Unimaginably steep lines where one caught edge will send you hurtling into the frigid ocean. Days of sailing through rough waters as pods of orcas circle nearby. Some pretty hands-off parenting. All this and more await you in the new adventure film, In a Lifetime, which chronicles a five-week expedition to Antarctica by snowboarder Xavier de le Rue, his younger brother Victor and his teenage daughter Mila.
Directed by Jérôme Tanon and produced in collaboration with The North Face, in just 44 minutes this diary-style documentary covers epic mountaineering in the more remote place on earth, previously untouched lines, climate change and family dynamics, all set against the breathtaking backdrop of Antarctica.
It makes it a little difficult to know where to start when I sit down with Xavier and Mila to discuss the project with them. So I go with the obvious – how does it feel to you take your 18-year-old daughter into such a remote and challenging environment?
“It’s not like just going on holiday with your daughter. There's an objective, so it's a completely different mindset,” explains Xavier.
The weeks and months before the expedition were filled with worries about what he calls the “nightmare scenarios” – boats sinking during the five-day traverse across the choppy Drake Passage, a stretch of water between Chile and Antarctica that’s considered one of the most treacherous voyages in the world. But when it came to Mila’s initiation into big mountain free riding on steep couloirs and exposed faces that saw the 18-year-old breaking down in tears as snow ominously slides away under her skis?
“I always felt pretty relaxed,” says Xavier.
“I have a big trust in her and it's funny, I'm not scared when I see her skiing because I know how she reacts and I'm very confident about this.”
The famed big mountain snowboarder is a three-time champion of the Freeride World Tour, as is Vincent. Mila already looks set to follow in their footsteps, but this expedition saw her using gear like crampons and an ice axe for the first time. Learning to use technical equipment for the first time in such a high-stakes scenario and there’s no mountain rescue to come and bail you out would be a challenge for anyone, much less a teenager.
“The cool thing is that on a trip like this she could have gone downhill, but she pulled herself together,” says Xavier.
For him, the trip was all about overcoming fear now he’s reached an age where he finds his friends are taking fewer and fewer risks.
Put three family members together for five weeks on any boat and you’d expect a little family drama – “she’s a bit defiant with me” says Xavier of their relationship now Mila's reached her teenage years – but the trio manages to get on remarkably well despite danger, seasickness and hangovers.
“You don't have time to get on each other's nerves because you always have targets, the boat is always moving so you always have new areas with new objectives with new things,” says Xavier, who also describes the crossing as “five days of hell.”
Despite the film’s name, Xavier previously skied the epic line known as The Captain in Antarctica 12 years ago, but this time he wanted share it with his brother – he says they’ve lived parallel lives due to their 10-year age gap. The result is no ordinary ski film, seeing the family hike through a penguin colony to begin one ascent and sail through massive icebergs in search of new lines.
“It feels like a dream, being there,” says Mila, who turned 18 during the expedition.
It’s no surprise that the film also comments on climate change – Xavier is the host of the Sustainability Dialogues podcast and has long been a mouthpiece for the climate crisis. The trio sails to Vernadsky, a Ukrainian research base where marine and climate scientists reveal that even far from human intervention, seawater has warmed 4°C in the last 80 years.
They also used the trip to properly test out their new line of technical ski and snowboarding gear – designed from recycled materials that can be turned back into new raw materials at the end of their life cycle. The North Face A-68a collection has been five years in the making.
“The idea was, for once, to embrace one of those collaborations with my sponsors to being able to make something which actually mattered, which was not just a marketing ploy,” says Xavier, who admits frustration that one of the hardest parts of being a spokesperson for climate change is the innate conflict involved with manufacturing and travel.
When I ask for his advice on practicing sustainability in skiing and in life, his suggestion is “just to get better.”
“Analyze yourself and try to get interested and try to talk about it with your friends and see what they do and see what you can do. If you fly, try to fly a bit less, if you eat meat, try to eat a bit less. But who am I to say that? Because I am consuming like everyone else.”
To put it mildly, pieces from the collection like the A68-a DryVent Mono Shell Jacket, covered in red dots, are quite outlandish – Xavier tells me they were inspired by expedition gear from 100 years ago – but any doubts of their performance dissolve when we see the family scaling ice walls and falling into the sea then being hauled out, laughing.
Of A Lifetime is streaming now on The North Face’s YouTube channel and is one to watch over the holidays for anyone who loves nature, winter sports and adventure.
