This autobiographical paper reveals how as an adolescent the author threw himself into competitive skiing — “downhill and risk-prone exercise” — echoing a childhood trauma linked to the death of his sister. The subjective issues related to the physical and intellectual pleasure of skiing in the Pyrenees demonstrate how, by focusing on “overcoming the deathly piste” and on “striving not to fall,” a child can make the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The author reveals how this evolved for him, from physical pleasure and “a passion for competition” to a fall, and injury. Finally, the author explains how he moved from a Pyrenean chain to a chain of signifiers, from skier to psychoanalyst.