"I just want to be able to move in the mountains with my friends." -Miho, ice and other clinics. For a week that's what the Arc'teryx Alpine Academy in Chamonix helps people do, and that's why I keep going back. We who have put some years in owe it to the newly alpine afflicted to share what we've learned, but the Academy is the only formal event I know of focused primarily on alpine education. From crevasse rescue to ice climbing, portaledges to parties, each Alpine Academy is a gathering that mixes several thousand psyched people together in the seething granite cauldron of the Chamonix Valley. The result is something uniquely beautiful. If you're an alpine climber and have never been to Chamonix you need to go. There is literally no place else like it in the world where you can access endless alpine terrain so easily. Yes, it's a circus, and the Academy adds rings, but it's one hell of a rad circus. Arc'teryx puts a lot of effort into this event, and after two years of cancellations it was great to gather together and worship our collective gods of splitter granite, altitude, ice, snow, rocky ridges, cablecars, parties and the fast rescue helicopters that never seem to land. Take away any one of these things and it wouldn't be Chamonix, but I'm sure glad it exists, and that we got to share it together last week. Hell yeah! A huge thanks to the Euro and North American Arc'teryx teams, all the people who shared the clinics with me and my fellow athletes, @huens (finally, and she rocked it!) the Chamex guides, and whatever it is that makes Chamonix such a special place.