Stumbling down the Internet rabbit hole one evening, I came upon a clip from an old 1980s ski film called the Blizzard of Aaahs. The film was directed by Greg Stump and if you grew up in the 80s as a skier, then you almost certainly would’ve remembered this film. At the very least, you’d recognize the character of this emergent genre of extreme ski films.

We’re talking about a glorious time in humanity, when skiers with outrageous hair and brash punk attitudes, wore one-piece neon fart bags and skied on the skinniest little planks you could imagine, all set to Frankie Goes to Hollywood soundtracks.

This clip that I stumbled upon in my reckless Internet carousing features Scot Schmidt and Glen Plake—considered the best extreme skiers in the world at that time. And they were attempting to ski a couloir off the Auguille du Midi.

I immediately recognized this couloir. Years ago, I once rapped down it to reach the base of a popular moderate mixed route, that ascends back to the summit of the Midi. There’s a metal bridge that spans the top of this couloir, leading from the cable car station to various view points and outlooks, so it’s a popular spot. I remembered how steep this couloir is, because it’s hard to tell in this film. And in all seriousness, I couldn’t imagine anyone skiing this line, then or now.

In the film, a small crowd of onlookers is perched on the bridge watching as Scot Schmidt drops in first. He doesn’t even have time to make one turn before he hits what would be, by today’s standards, a pretty small and straight forward drop. And yet as soon as he hits it, it’s almost as somewhere, a voodoo effigy of Schmidt was stabbed at precisely that moment. His body goes limp and sideways like a ragdoll

Glen Plake’s turn was even worse. After hitting that little drop, he launched into a full tomahawk yard sale, both skis ejecting from his feet like arrows being launched over Thermopylae. As Greg Stump the narrator urges the viewers, “Notice the back handspring over the crevasse.”

The soundtrack, Warriors of the Wasteland, turns up while Plake, in what must be one heckuva daze, stands up and triumphantly pumps his fist into the air. And that’s how the film ends.

To my eye, it’s hard to square how whatever it was that we just watched could ever possibly be considered cutting edge—of anything other than perhaps jackassery. Obviously, these guys have big balls, but balls aside, is there really any difference between Schmidt and Plake tomahawking down the Aiguille du Midi and that of rank beginner who yard-sales down a blue run at the local Midwestern ski slope in a pair of Wrangler jeans and a Chicago Bears Starter jacket?

When it comes to assessing success in climbing, sometimes I wonder if we climbers set the bar too high for ourselves. I wonder if we put too much weight on crossing all our t’s and dotting all our i’s to make sure that our ascents “count.” When we’re calling each out for dabbing the filaments of a dandelion, you get the sense that maybe we climbers can be just a bit too anal.

What would be the equivalent in climbing of a couple of double-plankers ricocheting down a couloir? It’s not a perfect analogy, but perhaps it’s something along the lines of getting on a route that’s way above your head, a route that you just have no business being on, that you’re just whipping all over.

Most days, most climbers would come back from an experience like that, licking their wounded egos, telling themselves how much they suck, making plans to hang board a little more and drink a little less. They’d consider it a failure.

But perhaps we shouldn’t. Perhap we could all be a little more like Glen Plake, emerging from the stupor of our brazen insolence to try something so far above our abilities, and instead of self-flagellating, raising our fists in the air triumphantly to the sweet, sweet sounds of 80s rock.