an estimated 650 meters before coming to rest in an ice runnel in the lower part of the couloir. A guide on an adjacent route saw the accident unfold and alerted rescuers. A helicopter rescue crew was on the scene within 10 minutes. Saari was evacuated to the local hospital in Chamonix. After emergency treatment he was transferred to a larger hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, where he died.

Saari was a 1993 graduate of Yale University. After college, he honed his skiing skills, added ice climbing to his repertoire, and gained the respect of top climbers. He and Erickson, 27, were both members of the October 1999 mountaineering expedition to Xixabangma in Tibet's Himalayas that claimed the life of famed climber Alex Lowe. News of Saari's death traveled through the mountaineering community. Outside Magazine said Saari was one of America's most talented and accomplished backcountry skiers and a promising young writer. Saari made several first descents in the Beartooths and Tetons, and in 1999, the North Face sponsored Saari and Erickson on a trip to Peru, where they shot footage that became the opening segment of the DesLauriers brothers' movie "Altitude." Hans was "an up-and-coming star" with great physical and mental ability, said Gordon Wiltsie of Bozeman, a National Geographic photographer who has chronicled a number of mountaineering expeditions. "He was well educated, a good writer, and a remarkably good athlete," Wiltsie said. "He had all those assets and he had big dreams. "I am positive that he was doing something that he believed was within his abilities." But, Wiltsie added, "There are inherent risks that are inescapable."

Saari wrote about a ski expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula in March, a trip on which Erickson also served as photographer. Describing the run of an exposed ridge off Mount Mill, Saari wrote, "It was as good as it looked. With wild turns off the top, over a thousand-foot cliff on one side and overhanging seracs on the other, and views miles long up and down the coast, we couldn't help but howl as we worked our way down the mountain. The sun cooked the lower glacier into perfect, smooth corn snow and for the first time on the trip, we let our boards run." Ski mountaineering was a career for Saari and he was serious about his work, his family said. "He wasn't skiing (the French Alps) for a lark or for recreation," a family member said. "This was part of his life's work, doing his writing and expeditions."

Jack Tackle said of Hans:

"What I will never forget was the look of enthusiasm and optimism that filled Hans's face. He had that great combination of youthful energy, fueled with unending optimism, and a wanderlust for travel to new places- whether they were a new route up Hyalite or a ski line in Antarctica."

"His smile was contagious; his enthusiasm for life was bigger than life itself. We should all be blessed with the skills Hans had at such an early age. We should all be reminded and never forget how Hans faced life and never looked back. The thing I will miss most was never having shared the rope with Hans. I will also miss the look in his eyes, that look of contagious energy, which embraced life to the fullest."

At his memorial in Bozeman on 20 May, Exum President Al Read eulogized Hans:

"I am here before you with the deep void of sadness that we all share. We can celebrate his life and be reminded that one day all of us will join him - to ski - to climb - and to walk with him again in the mountains and in the green meadows. We can be proud that he chose us to be among his friends. We are grateful that his life so enriched our own."

"Hans was killed in a violent accident perusing the extremes of mountaineering - pushing the envelope of world-class alpinism. Few of us are able ever to achieve his excellence and daring as a skier and climber. We will never be sufficiently skilled to rise to a level of competence to be able to explore the edges of the extreme as Hans did."

"George Saari, Hans' father, told me that Hans' years as an Exum Guide meant much to him. Hans meant much to the Exum Guides also. When the terrible news of his death was passed to me, I remarked to someone that I am not supposed to have favorites among the Exum Guides. But I do - and Hans was among them. A Yale cum laude graduate who I hoped one day might help to channel his brilliance and energy to help move Exum to an even higher level of excellence and achievement."

"We have moments of anger because we have been deprived of Hans. Certainly, Exum is deprived of one of its finest guides. But we understand. I do not know exactly what the mountains and the pursuit of excellence in them may have meant to Hans - but I may have some understanding. I use it constantly to remind myself of it to ease my own sadness and sense of loss."

"Glenn Exum made us realize why many climb at a state of the art level, and why such high risks are taken. It is freedom - but it is more. It is the courage to make life an incredible adventure, unshackled by the usual conventions. In extreme mountaineering in which Hans so brilliantly engaged, it is courage, daring, mental tenacity and exacting concentration, and the steel will to excel to the highest levels of excellence."

Never let success hide its emptiness from you; achievement its nothingness, toil its desolation. And so keep alive the incentive to push on further, that pain in the soul, which drives us beyond ourselves.

"Whither? That I don't know. That I don't ask to know.

       Dag Hammarskjold

Tonight I am turning summersaults
In the moonlight.
Tomorrow I ride the wind toward the sun
With night wings.

       Anne Trygstad (Mother of Hans Saari)

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