Sylvain Saudan, who was widely known as the “skier of the impossible” for his audacious and potentially life-ending descents down some of the steepest, most inaccessible slopes in the world, died on July 14 at his home in Les Houches, France. That Mr. Saudan lived into his ninth decade puzzled many people — including Mr. Saudan himself. Beginning in 1967, when he plunged down the Spencer Couloir on the Aiguille de Blaitière mountain in France — a 55-degree slope roughly equivalent, on skis, to a free fall — Mr. Saudan spent his life defying gravity, avalanches and obituary writers. “One mistake, you die,” Mr. Saudan once said. “You fall, you become a prisoner of the mountain — forever.”

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Persons: Sylvain Saudan, Marie, José Valençot, Saudan, Spencer Couloir, Mr, “, ” Locations: Les Houches, France