Downdays Magazine, Winter 2019 (EN)

Winter 2019

KARAKORAM / MARKUS EDER / FINLAND / 10 YEARS OF DOWNDAYS

downdays

RIDE& REVOLT

HI G H T ECH M ADE W HER E WE L IV E A N D SK I: BAVA RIA , GE RMANY

VO E LK L.COM

VO E LK L.COM

“IT’S NOT WHAT YOU DO, IT’S HOW YOU DO IT.” JOHN WOODEN

Compiling this special 10th anniversary issue of the Downdays magazine presented our editorial team with many challenges: What has to be included? What can we afford to leave out? How can we reflect back on a whole era of skiing, while still looking forward?

Over sporadic Skype calls, late-night pizza meetings, countless emails and days of general hustling to make this issue come together, we were reminded of the aforementioned quote.

We talked about “how” in reference to “how we make this magazine”: the collaboration, compromise and passion that goes into creating these pages. But the quote ties in well to the spirit of freeskiing itself—that special “how you do it” that turns a basic trick into a work of art, or an untracked mountain face into a canvas for the soul. Everything that’s ever appeared in this magazine has pretty much been a “it’s not what you do, it’s how you do it” situation, done right.

Accordingly, we built this issue around the people, crews and places doing it right over the past decade, as chronicled in the Decade of Downdays special feature PAGE 68. We also singled out Markus Eder—the most underrated European skier of the past decade—for a highlight feature interview and career review PAGE 82.

“How do you do it?” We asked industry veteran Stian Hagen PAGE 38 and newly minted Freeride World Tour champion Arianna Tricomi PAGE 14. We asked the same on the freestyle side, with the likes of James Woods PAGE 108, Øystein Bråten and Sarah Hoefflin PAGE 36. And we honed in on a few particular “things done right”: the approach of a winning team at a photo contest PAGE 102, a timeless-classic ski movie PAGE 48, and a madcap journey to a faraway land in search of the dream mountain PAGE 54. And just to keep things fresh, there’s also a Finland night urban gallery PAGE 92.

“It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.” Our “how we do it” goes like this: with passion, persistence and an unquenchable desire to keep you as stoked on skiing as you deserve to be. That’s how we’ve been doing it for ten years—and we’re looking forward to ten more.

THE DOWNDAYS EDITORIAL TEAM EDITORIAL

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POWDER TO THE PEOPLE THIS IMAGE OF HENRIK WINDST EDT WAS TAKEN ON DECEMBER 5TH 2017, BUT IT FELT LIKE MIDWINTER ALREADY. WE PROBABLY HAD ONE OF THE BEST EARLY SEASONS I CAN REMEMBER IN ENGELBERG, AND THE GREAT THING WAS HOW THE WINTER JUST KEPT ON DELIVERING. I ONLY ENDED UP TAKING ONE TRIP LAST WINTER, BECAUSE THERE WAS NO REASON TO LEAVE WITH ALL THE SNOW WE GOT.

— OSKAR ENANDER

SKIER

HENRIK WINDSTEDT

INTRO

PHOTO

OSKAR ENANDER

SPOT

ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND

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POWDER TO THE PEOPLE

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14

INTERVIEW: ARIANNA TRICOMI

20

GALLERY

32

GEAR: SKIS & STUFF

36

VERSUS: ØYSTEIN BRÅTEN & SARAH HOEFFLIN

38

THOUGHT: MAKING THE RIGHT CALLS

42

CREATIVE: FREDDIE GRANN

44

THEME: NADINE WALLNER ABOUT AVALANCHES

48

HISTORY: THE BLIZZARD OF AAHHH’S

54

68

KARAKORAM DIARIES

IN PURSUIT OF A PERFECT PAKISTANI PEAK

A DECADE OF DOWNDAYS

TEN YEARS ON EUROPE’S FREESKIING FRONT

FINNISH NIGHTS

106

SPRAY: TYPE 2 FUN

108

PORTRAIT: JAMES WOODS

112

OUTRO: STELVIO PASS ROAD GAPS

CONTENT

s k i C ul t ur

e!

e ay H althy, S

APRÈS: PILLOW PARTY

ee

St

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Fr

10 Years o

EVENT: GIRL POWER

—

102

—

STASH: HIDDEN GEMS

ck! ——

100

f

THE NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME

y Si

92

MARKUS EDER

SOUTH TYROL’S PRODIGIOUS SON

ta

82

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Expand your Horizons The all new Skyline goggle utilizes a rimless design to maximize your field of view and ability to amplify awesome with ChromaPop™ lens technology.

Experience ChromaPop™ | smithoptics.com MARKUS EDER

CONTRIBUTORS STIAN HAGEN

STEPHAN SUTTON

When Stian Hagen first moved to Chamonix in 1994, he had no idea that he would still be there 25 years later—not to mention as a professional skier. His career high point may date to some stellar segments with Matchstick Productions in the early 2000s, but Stian is still making a living on his skis as a product tester. In this issue, he shares some of the wisdom accrued from countless mountain adventures around the world.

Stephan Sutton is no stranger to the trials and travails of shooting urban skiing. The Helsinki native has been shooting ski photos since he was fourteen, and is currently the leading photographer of Finland’s booming street skiing scene. This issue’s photo feature “Finnish Nights” hones in on some of Stephan’s crisp nighttime captures from a land where the winter sun is scarce.

JAAKKO JÄRVENSIVU From an early age, ski movies shaped Jaakko Järvensivu’s perception of skiing heavily. Watching clips of Dick Barrymore films on Sky Channel at age 12 inspired him and his friends to venture beyond the limits of the local ski area, but the biggest impact was made by Barrymore’s protégé Greg Stump. In this issue, Jaakko delves into the reasons why The Blizzard Of Aaahh’s was a life-altering experience for a whole generation of skiers.

JÉRÔME TANON Born in Paris and residing in Annecy, Jérôme Tanon’s commitment to film over digital has made him a standout in the world of snowboard photography. In 2016 he released his first video documentary, The Eternal Beauty of Snowboarding—if you haven’t seen it yet, put down this magazine right now and head to YouTube. Last year, Jérôme joined a borderline crazy expedition into the heart of Pakistan’s Karakoram range, as recounted in the travel feature “Karakoram Diaries.”

ON THE COVER SKIER

LÉO TAILLEFER

PHOTO

JÉRÔME TANON

SPOT

BIACHERAHI NORTH TOWER, PAKISTAN

IMPRINT Publisher Distillery Concept & Creation GmbH Innsbruck, Austria Editor-in-chief Ethan Stone | ethan@distillery.cc Managing Editor Mark von Roy | mark@distillery.cc Production Manager & Photo Editor Klaus Polzer | klaus@distillery.cc Editorial Team Klaus Polzer, Christian Stadler, Ethan Stone, Mark von Roy Online Editor Roy Kittler | roy@distillery.cc Photographers in this issue Axel Adolfsson, Gianmarco Allegrini, Martin Axéll, Darcy Bacha, Jeremy Bernard, Florian Breitenberger, Adam Clark, Dom Daher, Damien Deschamps, Oskar Enander, Jesus Andres Fernandez, Manuel Ferrigato, Ruedi Flück, Mattias Fredriksson,

DOWNDAYS #10

Louis Garnier, Pascal Gombert, Blake Jorgenson, Adam Klingeteg, Pally Learmond, Tim Lloyd, Stefan Mahlknecht, David Malacrida, Alex Meliss, Kyle Meyr, Daniele Molineris, Klaus Polzer, Christian Pondella, Tero Repo, Christoffer Sjöström, Emil Sollie, Ethan Stone, Stephan Sutton, Jérôme Tanon, Sindy Thomas, Andreas Vigl, Mark von Roy, Rod Walker, Danny Warley, Fabrice Wittner Writers in this issue Sean Balmer, Tori Beattie, Thomas Delfino, Oskar Enander, Yannick Graziani, Stian Hagen, Jaakko Järvensivu, David Malacrida, Zak Mills, Klaus Polzer, Raf Regazzoni, Ethan Stone, Stephan Sutton, Léo Taillefer, Jérôme Tanon, Mark von Roy, Nico Zacek English Translation & Copy Editing Ethan Stone, Mark von Roy Art Direction & Design W—THM Büro für Gestaltung | www.wthm.net

Layout Floyd E. Schulze | hello@wthm.net Image Processing & DTP Klaus Polzer Print House F&W Druck- & Mediencenter | www.fw-medien.de Adverts, Marketing & Distribution Christian Stadler | christian@distillery.cc

Do you want to get free copies of Downdays Magazine for your shop, chalet or bar to hand out?

Please don't hesitate to contact us!

Publishing House & Editorial Address Distillery Concept & Creation GmbH Leopoldstrasse 9 6020 Innsbruck Austria Tel.: +43 (0)512-307 811 Fax: +43 (0)512-307 812 info@distillery.cc www.distillery.cc Downdays Magazine is published in English, French and German.

Downdays is also a website: www.downdays.eu Downdays Social Media: www.facebook.com/downdays www.instagram.com/downdays_eu

The magazine and all its contributors are subject to copyright. Duplication, publication or any other re-utilisation, in analog or digital form, as a whole or in part, is only allowed with prior written consent from the publisher.

The publisher and the editorial team accept no responsibility for text or images submitted for appraisal.

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Photo: Jeremy Bernard, FWT

ARI­ ANNA TRICOMI Born: 1 August 1992 in Bozen, Italy

1st overall Freeride World Tour 2018 1st Freeride World Tour Hakuba 2018 1st Freeride World Tour Andorra 2018 1st Freeride World Tour Verbier Xtreme 2018 2nd Freeride World Tour Kicking Horse 2018 3rd overall Freeride World Tour 2017 1st Freeride World Tour Andorra 2017 1st Freeride World Tour Alaska 2017 3rd overall Freeride World Tour 2016 1st Freeride World Tour Fieberbrunn 2016 3rd Freeride World Tour Alaska 2016

Home: Alta Badia, Italy and Innsbruck, Austria

Home mounains: Alta Badia and generally mountains in Tyrol Hobbies: Telemarking, surfing, biking, hiking, exploring the world Sponsors: Scott, Atomic, Red Bull, Mons Royale, Alta Badia, Moritzino, Swox, Surftolive

INTERVIEW

“Rookie of the Year” FWT 2016

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A FRIEND OF MINE ONCE DESCRIBED ARIANNA TRICOMI AS “THE CHARGING ITALIAN WHO IS MURDEROUSLY CH ARMING.” IT’S A FITTING DESCRIPT ION FOR A PERSON WHO EMANATES FIERCE PAS SION FOR WHATEVER SHE PUTS HE R MINDTO TO. BE ON HER GOOD SIDE, AND SHE’LL BE LIKE A MOTHER AND A SISTER YOU AT THE SAME TIME. BUT DON’T GET ON HER BAD SIDE, BECAUSE SHE LING YOU HOW IT IS. WON’T HAVE ANY QUALMS ABOUT TEL DOWN WITH IT, THAT ’S THE PASSIONATE ITALIAN IN HER, AND I’M TOTALLY G, AND THEN SOME. BECAUSE ARIANNA STICKS ALL THAT PASSION INTO HER SKIIN WHETHER PILLOW HUNTING IN JAPAN, SKI TOURING ALL DAY AND NIGHT IN NORWAY OR SURFING EFFORTLESSLY DOWN THE BEC DES ROSSES, SKIING RE LOVE FOR U P A S A H A ARIANN AND DOING IT HER OWN WAY. LAST SEASON, THIS NO-COMPROMISE ATTITUDE HELPED HER ASCEND TO THE VERY TOP OF THE FREERIDE WORLD TOUR RANKINGS. DDING BUT AFTER GETTING TO KNOW ARIANNA BETTER WHILE SHRE POWDER IN HAKUBA, IT WAS HER THOUGHTFULNESS AND GENERALLY GOOD-HEARTED NATURE THAT REALLY MADE ME WANT TO INTERVIEW HER. INTERVIEW

MARK VON ROY

Spot: Hakuba, Japan / Photo: Mark von Roy

Hi Arianna! First up, why don’t you tell us about your origins, where you are from and how you started skiing?

My dad is originally from Sicily and my mother is half Viennese, half Neapolitan, so I have quite a bit of south Italian blood in me. My mother was a World Cup ski racer and even took part in the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. She never

the one hand I had hopes of succeeding, on the other I was also a little rebel who preferred going surfing in the summer. At age 16 I stopped racing, even though I’d won the last three races. I think maybe the trigger for that decision was that a friend of mine had lost his life in an avalanche.

That made me realize that I should actually just do what I really want to do. It was not such an easy time for me.

Was it around this time that you also discovered slopestyle skiing?

Arianna shreds Japow during the Hakuba FWT stop.

wanted to leave the mountains, so I grew up in the mountains and started skiing early on. As a kid I raced as well, and also started telemarking at six years old. I was never really good at racing until I was about eleven, and suddenly had a big improvement. Later I was even on the South Tyrolean development team. On

ARIANNA TRICOMI

I always preferred jumping and skiing powder to racing—my mother introduced me to all aspects of skiing. Daniele, the friend I mentioned earlier, was one of the best park skiers in Italy and maybe, in some way, I wanted to continue what he couldn’t do anymore.

Back then it wasn’t easy to get better in

slopestyle because there were no real parks anywhere. We built our own jumps, even though we had no idea what we were doing. There were quite a few crashes and some injuries, but I am glad to have experienced that wild period. Later we started getting parks, but FIS also got involved and with it, all the rules and uncomprehending trainers—exactly the things that I always hated in racing.

But you still continued taking part in slopestyle contests for a few years. Why? For a while, things went really well in slopestyle. I got third at the Austrian Open and second at the Mayrhofen Open. That’s why I started competing at the first FIS World Cups, but that was a catastrophe. In Silvaplana the course was really bad, and training was at 7:30 in the morning when it was -17°C. A good friend of mine broke her femur that day.

That’s when I asked myself, “Why am I even doing this?” I enjoyed skiing and jumping off-piste far more anyway. On top of that, as part of the Italian team you had to pay everything yourself as well. I was 20 years old and pretty good, but not good enough that I had any hopes of making it right to the top. So I decided to stop competing in slopestyle, and at first I had no idea what I should do.

How did you find out freeride competitions were your thing?

After my last slopestyle World Cup, I took part in a 2-star Freeride World Tour Qualifier in Goldeck, Kärnten. I had no idea how it all worked. Everyone else was studying the face with binoculars, while I just decided that I’d ride down

15

somewhere in the middle. Right out of the start there was a cliff, so I started off skiing switch and tried a switch 180. Of course, that didn’t work out at all. I was totally pissed, collected my skis, and just raced down the rest of the run without really looking. At the bottom I caught some air, went huge and was somehow able to land it. At the finish I was totally demoralized and started crying. That’s when the organizer of the Open Faces event came to me and said, “Your run was a little strange, but you can definitely ski. I’m giving you a wild card for the event in Kappl.” There, I brought my mom along for support. I still didn’t really have an idea for a line, and ended up just surfing a snow wave that I saw, and it earned me second place. That’s when I knew that this is what I want to do.

How did your experience with FWQ events continue?

At my first contests I wasn’t even aware that a World Tour existed, but I really liked the events and they were a perfect excuse to keep on skiing. The winter after my first contest was a very snowy one, which played into my hand. I still didn’t fully understand the concept of line choice, but I did a 360 in every run. With this strategy I was always able to get onto the podium, but due to my simple lines, I never won. I ended up missing qualifying for the World Tour by two or three places. All in all it was a great experience traveling around, meeting new people and a lot of crazy parties.

On my second season on the FWQ I was more focused, and was able to finally qualify for the World Tour.

How did you end up learning about line choice?

In my first year on the FWQ I would quickly borrow binoculars from one of the other riders to get a look at the face, but I didn’t know what to do with the information. So I just started asking the other riders, “How do you pick your lines?” and “How can you tell where you’re at in the line?” After the first season, I used some of the prize money to buy my own binoculars and spent a lot of time looking through them, even in summer. Through binoculars everything looks different: wider, narrower, longer, shorter. Sometimes you think that there’s enough room for six turns in a spot, but there ends up only being room for two turns—or vice versa. While going freeriding, I started looking at lines and trying to ride them exactly the way I’d planned, in order to learn how that worked. Everything else came about naturally, and at every contest I learned

INTERVIEW

more about how to stay oriented on my lines. During my second year on the FWQ, I still wasn’t picking out complicated lines. I preferred to know where I was and ride my line cleanly, rather than getting lost somewhere in the rocks. The motto “Keep it simple!” still works for me today. I look for lines with flow, because I don’t like to traverse. I think that’s one reason why things have gone so well for me on the FWT. I’m always sure where I am, so I can always ride with speed. Even on the Bec des Rosses, I’m always looking for some kind of playful line to ride.

could earn money with skiing, too. When I won the tour, my dad flipped out and started telling everyone that his daughter is a world champion. He was so happy!

For me, the best part about last season was just how much I was able to go skiing. I ride because I enjoy it, not because I want to win. One special moment on the tour was when I landed the 360 in Andorra. I had always wanted to do that on the tour, but there had never been the right spot or moment. In Andorra it was perfect, and I told Sven, “I’m going to do a 360 right there!” It wasn’t to win, it was easy for me!

Was there something else that helped you to win the title last winter?

I was done with university, which definitely was helpful mentally. I’m now a trained physiotherapist and I know that I can always find work in this field.

That allowed me to focus fully on skiing.

Besides that, the past two years I had the honor to ride a lot with “Projekt Pommes” and their crew of friends, who I learned a lot from. It’s refreshing to ride with those guys, because they look at the mountain in a different way. I learned a lot in particular from my boyfriend Sven, my unofficial coach.

What does a contest day look like for you?

Actually, it’s pretty chill. I try not to stress. Before the contest I go ride for a few laps if it’s possible. I don’t usually get tired when skiing, but sometimes it takes a while to get into my rhythm. Of course, I’ve always got some butterflies before my run, but that’s a good thing. This year, the only time I was really nervous beforehand was at the Bec des Rosses, after all I had the golden jersey [indicating the current leader in the overall ranking]. Luckily, I was together with my parents and Sven in a little chalet where I could let go of my nervousness. At the riders’ hotel I probably would have had to act cool the whole time, and the nervousness would have built up in me. On the contest day, I was totally relaxed. I was the first women’s starter, and it was just a contest between me and the Bec, which had beaten me twice before. This time I won the fight.

Who or what is Projekt Pommes?

It’s a Swiss, a German and an Austrian who all moved to Innsbruck to study, just like me. But actually they came to Innsbruck because they wanted to ski. They’ve been skiing all their lives with a lot of passion. They’ve got more love for skiing than anyone else I know— and I know a lot of skiers. The way in which they interpret the mountain is what makes Projekt Pommes special.

The first time I saw them, I thought, “That’s how I want to ski!” They ride so playfully, it’s like an art. For two years I saw them around and was fascinated.

They ride for themselves, not for Instagram or for sponsors. They just want to go home happy and content in the evening. Riding with them is important for me because I’m in this professional world so much, and the Project Pommes guys always bring me back down to earth and remind me of why we love skiing so much in the first place.

What does winning the overall title mean to you, and what are you most proud of in the last seasons?

It was always a point of contention with my father that I was spending so much time skiing. For him it was extremely important that I study, and I’m very thankful for that. But it was also great when I was able to show him that I

What do you think about the Freeride World Tour in general?

It’s a bit difficult at the moment because there are so many different riders and riding styles. On the one hand there are the classical big mountain riders, on the other hand the backcountry freestylers, who make the sport quite diverse. On the contest faces as well as in the judging booth, it’s hard to get everyone on the same page. I think if someone does a trick where someone else just jumps straight, that’s simply progression and deserves to be rewarded. But in general, no one who gets to ride on the FWT should be complaining. We get a hotel room, food, a ski pass and can go skiing.

It’s a ton of work for everyone behind the scenes on the tour. The guides are on the mountain all night to control the slopes, and it’s similar with the media crew. The judges have to sit in the cold all day, and the marketing people don’t have it any easier. I think that Nicolas Hale-Woods and his team are doing a really good job.

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Spot: Verbier, Switzerland / Photo: Dom Daher, FWT

Always on the lookout for a playful line, Arianna can make even the Bec des Rosses look fun.

ARIANNA TRICOMI

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You belong to the younger generation on the FWT. Tell us about that group!

Last season I spent a lot of time with Craig Murray, Berkeley Patterson and Grifen Moller. We got to know each other in Japan and went skiing together, then kept it up throughout the whole season.

Japan started off really well, with three

we were so excited to ski that we didn’t even know if it was day or night anymore. For two weeks we were living a timeless existence. We cooked together, partied, enjoyed the scenery and did a ton of skiing. It was very authentic and good for the soul. I took over the organizational part, and Marco Tribelhorn did the creative stuff, the filming and the Spot: Hakuba, Japan / Photo: Mark von Roy

Arianna in action on one of Hakuba's many lines.

days of blue skies and incredible Japanese powder. The mountains in Hakuba look like something out of a video game, these intense jagged peaks, and if you’re okay with walking for a bit, there’s an unbelievable amount of spines. Later, the boys came to Innsbruck to visit me for a week, and afterwards I showed them around Europe a little bit. I find them really refreshing because they’re so stoked on skiing. They’re also very well-behaved young men, always friendly and fair. And they’re only 19 years old. In Innsbruck they went shopping and helped with cleaning, they were great guests! Definitely a win for the tour.

You found a great way to wrap up last season. Tell us about your Norway trip!

In a word, it was great. I think that’s the right word for this project—not “extreme” or “crazy.” It was great to be in nature and share this experience with my best friends. The smiles after every run in this landscape and this unbelievable light—it stays light for so long and

INTERVIEW

story. I hope that our film La Luce Infinita - The Infinite Light reflects the wonderful vibes from this trip. I’d be very glad to bring more projects like this to life in the future.

To finish, what advice would you give young freeriders who are dreaming of becoming pros?

Go skiing as much as you can, in every way and fashion. Ride on piste, ride in park, try telemark! Utilize all kinds of terrain and absorb all the different aspects of skiing. I think that in the end, freeriding is basically a mix of everything. And you need a lot of experience in different terrain that you have to build up over years. Even I don’t have all that much experience, and so I’m always very cautious in the backcountry — it’s not a playground out there! The mountains are beautiful, but they can quickly turn dangerous, and you should never underestimate the risks. You also have to learn how to turn back from lines. It’s better to ski until you’re eighty than to die early.

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ANDRI R AGET TLI [ SNOWPARK L A A X ]

# L A A X I S N I C E Y O

G AL LERY SKIER

FABIAN BÖSCH

GALLERY

PHOTO

GIANMARCO ALLEGRINI

SPOT

ENGELBERG, SWITZERLAND

20

SKIER

ANDY VOGEL

GALLERY

PHOTO

AXEL ADOLFSSON

SPOT

HALDIGRAT, SWITZERLAND

21

GALLERY

22

GALLERY

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SKIER

DANE TUDOR

SKIER

GALLERY

PHOTO

BLAKE JORGENSON

WILLIAM LARSSON

PHOTO

SPOT

MICA HELISKIING, CANADA

OSKAR ENANDER

SPOT

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KIRORO, JAPAN

SKIER

GALLERY

SÄMI ORTLIEB

PHOTO

ETHAN STONE

SPOT

GLARUS, SWITZERLAND

25

SKIER

WILLIAM LARSSON

GALLERY

PHOTO

ADAM KLINGETEG

SPOT

KAMTCHATKA, RUSSIA

26

SKIER

CHAD SAYERS

GALLERY

ALEX CHABOD

MATTIAS FREDRIKSSON

PHOTO

RUEDI FLÃœCK

SPOT

SPOT

BELLA COOLA, CANADA

NAX, SWITZERLAND 27

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SKIER

PHOTO

GALLERY

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GALLERY

29

SKIER

BERNIE ROSOW

GALLERY

PHOTO

CHRISTIAN PONDELLA

SPOT

SIERRA NEVADA, USA

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SKIER

GALLERY

Y RE LLAG

BASTI HUBER

PHOTO

KLAUS POLZER

SPOT

STUBAI GLACIER, AUSTRIA

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SKIS:

KS. N ST I C U F .

S K L ANTHEY KIND S K I S. P OF HOLD G THIS WHOLE THIN IONS OPT FEW TOGETHER. HERE ARE A

FOR YOUR QUIVER CONSIDERATION.

GEAR

Armada ARV 116 JJ UL

Völkl Revolt 95

Part of Armada’s Zero line of limited-edition models, the JJ UL is 25% lighter than the original JJ thanks to lightweight caruba wood cores. Move fast powder hounds, these will go quick.

Veteran freeskier Ahmet Dadali played a big role in the design of the Revolt, a stable multi-use platform for all-mountain and park skiing. Flex zones in the tip and tail make for easy buttering.

Dimensions: 139-116-135 (all lengths) Radius: 18 m @ 185 cm Lengths: 175/185/192 cm

Dimensions: 129-95-119 (all lengths) Radius: 21 m @ 173 cm Lengths: 157/165/173/181 cm

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DENNIS RANALT ER R E P R E S E N T S T H E A B S O LU T PA R K S H R ED T E A M R A I L YA R D - FLA C H A U W I N K L

PIC MARKUS ROHRBACHER

STUFF:

YOU GOTTA HAVE IT. STUFF TO STAY SAFE, STUFF TO STAY DRY—

AND OF COURSE, YOU WANT ONLY THE GOOD STU HERE’S SOME STUFF WE CAN VOUCH FOR.

FF.

Smith I/O MAG Goggles MAG™ lens change system; AirEvac™ ventilation; Anti-fog inner lens; Helmet compatible.

Smith Code Helmet Low-profile skate style aesthetic; Breathable Koroyd® energy absorber; Aerocore™ airflow system; Fidlock® strap system.

Mammut Barryvox S Avalanche Beacon Digital/analog 3-antenna combo transceiver; High receiving performance for 70 m search strip width; Smart Search function; User-friendly, intuitive interface.

Dakine Team Poacher RAS 26L Pack Rolltop Release compatible with Mammut® Removable Airbag System 3.0; Diagonal & A-frame ski carry; Backpanel zippered main access; Padded hip belt with pockets; Spine protector compatible.

Dakine Team Baron Trigger Mitt GORE-TEX® insert; Leather Palm; 360 g wool lining; 250 g Primaloft® insulation.

Mammut Alugator Shovel Light Extremely light: 475 grams; Hardened, anodized aluminum blade; Oval telescopic shaft; Attachment holes for snow anchor & rescue sled.

GEAR

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RIDE THE UPPER AND LOWER PARK LINE

KILIAN ERIK MORONE

SNOWPARK.SEISERALM.IT

TEXT

ETHAN STONE

ONE’S A YOUNG VETERAN FROM NORWAY, COMPETING SINCE HIS TEENS; THE OTHER IS SWISS, A LATE COMER TO THE SCENE. HOEFFLIN TOOK ØYSTEIN BRÅTEN AND SARAH DIFFERENT PATHS IN SKIING THAT BOTH LED TO SLOPESTYLE GOLD MEDALS AT THE 2018 WINTER OLYMPICS IN SOUTH KOREA.

ØYSTEIN BRÅTEN

ØYSTEIN: SARAH:

Ø: S:

Born: 21 July 1995 in Torpo, Norway Currently residing: Ål, Norway

Ø: S:

Hobbies: Skateboarding, tennis, snowsurf Sponsors: Red Bull, Oakley, Völkl

Ø:

S:

S:

Ø:

S:

VERSUS

Currently playing in your headphones?

Astroworld.

Lorde.

Current addiction?

Call of Duty World War 2 on PS4.

Drinking panaché and eating ice cream.

What inspired you to start freeskiing?

There are really good park skiers and freeriders where I grew up. After I went to the hill with my family a few times, I quickly found out that I wanted to be like those guys. I started to try tricks on some alpine skis, and after breaking those and another pair got passed down from my brother, I got my first twin-tip skis for Christmas when I was ten.

Some friends told me that my 360s with no grab on the side of the piste would easily win a university competition, where I could win some twin-tip skis. Since I'd only ever used punter (Americans call them gaper) skis my whole life, this sounded extremely appealing. They also told me how much fun it was to do a season in the mountains, so when I finished university I went to Tignes and loved learning tricks in the park.

Favorite skier growing up?

Andreas Håtveit. He lives 40 minutes from where I’m from, so he was always the big hero for all the skiers there. When I was 14 he invited me to come ride at his park. I still remember getting that text message from him.

Kelly Sildaru.

Skiers you’re watching now?

I get inspired every day by friends I ride with or skiers I see on Instagram.

Some skiers I’ve always liked watching are Sammy Carlson, Kim Boberg, Antti Ollila and Candide Thovex.

Mainly the girls, I love how much

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Skier: Øystein Bråten / Spot: Dombås, Norway / Photo: Emil Sollie, Red Bull Content Pool

Ø:

What did you have for breakfast?

Breakfast burrito.

A Suisse, this delicious chocolate thing from a bakery in Chamonix.

Skier: Sarah Hoefflin / Spot: The Audi Nines @ Sölden, Austria / Photo: Klaus Polzer, The Distillery

their level is progressing! Tess Ledeux, Jennie-Lee Burmansson, Mathilde Gremaud, Giulia Tanno, Johanne Killi and Kelly Sildaru are some of my favorites.

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Ø: S:

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Ø:

S:

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SARAH HOEFFLIN

Describe Øystein/Sarah in one sentence!

Always smiling!

Amazing skier and he’s so talented.

Favorite trick that Øystein/Sarah does?

Her switch double 9 is really cool.

His double flat 9 from X Games Norway in 2017.

You’re dropping into a contest run.

What’s going through your mind?

Don’t fall off the first rail early.

How much fun I'm having at that precise moment.

Rate the Olympics 1-10 and explain your rating!

I think the Olympics is a good concept that gives the sport more attention, something that everyone can relate to. When I started, freeskiing was far from being an Olympic sport, and my biggest dream was to be at the X Games. Even though it’s a lot of stress, qualifying and regulations leading up it, it’s still a good course and the best riding, so I would give it an 8.

Without the podium it would have been maybe a strong 6, because although I did love to visit Korea, I was so freaking nervous all the time.

I had two bruised heels and a sore knee, so I wasn’t really enjoying myself too much. But winning made it a 10 because everything was so crazy afterwards.

What’s the next big thing in contest skiing?

Ferdinand Dahl.

We’re going to start seeing some doubles in girls’ competitions. All the girls are going to step up the level, and it's going to be so much fun to be a part of it.

Born: 8 January 1991 in Geneva, Switzerland Currently residing: Chamonix, France Hobbies: Climbing, mountaineering, golf, field hockey,

ØYSTEIN BRÅTEN & SARAH HOEFFLIN

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glacier camping, watching documentaries, drinking prosecco, hiking, sailing, ping pong, table football Sponsors: Faction, Oakley, Team Geneva, Loyco SA, Schweizer Sporthilfe

THE

MAKING THOUGHT

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MAKING THE RIGHT CALLS

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hen I first came to Chamonix, I had no intentions of turning skiing into a career. I didn’t even want to become a pro skier, I just wanted to have as much fun as possible. Over the next few years, everything else fell into place. My skiing evolved, and at the same time the freeride movement took off, which enabled me to get sponsors and earn my first money through skiing. It was only later on when I had completed my mountain guide exam, however, that I was able to actually plan a career as a professional skier. Having

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another profession—and thus a back-up plan should my efforts in the ski business fail—gave me the freedom to really make that decision deliberately. It’s rather unlikely to make a living out of skiing—not only to live a dream for some time, but to earn enough money to support a family for a substantial span of your life. This is still the case today, and it was even more so when I made that decision back then. It’s very important to make decisions like this with several options at hand, rather than out of necessity, I think.

Skiing has changed a lot since I started out. All of the equipment has progressed, and more people engaging in freeskiing meant more money and therefore more potential in the ski business. Still, it’s the way we perceive skiing that has had the most effect on our sport. The changes even seem to have sped up over time. I believe the biggest change in skiing in the past few decades has been the advent of social media. In my early years in Chamonix, more often than not I would just go up on the mountain, see how the

conditions were and who I met along the way, and that would determine how that day of skiing would play out. We would do all kinds of skiing, and we always had fun. Today, it seems that there are mainly pre-arranged teams going out together, sometimes even with specific tasks among the group. In the ‘90s we had no small cameras, no mobile phones and no Internet. All these things have changed the way we live and act as skiers more profoundly than the invention of deep side-cuts, twin tips, wide bases or the pin binding.

Stian Hagen Born: 22 April 1974 in Oslo, Norway Home: Chamonix, France Hobbies: Trail running, climbing, surfing Sponsors: Völkl, Marker, Dalbello, Arc’teryx

CALLS

A SUCCESSFUL PLAYER IN THE SKI BUSINESS FOR MORE THAN TWICE AS LONG AS OUR MAGAZINE , HE SHARES SOME OF THE HAS EXISTED, STIAN HAGEN KNOWS HOW TO MAKE THE RIGH T CALLS. IN THIS ARTICLE INSIGHTS HE’S GLEANED OVER DECADES AS A PROFESSIONAL SKIER, TEXT PHOTOS ER S GETTING WIS A N D S U G G E ST ADAM CLARK STIAN HAGEN IS NOT JUST A MATTER OF TIME.

RIGHT

THOUGHT

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Modern communication tools, most specifically social media, have altered the way we make decisions before and while skiing. Information is now almost instantly available, and anybody can become a source of information. On the one hand, it’s great that today everybody can educate themselves in almost every field online. It’s rare these days to meet a properly equipped freerider who has absolutely no idea about avalanches. On the other hand, it seems like the learning curve nowadays is a bit too steep for many people who engage in potentially dangerous activities like freeriding. In other words: knowledge without experience is worth nothing, and eventually may even compel people to take too many risks. When I skied my first steep lines in the Chamonix area, there were only a few people doing this. At least it seemed like that— there were probably other people doing the same thing who we never heard of. We depended on our own experience, which we were slowly gathering with each day spent up on the mountains, and maybe some old guide books. As a result, we moved step by step, slowly raising the bar with each endeavor.

Today, when a steep line like the north face of the Aiguille d’Argentiere is in condition and someone skis it, you can read about it the same day, and many more parties are going to attempt the descent in the next few days. You might watch a video of the guy who posted a descent and think “if this guy can ski that, I can ski it, too!” without taking into account how the conditions might have been or what

mountaineering background that person has. Nowadays, almost everybody can approach any steep line in decent conditions simply by following social media, but you won’t have any specific knowledge about inherent risks in the local snowpack, for example, and you haven’t watched how conditions might change during the course of a day. Even if you are staying in the area, you may need to lower your expectations of skiing a specific line without too many tracks already littering the face, since you can be sure almost every descent will have its followers—first online, and then in reality. Twenty years ago, we had the luxury to wait for a few days after a storm until conditions were safe. Now you have to be really quick to beat the well-informed crowd to whichever line you’re eyeing.

It doesn’t stop there when it comes to making decisions. You don’t just have to be fast these days to beat the competition—it’s also mandatory to post what you do online, particularly if you’re an aspiring skier. In this social environment, it’s not easy to make conservative decisions. It’s always been hard to abandon a ski venture due to unfavorable or even dangerous conditions, since it hurts your ego, but now it’s even more difficult because our egos are constantly on display. It took me a lot of time to be courageous enough to make conservative decisions as a rule. Naturally everyone becomes a bit more cautious when they get older, especially if you’re starting a family, or when you see friends fall victim to the ever-present hazards of high-alpine terrain. Nevertheless, it takes

more than the simple passing of time to improve. You have to constantly reflect on your own decisions, and that reflection has become more difficult in the whirlwind of tweets, Instagram posts and Facebook videos.

Another questionable, though less dangerous effect of social media seems to be that many skiers have lost the interest in the diversity of our sport. They pride themselves on catching the last patch of untouched powder snow, even if that means touring for hours or traveling hundreds of kilometers to chase the latest dump. Most people would be better off spending more time actually skiing and embracing whatever the mountain has on offer. I can have fun in almost all conditions, even if that sometimes means skiing the piste, and it makes me a better skier

along the way. “Stay open-minded!” is valuable advice that the action sports crowd, ironically, seems to neglect all too easily.

Nowadays, my main tasks as a professional skier are in product development. I have always been very interested in products—why they work, why they don’t—but it took me many years to be able to make my input count in the companies I work with. First of all, it’s not simple to identify the right people to talk to within the sometimes complicated internal structures of brands. Then, it takes a deeper understanding of how decisions are made within those structures. But mainly, it takes some self-reflection in order to help develop great products—the same quality that is instrumental in staying alive in the mountains. Some people might find a certain feature of a piece of equipment hugely beneficial, while many others might not. You might find a perfect solution to a problem, but discover that very few people have the same problem. In both cases, your insights won’t help designing a successful product.

Looking back at two decades of professional skiing, I feel extremely blessed. I’ve had the pleasure to work with several great companies that value my input, and enable me to keep doing what I love while enjoying my life with my wife and two kids in the beautiful valley of Chamonix. When I first came here a long time ago, I wouldn’t have dared to dream of such a life. But I’m also aware of the fact that it’s easy to ruin it all with a single bad decision.

FOR FREDDIE GRANN, CANVASES AND SLOPES ARE INTERCHANGEABLE. THE 26-YEAR-OLD FROM BÅLSTA, SWEDEN IS KNOWN FOR HIS INNOVATIVE APPROACH TO SKIING. AMONG OTHER THINGS, HE VENTURES OUTSIDE OF THE BOX BY COMBINING SKIING WITH ART: SPRAY-PAINTING “FEATURES” ONTO FLAT SNOW AND THEN “JIBBING” THEM ON HIS SKIS, OR DABBING PAINT ONTO HIS TO SKI-PAINT A CANVAS. TIPS AND TAILS IN ORDER FAVORITE FREDDIE’S PASSION IS SIMPLY CREATING, AND SKIS ARE HIS TOOL. “COMBINING SKIING WITH ART IS SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR ME,” HE SAYS.

FREDDIE GRANN

HE HAS TRANSFORMED A RED BARN INTO HIS WORKSHOP, WHERE HE USES FOUND OBJECTS TO CREATE WORKS LARGE AND SMALL. “IT CAN BE ALL SORTS OF THINGS,” HE SAYS. “IT’S THE FEELING TH AT CONTROLS, JUST LIKE IN SKIIN G.” WE ASKED FREDDIE TO TAKE OVER THIS ISSUE’S CREATIVE PAGE, AND HE DECIDED TO MAKE US A 10THTHE DOWNANNIVERSARY PRESENT: TRUCTED OUT DAYS CLOUD LOGO CONS

OF SKI EDGES, NOW HANGING PROUDLY IN OUR OFFICE IN INNSBRUCK.

SEE MORE OF FREDDIE’S ART AT FREDDIEGRANN.COM.

THE FEELING CONTROLS TEXT

ETHAN STONE PHOTO

MARTIN AXÉLL

CREATIVE

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Photo: Klaus Polzer

NADINE WALLNER Born: 15 May 1989 in Bludenz, Austria Home: Klรถsterle, Austria Home mountain: Arlberg region in Austria Hobbies: Climbing, paragliding, mountains in general

ABOUT

Sponsors: Red Bull, Mammut, Vรถlkl, Marker, Dalbello, Audi, Leki, Klรถsterle, Stuben Bergbahnen

AVALANCHES

Photo: Andreas Vigl

THEME

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THE DAUGHTER OF A MOUNTAIN GUIDE, NADINE WALLNER HAS BEEN OUT IN THE BACKCOUNTRY FOR ALL OF HER LIFE. IN 2013 AND 2014, SHE CLA IMED BACK-TO-BACK WORLD CH AM PIO NSHIP TITLES ON THE FRE ERIDE WO RLD TOUR , SECURING HER PLACE ON THE TOP RUNG OF THE SPORT. AFTER A SERIOUS INJURY AT THE END OF THE 2014 SEASON AND A YEAR SHE SPENT ON THE SIDELINES IN RECOVERY, ATING MORE ON RETURNED TO THE CONTEST FACES, WHILE ALSO CONCENTR RE SHE’S ALSO FILMING, AND OTHER ALPINE PURSUITS LIKE CLIMBING, WHE ACTIVE AT A HIGH LEVEL. IT’S NOT SURPRISING THAT THIS STANDOUT ATHLETE ON THE CELEBRATED MAMMUT PRO TEAM IS CURRENTLY TAIN GUIDE, ICATION AS A MOUN IF RT CE R HE N O G WORKIN IN ADDITION TO HER EXISTING SKI-INSTRUCTOR AND SKI-GUIDE CERTS. WITH THIS EXTENSIVE BACKGROUND, NADINE IS THE PERFECT CONVERSATION PARTNER FOR A DISC USSION NCHES. A B O U T AVA L A INTERVIEW

KLAUS POLZER When did avalanches first become a topic in your life?

Actually, ever since I was little, because my dad was always very conscious when we were out in the mountains together, and was always pointing out relevant things. I learned how to do a search with an analogue avalanche transceiver as a child, when it was a lot more complicated than it is today. Nowadays my Barryvox will actually tell me what to do, and lead me more or less automatically to the target.

Were there ever times when you were afraid of avalanches?

Not afraid. My father always pointed out the risks, and told us that something could happen, but it didn’t make me afraid. Much more than that, it produced a healthy respect, which in my opinion everyone should have.

Have you ever been in an avalanche?

Me directly, fortunately not. I mean, I haven’t personally been buried myself, and I haven’t yet had to shovel out somebody who’s been buried. That is an experience that I would be glad never to have.

I can imagine that if you have to dig somebody out that you know very well, that there would be massive emotional pressure involved. That’s not something to be taken lightly.

But you’ve been in some tight situations?

Of course, that’s part of being a freerider, or being in the mountains at all.

When you’re out in the backcountry a lot, you are inevitably going to expose yourself to risks, and so I’ve definitely

been in some dicey situations. On the other hand, I’ve gained a lot of experience from those situations, which helps me to make better and safer decisions further down the road. Until now, I’ve been lucky in that I—or another person I was riding with—was able to ride out of any avalanches that we may have triggered. But that was really just blind luck, and doesn’t have much to do with skill, so there’s no guarantee that it will work the next time. When you’re in that kind of situation, maybe even often, you should probably completely re-think your behavior on the mountain and consider changing it.

How often does that happen to you?

We don’t talk about that!

Why not?

It’s not anything to brag about. I mean that mostly with regards to social networks; posts about situations like this are usually taken the wrong way. Of course you talk about it with your friends, before you head out and also afterwards if something dicey happened. If I’m out with friends or colleagues, we’re always talking about the possible dangers and how we would evaluate various situations, especially when there are differences in opinion. That’s important, because you can learn a lot, and it will keep you on your toes. We also always do a beacon check before heading into unsecured terrain, even though we all know how to use one and know that it should be turned on.

So avalanches are a part of your everyday life?

The fact is that if you are out often in

NADINE WALLNER ABOUT AVALANCHES

the backcountry and doing serious freeriding, you are going to kick off a slab now and again. I'm not just talking about freeride pros but also—for example— mountain and ski guides working here in the Alberg region, who are in the mountains every day, all season long. But that doesn’t mean that it’s always an uncontrolled situation. On the other hand, you never know when it was actually really close, but nothing happened: five meters farther to the right, and I would have hit the hot spot and started an avalanche.

You always try to evaluate the situation based on your knowledge and experience, and on some slopes you feel your way forward carefully and tactically. This might include doing a classic ski cut on a slope, for example. What’s important is that you know what you’re doing, and that your decisions match the people you’re skiing with. As a ski guide with a group of guests, I’m liable for the others and don’t take risks, whereas with my peers I may try something out that will add to my stockpile of experience. The trick is to not to let your store of experience run dry, while not overfilling it. In any case, “100% safe” doesn’t exist on the mountain!

How would you describe your objectives when reckoning with avalanches?

As a basic principle, I always try to avoid triggering an avalanche. It depends a lot on the situation and who I’m with, and how much risk I’m prepared to take on. Like I said earlier, if I’m with guests, then I will act defensively. But if I’m with a good colleague, then we might ski a slope that I would avoid when I’m with guests. With filming it’s different, too.

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Photo: Andreas Vigl / Spot: Stuben am Arlberg, Austria

Each situation is different. With colleagues, I know exactly what their skills are, and how they would react if it came down to the line. Additionally, they are also able to judge the situation for themselves, which guests can’t or simply don’t want to do.

When you’re out with a group, say freeriding with friends or filming with colleagues, do you discuss openly about which risks are acceptable, and which aren’t?

It’s definitely discussed, and if anyone doesn’t agree with anything, then they let that be known as well. That’s very important, even if you don’t have the most experience or the highest level of training in the group. In situations like this where everyone is at a similar level, it can get dangerous quickly when you don’t have the self-confidence to speak up with your opinion, and in particular your doubts. If you don’t do that, then everyone just follows everyone else blindly, and soon enough, nobody knows how they ended up in a bad situation that they didn’t want to be in.

What’s it like when you’re filming?

When I’m filming, I make my decisions alone, because it’s me and no one else skiing my line. That doesn’t mean that we don’t also discuss the situation, but I would never let anyone tell me what to do, and I would also never shirk my own responsibility. It’s often the case that you can’t really compare filming with regular freeriding, since I might look at a line for a long time until the conditions are just right to film it. As a general rule, having knowledge about the local conditions is incredibly important in determining what the avalanche danger is. When you’re out freeriding, you’ve got the whole ski area to take into consideration. With filming, it might just be about one special line that I’ll be watching the whole season long, just to be able to bag it on the right day.

When you’re out with guests, are they always informed or interested in the subject of avalanches? Or do they just want to ride powder safely?

It’s always different; some more so, some less. Of course, the proper modes of conduct are always a theme, because I have to be sure that everyone is at least somewhat familiar with using an avalanche beacon. Generally it’s the case that you can’t do enough to be prepared.

I always go out before every season to practice extensively with my beacon.

And I always do a beacon check, no matter who I’m riding with. Having a routine

THEME

is good, but it can also become dangerous when you’re not thinking or paying attention to what you’re doing anymore.

That’s when mistakes happen. The ideal situation is when you’re constanly talking about what’s going on around you.

Those with more experience will be paying more attention to their surroundings, and those with less experience will be learning a lot along the way. A while ago I did a camp for young freeriders together with Fabian Lentsch, and it was amazing at the end how we all treated each other as equals, because everyone was involved in decisions and taking things seriously.

Would you say that the topic of avalanches doesn’t end with attending a safety camp alone?

Absolutely not. For example, this winter I’ll be doing several Freeride Days with the Mammut Alpine School here in the Arlberg. At these camps it will be

about ski technique and the freeride experience as a whole, but avalanche safety will also be a major focus. You always have to stay vigilant. An avalanche beacon and an airbag aren’t free tickets to ride. Snow and avalanches are such a complicated challenge, which you can only prepare for with constant practice, preparation and the proper equipment.

Check mammutalpineschool.com for more info!

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S H A P E D O N T H E AT H L E T E – B E A N AT H L E T E

TEXT

JAAKKO JÄRVENSIVU

IN THE LATE 1980S, A BAND OF MAVERICK MISCREANTS IN DAYGLO SAVED SNOW SPORTS FROM ROD WALKER NORMALITY IN A SKI FILM THAT BLAZED A PATH FOR FREESKIING GENERATIONS TO COME. IN 2018, THE BLIZZ ARD OF AAHHH’S TURNS THIRT Y.

A

cold winter’s day, 1988; so cold that our gym teacher has decided that instead of playing ice hockey, we’ll stay indoors and watch a movie instead. The room is packed with runny-nosed kids, watching skeptically as a middle-aged ski coach with a hefty mustache sets up the VHS player. We’re doubtful at first—but only a couple of minutes into the film, we’re transfixed, gaping in amazement as the heroes of the film, Scott Schmidt, Glen Plake and Mike Hattrup, rip up the terrain set against the backdrop of Chamonix’s majestic mountains.

The film’s director Greg Stump took us on a magic carpet ride to faraway, exotic locations like Chamonix, Telluride and Squaw Valley with our newly found ski heroes. We were captivated, and we weren’t alone—The Blizzard Of Aahhh’s was a defining experience for a whole generation of skiers, with a pivotal effect on the development of the sport and its filmmaking. Skiers such as Mike Douglas, the co-developer of the first commercial

HISTORY

twin-tip ski; Shane McConkey, the developer of rocker ski technology; and Seth Morrison, the pioneer of big mountain freestyle, have all acknowledged the film’s influence on them.

To understand why Blizzard had such a big impact, consider what the world looked like in 1988. After the counter-culture 1960s and 1970s with their hippies, punks and Vietnam War protests, the 1980s marked the return of conservatism on both sides of the big pond. It was a decade personified by money-loving yuppies in pin-striped suits and Rolex watches. Fearing the effects of declining skier numbers, ski areas began shifting their marketing away from skiing itself, in favor of resort amenities for non-skiers. Jet-set resorts and celebrities in shoulder-padded onepieces were the images that many people associated with skiing at the time.

If the mainstream seemed a little bleak and boring, Blizzard was anything but. It was colorful and vibrant, showing

us wild characters from an underground ski bum culture, a resistance fighting the evil empire of lameness that mainstream skiing in the 1980s had become. The Clambin Kids operated from their safe haven in Verbier, Rasta Stevie fought to keep Telluride a funky place where dirtbag skiers could afford to live, and Scott Schmidt wanted to “shoot people” who sued ski resorts for their accidents and thus prevented real skiers from accessing extreme terrain. And then there was Glen Plake, who simply seemed to embody rebellion itself.

When Blizzard came out, the reigning ski-movie king was still Warren Miller.

Miller was 64 at the time and had been making movies since 1950, while Stump, a former national champion freestyle skier, was half his age and represented a different generation. Stump had skied in front of the camera for both Miller and Dick Barrymore, and was determined to revolutionize Miller’s ski-movie formula.

“I did not like Warren’s movies,” he

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Skier: Glen Plake / Spot: Chamonix, France

PHOTOS

HISTORY

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Skier: Scott Schmidt / Spot: Chamonix, France

recalls. “They felt old-fashioned, his skiers were not as good as all my friends, and his music sucked.” Stump knew his music: he had worked as a radio DJ at a progressive rock station in Maine, USA called WBLM, and was able to convince British producer Trevor Horn of ZTT Records to grant him the use of their music for his movie.

SKIING HAS EVOLVED TREMENDOUSLY SINCE

for his 1985 film, Time Waits for Snowman . In Blizzard , the unwieldy 8-kilo camera was now affixed to a helmet on Glen Plake’s head, bringing viewers even closer to the action. Compared with today, the editing process was far from easy: the 16mm film had to first be transferred via telecine to video tape to be edited. Today, Stump regards the editing as one of the secrets behind Blizzard’s success. “I love to edit,” he says. “I feel it is the one aspect of my work that I am

airs years ahead of their time, and Mike Hattrup skiing everything in effortlessly smooth fashion. Whether it was skiing the Couloir Poubelle off the Aiguille du Midi or jumping off the bridge at the top of the Grand Montéts tram, the movie merged the European extreme-skiing style (steep couloir descents) with its American cousin (dropping big cliffs) into a package so powerful that its skiing became a reference point for a generation of future freeskiers.

1988, BUT BLIZZARD STILL STANDS APART FROM MOST OF TODAY’S SKI FLICKS WITH ITS GENUINE CHARACTERS AND THEIR STORIES. “IF YOU COULD BE ANY ANIMAL IN THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD YOU BE ?” GLEN PL AKE IS ASKED AT THE START OF HIS CHAMONIX SEGMENT. “I DUNNO. HMM… ME!”

Greg Stump shoots one of the iconic Chamonix sequences of Blizzard atop the Couloir Poubelle at the Grands Montets.

The use of the soundtrack in The Blizzard Of Aahhh’s was revolutionary: Stump was one of the first to cut his skiing sequences to the music, creating a powerful combination that spoke to a generation raised on music videos. “Trevor’s Euro-pop sound fit the mood of the film perfectly,” Stump says. Another pioneering front was the use of POV, pointof-view footage. Stump had already ducttaped a vintage film camera onto a windsurfing vest to capture POV footage

THE BLIZZARD OF AAHHH’S

maybe best at.” The film also benefitted from the mainstream breakthrough of the home VCR, allowing Stump to sell thousands of VHS copies straight to his audience, instead of relying on the old film-tour model.

But first and foremost, it was the skiing that had the biggest impact: Scott Schmidt dropping huge cliffs at Squaw Valley and attacking near-vertical lines in Chamonix with his signature angular style, Glen Plake throwing new-school

Skiing has evolved tremendously since 1988, but Blizzard still stands apart from most of today’s ski flicks with its genuine characters and their stories. “If you could be any animal in the world, what would you be?” Glen Plake is asked at the start of his Chamonix segment. “I dunno. Hmm… me!” Plake replies, with a signature earth-shaking guffaw. He’s rocking a mohawk, DayGlo shorts and jacket, and what looks like a collar made out of Swatch watchbands. It’s clear that

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Skier: Glen Plake / Spot: Chamonix, France

Greg Stump and a legendary Arriflex 16 mm film camera.

here we have a character, and a different kind of ski hero: flamboyant, opinionated and loud. For many 1980s kids, Plake represented a more believable ski hero than the Alberto Tombas or Pirmin Zurbriggens available in the mainstream media. Meanwhile, Scott Schmidt’s personality—quiet, calculated, letting his skiing do the talking—seemed the polar opposite of Plake’s. If Plake was too much to handle, you could always identify with Schmidt, and thousands did. Together they were a perfect match, with Mike Hattrup as a complementary third to round out Blizzard’s leading roles.

Stump cites his father Walter, a professor of theater sciences, as a major influence on his storytelling. “He let you believe that magic was possible,” Stump remembers. Like any good magician, Stump knows how to create an illusion.

He admits that the scene titled “The

HISTORY

Squaw Valley Shootout,” where Plake battles Tom Day and Mike Slattery in a

freestyling newcomer Plake. Fictional or not, the added movie-magic creates a strong dramatic structure: by the time the train pulls into the station in Chamonix with our three protagonists, the viewer is hooked, anxious to see how their journey continues.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Blizzard Of Aahhh’s was a massive hit within skiing, and also broke into the mainstream: Schmidt and Plake were invited to the Today Show in the US, which according to Stump had a huge effect on their careers. “We were the first skiers ever on the Today Show ,” he recalls. “It aired the opening morning of the ski industry trade show in Vegas, which didn’t hurt either.” Along with being credited for popularizing “extreme skiing,” Blizzard also paved the way for professional freeskiers. With the film’s success, Plake was able to negotiate a sponsorship deal with K2 Skis and others. Schmidt was already the world’s first sponsored freeskier, with a The North Face deal since the mid 1980s, but was still struggling to make a living. That all

IT’S CLEAR THAT HERE WE HAVE A CHARACTER, AND A DIFFERENT KIND OF SKI HERO: FLAMBOYANT, OPINIONATED AND LOUD. FOR MANY 1980S MORE KIDS, PL AKE REPRESENTED A E ALBERTO BELIEVABLE SKI HERO THAN TH TOMBAS OR PIRMIN ZURBRIGGENS AVAILABLE IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. cliff-jumping contest for the last spot in the film and a plane ticket to Chamonix, was entirely fictional. “I wasn’t even there that day,” says Stump. “Bruce Benedict shot the whole sequence, and I made up the whole story line.” The scene was also used to create a rivalry between the veteran ex-racer Schmidt and the

changed, thanks in large part to Blizzard.

Schmidt and Plake had become role models for a new generation of rebels on skis: brash, confident and ready to break the rules.

The 30th anniversary of The Blizzard of Aahhh’s is being celebrated with a film tour in the US, with additional stops rumored in Europe.

Check blizzard30.com for more info.

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KARAKORAM DIARIES

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KARAKORAM DIARIES PHOTOS

JÉRÔME TANON

THE INTIMATE TRAVEL DIARY OF AN INCREDIBLE FREERIDE EXPEDITION INTO THE HEART OF THE KARAKORAM RANGE. THE SEARCH FOR ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAINS TO SKI ON THE PLANET. A MEETING POINT OF FREERIDING AND MOUNTAINEERING. A TRUE ADVENTURE. APRIL 8, THE KKH It’s a 35-hour bus ride from Islamabad to Skardu on the world-famous Karakoram Highway, the KKH. Once a part of the historic Silk Road, it’s the only route through these mountains to China. The road is under constant construction. It’s a mess.

Fully loaded trucks pass each other wildly, dodging rocks and potholes.

Heavy headache. I need to sleep, but Yannick, sitting next to me, is telling me about his climb on the south face of

Annapurna, and his friend who almost died in his arms. I listen, bathed in the smells of spices and diesel, smiling to myself as a realization dawns: Yep, this trip is going to be the craziest one yet.

Pakistan: a new country to explore.

Urdu: a new language to learn. We pass through Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin Ladin was found. I think I’ll use my bag of photo film as a pillow. Shab bakher: Good night.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 10, 2200 M, SKARDU I stand here contemplating the flowery garden of our lodge in Skardu. The Indus River flows past calmly, its long bends curving their way between dunes.

Nature’s raw magnificence. My eyes are wide open.

The scale tells us we have 360 kilograms of gear to split among the eight of us. The closer we get, the less real it seems. But here we are in Skardu, packing the bags with everything that we’ll need up there: pulk sleds, gas tanks, solar panels, splitboards, skis, ropes, tents, sleeping bags, mats, freeze-dried foods, ham and cheese, biscuits, and so on. We have to be as light as possible; Yannick, who’s been to Pakistan many times already, keeps repeating this.

Tomorrow we will reach Askole: the end of the road, the last village. Who could have known skiing and snowboarding would take us this far?

THOMAS

APRIL 10, THE JEEPS Yesterday night I got myself a nasty vomit-diarrhea combo. Major tourista. I have to keep a wad of toilet paper stuck between my buttcheeks day and night. I

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can’t eat anything. I’ll be fine, though.

Nothing can ruin the pleasure of being here. Our Jeep driver teaches me more Urdu for my notebook of local slang. Wa baraka tu: May luck be with you. Safar bakher: Safe travels. Allah khosh rake: May God keep you happy. Yemeri duwahe: I am praying for you. The “road” up to Askole ends with the canyon of death. I take back everything I said about the KKH, because now it’s truly sketchy. Dodging rockfall and constant landslides, we cling to our seats in fear as the Jeep lurches forward.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 11, 2900 M, CRICKET WITH THE LOCALS We met up with the porters in Askole.

They will begin the trek with us, then we’ll set off on our own on a 150-kilometer loop across the glaciers. The high point will be the Skam La Pass at 5600m, which we’ll have to cross. Nobody has ever gone there for freeriding. The true objective of the expedition is the Biacherahi North Tower. Located at the very end of a quite unknown glacier, it has a sharkfin face that Thomas first saw in a book at

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the library. It’s nearly vertical. Never been skied. No recent pictures or precise information available. We don’t even know what the glacier will look like. But ever since he saw that photo, Thomas has dreamed of riding down those spines. When he found out that his friend Zak had the same idea, he set up this

expedition. And now, here we are in the Karakoram range, all because of a random picture in an old book: The Biacherahi North Tower, 5880m. Tom, you really are one crazy bastard.

JÉRÔME

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APRIL 12, 3200 M, THE TREK BEGINS Walking on my own, I’ve had time to ask myself: what am I even doing here? The Balti porters are making a big lunch, cooking chapatis on the spot. These guys are tough. They sleep under a simple burlap cloth. They are of all ages and all shapes. 25 kilos is the max load they

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can carry. We are the first visitors of the season, one month early, and all the porters want the job. This means there will be no other crews up there—we’ll have the whole region to ourselves. We are surrounded by mules, ponies, horses and yaks. I get in a tent with Zak, but can’t find sleep. I count the days since we left home: six. It will be at least five more before we get to ski our first

line. Skiing here takes a lot of effort! I go through my checklist over and over in my head, sure that I forgot something. I try to picture the faces that we’ll find there, and hope we can climb them without too much exposure. I trust Yannick and Hélias, but I also know that falling will not be an option.

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conversations. Oh well. Going on trips like this always inspires me to be a better version of myself when I get home. Boulder more, run, swim, read, put more energy into relationships, don’t waste time. I’m glad that I’m broadening my horizons.

I’ve been pretty sick the last couple days, shitting four to five times a day, no energy.

Everything feels so hard— sometimes I’m out of breath on flat ground. Ridiculous.

Can’t wait to feel strong again. Having a hard time sleeping well too. Can’t regulate body temperature. Fuck. Started taking some meds today.

ZAK

APRIL 15, 4060 M, BUDDIES

APRIL 13, 3350 M, CROSSING THE TORRENT The sky is beautiful. Pointy summits keep appearing in all directions as we hike on.

We are crossing extremely varied terrain, from sand dunes to rock fields. The mules keep impressing me with their precise footing while carrying heavy loads. A landslide forces us to cross the river twice. The porters and mules are on the other side in thirty seconds, while it takes us fragile Frenchies 15 minutes to scramble across. I teeter over slippery stones as the water level gets dangerously close to my balls. The thermal shock is huge.

Turning back, I see Thomas crossing in his underwear and explorer’s hat, looking like a total tourist.

LÉO

APRIL 14, 4060 M, THIRD CAMP WITH THE PORTERS It feels so damn good to be living a dream of mine. Being the only one in the group that doesn’t speak French really sucks.

They all speak English “when it’s important,” but I can’t be a part of the everyday

Tension builds as we approach the point where the porters will leave us. My partners discuss logistics and tourista. I already like all of them. Thomas, who gets hyped at the sight of every new peak. Léo, who cracks us up with his cheeky wit and films everything with his GoPro. Save that battery, Léo! Zak from California, keeping American traditions with his secret bag of snacks and blaring his music out loud while trekking. He is only 21, and so far from his beloved Alaska. We have our two devoted cameramen Pierre and Julien, and then there are Hélias and Yannick, who engage in endless debates about Chamonix guide gossip. Yannick, the lone wolf of the mountain, with four 8000-meter-plus summits already under his belt, gets mad at every non-vital subject that we bring up. Hélias, the young mountaineering genius, with his funny girl stories and the thickest French accent ever heard on Earth. We form one funky band of idiots.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 15, 4400 M, NOBANDE SOBANDE The sun sets on our first solo camp on the Nobande Sobande glacier. At the end of the glacier stands the Biacherahi Tower and the Skam La pass. This morning the porters pushed up to 4300m, where our sleds can actually slide, before turning around with big smiles. They had never been this far out here. Since we aren’t on our way to a 8000-meter summit, this region is still vastly unknown. The porters wanted to turn around earlier, but Yannick negotiated with packs of Snickers bars. Less for us to eat, but also less

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enough acclimatization. We are worried, but there’s nothing we can do for him.

There are still seven kilometers to go, and we have to make a decision. Jérôme gets back up, says he can keep going if he skips his turn pulling the sled. We have six sleds and eight people. Hélias tells him to eat and drink, and takes his backpack on his own sled.

LÉO

APRIL 17, 4830 M, STORM

to carry. Jérôme gave out some good tips and used his new Urdu words to say goodbye. We had to unpack and repack again to load the sleds. They are so heavy! Tonight we eat our first freezedried meals, the first of a long series. Our isolation has cranked up one more step.

We are now on our own. Completely on our own…

from everything, so vulnerable. We share a chunk of cheese and keep going up. At 13:00, Jérôme crumbles to the ground in front of his sled. He cries, coughs, can’t breathe. He’s sick from the altitude. Not

We have entered the storm and can’t move. We rest. What a pleasure to be here with seven people I am getting to know. Here all is wild and untouched. We are beasts. We do not go gently—even though I like gentle, but not here. Here I am a beast. The landscapes here are fascinating. Yesterday in the whiteout I was scared of avalanches reaching our tents.

This morning I had a quick glimpse around, and we are safe. I’m gonna take good care of my little savages, I promise.

THOMAS

APRIL 16, 4830 M, CAPTAIN JÉRÔME IN TROUBLE I wake up at 05:30. Pierre is making a funny face; I must have snored. I go outside and start melting snow for breakfast and to fill up our water bottles. Hélias and Yannick aren’t out yet, they’ll wait until the sun comes. It must be a guides’ trick, I think to myself. At 07:00 we start packing up the camp. I start arguing with Yannick about the beacons. “Useless. If we didn’t have them, it would be the same,” he says. “Here in Pakistan, if there’s an avalanche we are all dead. So there will not be any avalanches. If one of you triggers a slab, I’ll punch him.” We break trail, fighting over who has the heaviest and the biggest, and for once we’re not talking about our dicks, but about our sleds. We’re en route on this immense, nearly flat glacier as weather closes in. The team gets spread out as Pierre and Jérôme stay back to take photos and videos. They have to hurry to catch up, exhausting themselves in the process. If the fog came in, we may not have been able to regroup. Scary. Jérôme is not happy about it and lets us know.

We have to stay together. I feel so far

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I like these young lads, I am glad to share this moment with them. They are trying something new, it’s wonderful.

YANNICK

APRIL 17, 4830 M, NOBANDE SOBANDE The headaches and shits seem to have passed, and my body is recovering. I’ve

now been away from home for nearly four weeks, and I’m definitely starting to miss my friends. I keep dreaming that I’ve teleported back home—just for brief moments but it feels so real, like I’m really there. Then inevitably my feet get cold, and suddenly I’m back in this wild place, when I so badly want to be sitting comfortably at home. It seems to be a recurring theme in my life that I have a hard time being present and happy right where I am in the moment. I'm living a dream right now, camped under these

spine walls I’ve fantasized about for years, but still missing home, my dog, my girlfriend. This trip has been really difficult so far. Nothing feels easy. Oh yeah, I also discovered this heinous rash all over my body today: big red bumps on my hips, arms, groin and legs. It wakes me up in the middle of the night in a maddening itch attack. No idea where they came from, so that’s cool.

ZAK

APRIL 18, 4830 M, TENT LIFE We are stuck in an intense blizzard. It’s supposed to snow a meter and a half in four days! I seem to be collecting all the symptoms of altitude sickness: headaches, nausea, coughing, sleep and appetite loss. I am advised to stay calm until I get acclimated. The GPS tells us we are only three puny kilometers from the bottom of the first faces. So close, yet so far away in this weather. Zak’s skin rash is spreading all over his body. The medic warned us over the sat phone that he needs to be evacuated at the first sign of breathing trouble, as it could be signs of an edema. The only problem: there’s no way to evacuate him. Askole is at least six days away, and the Pakistani army—if we manage to convince them to come—can

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only fly if two choppers are available and visibility is clear. We give Zak powerful pills, and hope for the best.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 20, 5020 M, THE MISSION I wake up at five in the morning. Outside the storm is still raging, but we have to move the camp, whatever it takes. No one is motivated, but we have to do it.

Tomorrow good weather is in the forecast. The entrance of my igloo is filled to the roof with snow, and the guys’ tents are even worse. Yannick gives orders to tear down the camp—then when everyone’s ready, he goes to take a shit, while we wait for ten minutes in the cold.

Hélias ropes up three of us behind him, and goes ahead. My sled feels heavy. I pull my burden in between the crevasses, unroped, in a complete whiteout.

At some point, I unplug my brain and walk without thinking. I am exhausted, no more juice. Same for the others.

Around 16:00 we are still fighting the

storm, it’s time to set the camp. We navigate with the GPS, trusting it since we can’t see shit. I begin digging a new igloo, but at 5000 meters elevation it’s another story. Tom and Hélias join me when I start to weaken. My feet are frozen, we’re out of water and I’m too tired to cook.

Zak gives me a cup of tea and a piece of his freeze-dried meal. Tents flapping.

Five days of bluebird are supposed to come. I fall asleep.

LÉO

legend, I think to myself. The wall is more difficult than expected. For half an hour our mountaineers struggle up an icy gully. The spines are too loaded with pow. Tension builds. Zak loses patience, claiming, “With my knowledge I would have been at the top 40 minutes ago,” and unropes himself! Yannick gets mad, tells him to go fuck himself. If he wants to go alone, fine. Thomas calms Yannick down, and convinces Zak to come back in the rope party. He reminds him that we are a crew, and we have to stick together.

LÉO

APRIL 22, 5020 M, ATTACK ON THE TWO TOWERS 5:00. -25°C. Bluebird! I’m excited for the first day of skiing. We aim at a spine wall topped by two towering rocks. Start at 7:20. Hélias will join us later, because he had a questionable fart situation in his sleeping bag. Yannick sets up a belay and gives me a sign. I pass the bergschrund and hop onto a six-meter ice wall with only one ice axe. I barely make it, my arm spasming uncontrollably. Hélias overtakes us and takes the lead. This guy is a

APRIL 22, TWO TOWERS After three hours of struggle for just 300 meters of elevation, finally we reach the ridge. The wall isn’t huge, but it scares me. I spent a lot of energy on the climb, and don’t want to fall. At the summit there’s barely enough room for everybody, so Zak, who arrived last, will drop first. But first we all need to rest and soak in the incredible view. Stupendous peaks crowd the horizon: the Latoks, the Ogres I and II. The latter is still unclimbed. It’s crazy. There is a powerful energy floating in the air—I can feel it.

I could stay here for hours, but the cameramen are ready. Zak takes his time.

I think he feels the pressure of going first.

He drops, disappears behind the first spine, and we wait. The sluff arrives at the bottom, carrying Zak and two big red balloons on his back. He triggered his airbag! He’s okay though, more shaken than hurt. He must have gotten caught in his sluff. The drone is still up, so I have to drop quick. Yannick talks a lot, trying to reassure me. I ask him to be quiet. I need to focus. I take a deep breath and drop in.

Holy fuck, riding at 5000m is a different story! But holy hell, that was sick!

The first line after 11 days of trekking. Ice on the faces scares me, and there is plenty of it. “A warm-up run”—yeah right, good joke. The snow is deep and a ton of sluff is moving. Gotta be careful.

THOMAS

APRIL 23, 5020 M, THE PLAN Skier: Léo Taillefer

The weather window to cross the Skam La is getting shorter, and we decide to go for the Biacherahi Tower tomorrow. No time to fuck around. We go straight for the fat mama. It might be one hell of a battle. We reload batteries with the solar panels and eat and drink as much as we can. I pack

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and repack my backpack. Everyone’s in bed at 18:30. Tomorrow we will scale up a 5880m monster. I don’t know how to describe my feelings: a mix of fear and excitement. The wait is unbearable. I reflect on what Zak told me: “Biacherahi is for gangsters only.” I don’t know if I am a gangster. Butterflies in my stomach, I hug my water bottle close so it doesn’t freeze, and repeat to myself: It’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be alright.

LÉO

APRIL 24, BIACHERAHI NORTH TOWER Thomas, Leo, Yannick, Hélias and I started hiking at 7:00. We walked through an improbable passage between two giant ice cliffs and found ourselves on the bench directly under the spine wall. With cornices above and ice cliffs below, I felt uneasy about crossing those slopes in the sun, but it was still the safest way up. We spaced out and hiked until we reached the relative safety of a giant cornice spreading the length of the col: several thousands of pounds of snow and ice suspended above our heads in the shape of a breaking wave.

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We cramponed up the right side, finally reaching the col. The north faces of Baintha Brakk I and II held a dominating presence. I couldn’t help but think of Kyle Dempster and Scott Adamson, who disappeared on the north face of Baintha Brakk II in the fall of 2016: a sobering reminder of the seriousness of this place.

The heavy vibe stayed the rest of the mission. As we hiked across the col, a huge chunk of the cornice we had just surfed underneath collapsed right on our skin track. Definitely scary! We started up the last few hundred meters of the shoulder, with cornices to climber’s left and wind slabs to climber’s right. The slope was at least 40° and got closer to 70° at the top, the fall line an abyss of rock and ice for a thousand meters. An avalanche here would be catastrophic.

ZAK

On that day, time was suspended. I positioned myself across the face with Julien to shoot the action. Pierre was on another ridge with the drone, ready to lift off. The Biacherahi, a face like no other, spines reaching almost vertically to a giant cornice across the whole summit ridge. I wondered how the hell the guys would access the slope, and started

to get scared for my friends. I was unaware that meanwhile, they were in danger, on an avalanche slope ready to trigger and with no anchorage. To make sure one guy wouldn’t take the whole party down with him, they decided to unrope. At this point, Thomas made the decision to turn around. He didn’t feel like risking his life on the flip of a coin.

He had been dreaming about the Biacherahi for 3 years! He found himself at the col, alone with his decision, while the others kept ascending.

JÉRÔME

As Thomas began to climb down, Leo and I made the difficult choice to continue, trusting Yannick and Hélias’ experience and hoping that the slope would become safe again soon. After 20 minutes of scary and exposed snow climbing, we roped back up, with a couple of ice screws between the four of us. Leo told me he had never climbed ice like that, let alone with skis on his back. I was really impressed with his effort and how calm he was for being so far out of his comfort zone.

We stood on the summit at 15:30, much later than expected, hugged and fist-bumped each other, and soaked in

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the view from 5880m. We had a damn good view: Baintha Brakk I and II, the whole Nobande Sobande stretching north to China, across the Latok and Choktoï group, up to K2 and Broad Peak standing proud above everything. It was a view none of us will ever forget.

The next challenge was traversing the summit ridge to the entrance of the spines, since it was too icy and exposed from the summit. The steep ridge we walked on was only 3-5 meters wide, with dangerous cornices on the left and a 500-meter vertical cliff on the right. We took great care navigating this section, and were happy to have such experienced partners in Hélias and Yannick.

The ridge favored a goofy-footed rider, and I didn’t feel safe strapping in on the summit with my directional snowboard.

Leo and Hélias felt good about skiing from the top, so while they got ready, Yannick and I downclimbed with crampons and ice axes to the entrance of the

face. Leo was kind enough to offer first tracks to me. As I got ready to drop in, Hélias reminded me one more time: “no freeriding.” It became sort of a joke. I could tell I had made them nervous after my fall a couple days before.

With my ice tool firmly in hand, I began to work my way down the spine.

Ice was only a couple of centimeters away, but the snow was sticking well to the face. After a few meters of side-slipping, I nervously began to make jump turns down the spine. Every other turn or so, I felt the crunch of ice under my board. I made turn after turn until my poor legs begged me to replenish the oxygen in their worn-out muscles. At the bottom, relieved, I met up with Thomas and gave him a big hug. I had mad respect for him for sticking to his convictions and turning around, while still being happy for us.

After Zak’s first descent, it was Léo’s turn to drop. Remember, where we were, a simple twisted ankle means Game Over: expedition cancelled, ten days of struggle for your friends to pull you on a sled back to Askole. But instead of going down safely, Léo went completely mental: in complete control, he charged like a madman between ice gullies and his sluff, and in five turns he was at the bottom. I couldn’t believe my eyes, hidden behind the lens of the Pentax, my heart going as fast as Léo’s. He crushed that wall. Back on the flats, he dedicated his run to Thomas.

ZAK

No regrets about leaving my igloo behind.

We move camp and turn our backs to the Biacherahi. Our focus now lies on the mysterious Skam La: the ultimate pass. I still can’t believe what I skied yesterday.

Like a defloration. I feel disoriented. I put my life in Hélias and Yannick’s hands, and I still don’t understand why. Why didn’t I turn around when we were unroped on a wind slab? You fall, you die: the opposite of my vision of skiing.

Tom made the other choice. It was his face, so close to the top, and he turned around. This decision makes him a hero in my eyes. A guy who loves life, in a way.

RESPECT.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 25, 5430 M, FACING THE SKAM LA

LÉO

APRIL 25, 5050 M, IT WASN’T WORTH IT I will never ride that face. That was my first thought when I saw Pierre Neyret’s photograph in the book The Most Beautiful Mountains in the World. It was probably true. On top, with the guides hesitating and an avalanche waiting to trigger, it was too risky for me. I’d reached my limit. Hélias didn’t hold me back; he knew it was sketchy. Too bad. For me, it will remain a dream. Now I want to cross the Skam La, complete the loop, discover Snow Lake and walk on the Biafo Glacier.

We have six days left—not much time, and I’ll have to convince the rest of the crew. But for me it’s worth it to explore more. Who knows how it will look on the other side?

THOMAS

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THOMAS

APRIL 26, SKAM LA!

APRIL 25, 5430 M, SKAM LA It’s 9:00 and we have to make a decision: Skam La or not? Jérôme and the filmers want to stay on this side to shoot more footage. Julien insists. Is he scared? His hands are shaking. Zak, Léo and I agree: we want to take the pass.

Staying here would be a second failure for me. Hélias is on our side. The new weather forecast is good. Jérôme follows the riders and makes the only valid decision: we will cross the Skam La. And we need to get on the move, now: it’s still quite far away, and the slope gets steeper. Our sleds seem to weigh a hundred kilos. It’s a nightmare. Our fight ends as we make camp on a beautiful ledge 200 meters under the col. K2 rises in the background.

Today we became the fourth group ever to cross the Skam La pass on skis. Yannick is a hell of a mountain cowboy. It took three 60-meter ropes to get the load down the gnarly west side, while the weather turned for the worse. In the midst of this chaos, it was a huge relief to know that it’s all downhill from here back to Askole. Pulling the sleds will be

LÉO

APRIL 27, ALMOST SNOW LAKE

THOMAS

Skam La. The pass at the end of the world. Only Pierre Neyret knows this place well. What could be on the other side? I can’t wait to find out. We will make the pass, no doubt! We will see Snow Lake. We’ll have to rappel the sleds down on the other side, but we’ll manage. Only, we won’t be able to turn around. We are committed. What a legend, this Pierre Neyret. What kind of idea is it to come here? The weather is good. Come on my little savages, let’s go.

YANNICK

APRIL 26, 5200 M, THE DIE IS CAST It takes an hour and a half to pull the sleds up the last 50 meters. From the pass at 5630m we have a view out on entire valleys of ice, madly beautiful. In

FEATURE

grumpy, and argue with Thomas for no reason. Everything takes forever. We are so slow. The sky is unsure, sunny for a bit, then bad again. Fourteen kilometers on the Sim Gang glacier before we reach Snow Lake. The sleds feel lighter now.

When the sky finally clears, we stop to admire the veritable sea of glaciers surrounding us. I count eight of them merging together. It’s crazy! Their beauty fixes my blues.

much easier with gravity on our side.

Yannick’s skills and experience in the mountains have been really helpful during this process. Hélias is a total machine, and has by far been the strongest member of the group.

We are on another planet, the Sim Gang planet. Time has stopped. The landscape is composed solely of rocks and ice. Nobody around for kilometers and kilometers. One after the other, the inhabitants of this planet display themselves: Skam Brak, Baintta Brak, Uzun Brak and other unnamed denizens. I

ZAK

APRIL 27, 4770 M, 15 DAYS OUT I wake up anxious. I think about you, honey. I hope you’re well. I didn’t receive any news on the sat phone. I’m afraid something happened to you. I’m still one week away from Skardu, from where I’ll be able to send you messages. I wish I was under a warm blanket with you instead of freezing my balls here. I’m

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From top to bottom: Zak Mills (snowboarder/USA), Hélias Millérioux (alpinist/FRA), Léo Taillefer (skier/FRA), Jérôme Tanon (photographer & director/FRA)

front of us awaits a slope full of seracs, crevasses, ice and cornices. Yannick finds a couloir down, with a mandatory 150-meter rappel. When the belay is ready we lower down the sleds, followed by men, in a big descent onto the Sim Gang glacier.

nostrils. At night we gather everything important into our sleeping bags to avoid frost: water bottles, shoes, headlamps, cameras, batteries, gas tanks, pen.

Thomas is having a bad moment. He is sensitive, edgy. His U-turn at the Biacherahi has had more impact on his morale than he gives on. It’s fair. I can’t find the right words to make him feel better. His tireless positivity is gone for the first time I can remember. Physical and mental exhaustion is pushing our limits. I know Tom well: the only thing that will cure him is to strap on his board again.

From top to bottom: Pierre Fréchou (cameraman/FRA), Yannick Graziani (alpinist/FRA), Julien Nadiras (cameraman/FRA), Thomas Delfino (snowboarder/FRA)

JÉRÔME

can’t believe my eyes. As we ski through this beautiful place, I realize I would like to stay longer. There’s not enough time.

Barely arrived, we have to rush to find a line to ride. The walls are too big, too complex, full of cornices and seracs. I don’t like to rush. I want to listen to what these mountains have to say. We break their intimacy. We come, we take, we go.

Sorry. I’ll come back.

APRIL 28, KITE! We took a left turn onto the Biafo Glacier.

A northern wind grew strong, pushing at our backs. I pulled out a sleeping mat

THOMAS

APRIL 28, 4770 M, SNOW LAKE PARADISE 5:40. I open my eyes. My sleeping bag is soaking wet. Outside I can hear Jérôme going nuts over the sunrise. I come out to enjoy the show. The sky is blue, purple, orange. It’s beautiful, but the freezing wind won’t let me enjoy it. I attempt to enlist Tom for a hike up the major wall.

He refuses. I push, but no results. Hélias comes with me towards some serious spines. At the first slope, Yannick has a bad feeling. It’s a bit late, the wall is warming up. Yannick’s gut feeling is God’s word. U-turn. I join Zak on an easier slope to the right. The snow is deep and solid. The top is steep. I hold my breath, no staying here too long. It’s my turn to make a first track. Yallaaa!

tiful, steep ramps. Tom and Zak go right with Hélias, I go left with Yannick. I’m starting to know the guy, and frankly, you gotta go with him. Our views of mountaineering are different, but today we find common ground. On top, we enjoy a divine view of the slope that the others picked. It looks really steep. Hélias belays Thomas into a 55° ice wall. That’s the Thomas I used to know! He has found the light again. Go Tom-Tom, crush it!

But it’s my turn to ski first. The line is clear in my head. I glance at the view while the drone makes its way up. Yannick says, “Don’t go too crazy.” I’m focused. I don’t listen, and drop.

LÉO

APRIL 29, 4400 M, GHUR’S RAMPS with Yannick to use as a sail. We got even more speed when we took out a tent with Jérôme and used it as a kite wing. The others did the same; we quickly traveled kilometers, laughing our asses off the whole time! The perfect duo: half paraglider, half windsurf. The icing on the cake was setting up camp at the bottom of a new face to ride tomorrow.

Attracted like magnets to a wall of vertical snow, Hélias, Zak and I ascend the mountain. Once again, we are tricked by

LÉO

LÉO

APRIL 28, BURNED Snow Lake: the place where the glaciers all come together. The incredibly vertical Solu Towers rise in front of us. The strain is stacking up. Snow reflection has burned our faces all the way inside the

KARAKORAM DIARIES

APRIL 29, 4400 M, DAY 17 I open my eyes. My hips and shoulders hurt. But like every morning, the stunning view helps me to forget the pain.

The Biafo is a five-kilometer-wide glacier with monstrous peaks on each side. At 10:30 we begin the climb up three beau-

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YANNICK

APRIL 30, THE REUNION

the distances. It looked to be about 300 meters high, but in fact it’s more like 700. At 11:00 we crampon up. Hélias takes the lead and we progress swiftly, but the slope seems infinite. Out on the glacier, Pierre and Jérôme are the size of ants. It gets steeper, but I’m not afraid. I feel great—finally a face I really want to ride! Ice joins the party, but Hélias is an animal: he puts in an ice screw and keeps pushing up. My ice-axe hand is completely frozen. We find ourselves atop a jewel, with an unforgettable view of Snow Lake and Kanjut Sar in the background. I look at what’s under my board.

It’s giant, mega steep and icy, but we love it. Because of the ice, Hélias insists on keeping the rope for the first few turns.

Great idea—I don’t want to take a ride on the rollercoaster of death. I test the slope with a bunch of jump turns. It’s so steep, but the snow is great and I feel in shape.

I let go of the rope.

THOMAS

APRIL 29, STEEP I watched Thomas ride this steep ramp like a boss and disappear as a tiny dot in the bottom. Then it was my time to go.

Right before dropping, Hélias asked me in his classic French accent, “you want ze rope or notte?” At the iciest point my edge ripped out, and I had to use my ice axe to stop the fall. I stayed focused, made a short traverse towards better snow. I found the way down without trouble, surfing big curves. The snow

FEATURE

was so good. It was really special to share this experience with Thomas. We had travelled all this way, and had yet to share a line together. Seeing his smile and giving him a big hug at the bottom was even better than the descent.

ZAK

Head porter Salman Ali appears, followed by four Balti porters and their famous 4x4 mules. How did they spot us?

Warm hugs with the locals, who are as surprised and happy as we are that we’re here, safe and sound. We load up the mules and begin walking down towards Askole. At night we make camp by the moraine. The Baltis make a fire, hot tea and chapatis. They sing many songs of their valleys. The fire crackles. Their voices evaporate in the dying light. We are exhausted, we have nothing, we have everything.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 29, COMEBACK TIME Thomas made a fat comeback on the last line of the trip! Unbelievable. In Urdu they have a word for this. Zabardast: wonderful! He ripped down the slope without stopping, leaving huge carves, his gigantic smile back for the rest of the expedition. The sky is blue, it’s warm, joy is in the air. We are late for the rendezvous with the porters, and pull our sleds all evening under a rising full moon, not knowing how to find them in this desert of ice. We push as far as possible, hoping they’ll spot us.

JÉRÔME

MAY 1, 2900 M, THE END OF THE TREK Fucking bullshit, infinite glacier hell, crevasses, goddamn wobbly stones, motherfucking never-ending moraine of my ass walking under the stupid sun up and down cocksucking rock piles all day fuck!

The last day is the toughest. I can’t stand it. Knees destroyed, feet crushed in the boots, mind obsessed by thoughts of a shower, meals, Coke and fries, rest— mostly rest. A bed. The dream. The last kilometer is behind us, we drop the bags and lay in the grass. The villagers bring tea, eggs and biscuits. What a joy.

JÉRÔME

APRIL 30, THE FLAME Who lit this flame in us? Why do I climb?

Why do I love mountaineering so much?

Always the same questions. Why is the flame still burning? Why am I not on my couch with my friends? Why can’t I be like everybody else and live a quiet life, nice and easy? Why do I need to lose myself in these mountains at the end of

MAY 2, 1800 M, SKARDU The bad weather just came back. Up above 4000m hell took over, wind gusts loaded with tiny chunks of ice to slice your face, burn your lips and double your efforts. Our timing was perfect, luck on our side. Back in Skardu, our group of

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Rider: Thomas Delfino

the world? Is it the desire for exploration? Commitment? Make it to the summit? Here we are. That’s it. That’s why the flame is still alive. When I’m at the top, I know what I feel. I reunite with a feeling I know well, but keep forgetting.

A stolen moment. We made it, boys. It’s something to be here. It’s so beautiful. I feel so good. Every time, it brings me something new. I can grasp reality. I am a fulfilled man. A satisfied mind, and it’s boiling inside of me. A great sensation.

savages rests while rain pours outside.

Deep exhaustion, muscle pain. We were alone in the mountains and now we are back, blissfully, among mankind.

YANNICK

MAY 3-14 Journals redacted. Hélias and Jannick head back out to climb Spantik, the Golden Peak, while the rest of the crew attempts to follow the Indus River across Pakistan via train and bus to the sea. In Mianwali they are turned back by the military, return to Islamabad, and end the trip with a motorbike tour through the northern hills.

MAY 15, DEPARTURE Our Pakistani journey passed like a dream out of time. It started with a picture in a book at the library: Biacherahi North Tower, a fin pointing straight at the sky. Still, it’s only one drop in the ocean of mountains out there. Walking down the Biafo, I wondered: Do I still want to do this? The glaciers, the mountains, the battles, the intense joy. Of course I want to keep going. I have only touched the tip of the iceberg, a whole universe where freeriding and mountaineering meet. A range of emotions wider than everything I have known: mountains, wild and raw.

alive and healthy. We managed to turn every situation into a solution. Going back to life in France will be interesting. I can’t wait to tell my dad about all this, leaving out the scariest details. He’s gonna make fun of my Pakistani look.

I became a better person without noticing. I learned patience, mutual aid, community life. A feeling of happiness

swallows me as I picture going home, but I already miss the freedom: autonomy, far from everyone. Dreams of this freedom will follow me for a while. Pakistan, this will not be the last time. We’ll meet again.

LÉO

THOMAS

Can you force people to become friends?

A trip like this surely can. You don’t get to choose your family; it was just like that here. We became family, packed in our tents in the storm. I love these men.

That’s it. On my motorbike on the way to the airport, dust all over my face, Pakistan all over my heart, I realized that the most important thing about traveling is who you travel with. I struggled, I froze my fingers, I saw landscapes so big I though we were the only men alive on Earth, I crushed my toes, I lost 10 kilos in three weeks, but I earned seven friends.

JÉRÔME

We ride the minibus that Tom and Jérôme flagged down to the airport. It’s early. I feel nostalgic, I want to cry and I don’t even know why. All these adventures.

The Karakoram, the best expedition of my life. I realize how lucky we are: all

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Photos (in alphabetical order): Darcy Bacha, Flo Breitenberger, Ruedi Flück, Pally Learmond, David Malacrida, Kyle Meyr, Klaus Polzer, Christoffer Sjöström, Ethan Stone, Sindy Thomas

A DECAD TEN E OF YEARS ON FREESKIING’S EUROPEAN

TEXT

DOWND FRONT A Y S

ETHAN STONE

NOT LIKE IT’S A BIG DEAL OR ANY THING… BUT WE’V E BEEN AROUND FOR TEN YEARS NOW. IT’S A LITTLE HAR D TO BELIEVE—BUT TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN , AND WE’VE HAD PLENTY OF IT OVER THE LAST DECADE IN OUR I CULTURE ACROSS PURSUIT OF FREESK ND. EUROPE, AND BEYO WE’VE PUT TOGETHER THIS NIVERSARY, IN HONOR OF OUR AN SPECIAL FEATURE TO LOOK BACK AT THE PAST DECADE: THE PEOPLE, PLACES AND MOMENTS THAT STOOD OUT AND MADE FRE ESKIING IN EUROPE WHAT IT IS TODAY. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO: WELCOME TO A D EC A D E O F DOWNDAY S. A DECADE OF DOWNDAYS

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ORIGINS

“The French were the French, the Scandis were the Scandis and there was a German-speaking scene, but there was little connection. You didn’t know what was going on. It was hard to find out when competitions were.

So the first thing we needed to do was create a platform for European communication.”

Klaus Polzer, Downdays co-founder

DOWNDAYS FOUNDERS:

Ben Burnett, Klaus Polzer, Christoph Thaler, Nico Zacek

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h, the late 2000s—they don’t seem so far away, do they? But in skiing at least, the past decade has seen a lot of change. Imagine this: it’s 2008, and Instagram doesn’t exist yet. The Freeride World Tour is in its infancy, and hasn’t yet merged with competing North American tours. Slopestyle and Big Air are rocked by new tricks called “double corks” being pioneered in contests by skiers like Jon Olsson and Jacob Wester.

Tanner Hall is still the reigning halfpipe king, Sarah Burke is the driving force of women’s freeskiing, and Candide Thovex is staging a remarkable comeback after breaking his back in 2007. Though Europe is fast catching up, the freeskiing movement is still mainly a North American party.

In Innsbruck, four friends drawn together by passion for the new energy in skiing want to make something happen.

There’s talk about starting a European event tour—but they realize that doing so also requires a Europe-wide freeski media platform, something that doesn’t exist at the time. On the 11th of November 2008 they launch Downdays.eu, a pan-European hub of freeski content published in three languages—English, German and French. Our first cheesy, yet still applicable tagline: “Skiing’s Europinion.”

The seed finds fertile soil. Shortly thereafter, the team launches Downdays TV, the Downdays DigiMag, and in December 2009, the first print issue of the Downdays Freeski Journal—the forefather of the pages you hold in your hand today. The first years of the print magazine are marked by highly creative layouts and features like glosses and page cutouts—the works of veteran German journalist and editor-in-chief Klaus Polzer finally given free reign.

Quite swiftly, the ski website with the funny name takes root and grows into something bigger than a few guys hustling out of a run-down office. Raf Regazzoni leads the push into France, telling other ski websites to “go fuck themselves.” Downdays events, shoots and trips begin to percolate out into the far corners of the Alps along with our mags and online content.

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Sean Balmer at work on a mission to capture Europe’s booming freeski scene. Photo: Klaus Polzer

“We had a long discussion on whether the name needs to have the word ‘skiing’ in it. We took the example of Pleasure, our favorite snowboard mag, and liked the idea of a unique name. Originally it came from Alaska, where you go on a ski trip and you may have a lot of ‘down days’ because the heli can’t fly. That’s when you have time to look at the website or read the magazine.

When you have time to ski, go ski. But when it’s a horrible day, read our magazine. That was the idea.”

Nico Zacek, Downdays co-founder

Downdays co-founder Nico Zacek on an urban feature in Prague, 2010. The first internationally known German freeski pro, Nico wanted to create a platform by skiers, for skiers. Photo: Klaus Polzer

“Our first office was in Pradler Strasse in Innsbruck, a cheap place with a tiny storage room that was actually a broken elevator. We soon realized our neighbors down the hall were prostitutes. We had a party one night and Sean decided to sleep on the couch in the office. He woke up with an old man sitting next to him, not wearing any pants, just sitting there with his ass in Sean’s face. The guy was dead drunk and had picked the wrong door—he’d wanted to visit the girls and got Sean instead.

The old office is full of stories. We were young and single, four skiers doing our thing.

It wasn’t business-driven. A pan-European magazine was something that snowboarding had and skiing didn’t. So we decided to create it ourselves.”

Nico Zacek

“When I accepted the job, Ben told me that they had somewhere for me to stay. It was the couch in the office. I lived there for five weeks. There was no hot water, but the shower did have a nice view of a cornfield. My income kept me grounded and life simple, but I had everything I wanted. I was filming skiing for a living.

Winter would kick off with movie tours. We would jump in the van and cruise around to the major glacier openings, then head to the city Big Airs. Zurich was always a good blend, but Budapest was the best—the Wild Wild East of Europe. The fans were super passionate, the set-ups a little sketchy and the afterparty like a scene out of The Hangover.

The hard part for me in all this was that I never went skiing for fun anymore. I felt it was better for freeskiing if I filmed it all the time, and pumped out edits. I somehow felt I had a responsibility to get the message out that dope shit was going down in Europe, and Downdays provided me with the perfect platform to do that.”

Sean Balmer, Downdays Video Manager 2010 – 2015

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The timing couldn’t be been better, as the launch of Downdays coincides with a stunning rise of freeskiing across Europe, as the new flavors out of North America begin fermenting in the traditional crucibles of alpine sports. The bounty is ripe for the harvest from all angles: untracked powder lines waiting just off the crowded pistes, snowparks springing up like mushrooms across the continent, and a new generation of European talent ready to assume the mantle of leadership in the sport.

“Downdays had the credibility and the voice in Europe. When I joined the team I had to step up my level in photography and writing really fast. We had a responsibility, I felt that. When you’re an editor you don’t just say what happens—you also give your opinion. I had to learn all these new things at once.”

David Malacrida, Downdays editor 2010 – 2016

PEOPLE E

Candide Thovex, the undisputed GOAT. Photo: Christoffer Sjöström

vents, resorts, media, ski technology—all of the above have helped shape the path of freeskiing in Europe.

But more than anything else, it’s been the people who’ve created the culture we share and who’ve filled the pages of this magazine.

Of course, we’re never going to be able to give a shoutout to everyone who’s had an influence—but we’re damn well going to give it a try. And If we’re going to name names, we might as well start at the top.

From the day Downdays started until today, one skier has dominated the airwaves like no other. In 2009 Candide Thovex was already a legend—a skiing sauvant who’d stood atop X Games Big Air, Halfpipe and Slopestyle podiums and made history on Chad’s Gap. But a back-breaking crash in 2007 at his signature event, the Candide Invitational in La Clusaz, had left many wondering if Candide’s days of dominance were over.

It turns out, he was just getting started. Candide came roaring back with the instant-classic Candide Kamera edit in 2009, charging freeride lines at incredible speed, then won the 2010 Red Bull Linecatcher in Vars with a wild run that still stands up today. He rounded off the season by winning the Freeride World Tour stop in Chamonix, then, amazingly, the overall title. Comebacks don’t come much better than that.

Since then, Candide often appeared to be laying low—only to suddenly come out of nowhere with an earth-shaking new video project, each one better than the one before. From revolutionizing point-of-view filming in One of Those Days to literally Skiing The World in his last project, it seems everything Candide does is an instant classic.

Jérémie Heitz may not enjoy the same name recognition as Candide, but his achievements in freeride have been no

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less significant. Heitz made a name for himself with speed-demon lines on the Freeride World Tour before blowing everyone’s minds with 2016’s La Liste, a maniacal sort of concept film in which Heitz and cohort Sam Anthamatten adapt high-speed freeride technique to some of the Alps’ most imposing steep faces. The consequences of La Liste are still yet to be entirely felt, mostly because very few skiers have the cojones to try to ski like Jérémie. Meanwhile, it’s rumored that a La Liste 2 is in production.

Another pioneer on the frontiers of ski-mountaineering who can’t escape mention is Andreas Fransson, who skied lines thought impossible in Chamonix and around the world, before perishing with freeski legend JP Auclair in a South American avalanche in 2014.

If there’s any other skier who could make a claim for “ruler of the decade,” Henrik Harlaut would be in the running.

The very first issue of the Downdays Journal in 2009 ran a feature story on Henrik, the 17-year-old Swedish park phenom turning heads on the international scene.

Six X Games gold medals and a dozen film segments later, Henrik is an icon— known to your mothers and fathers as “the kids whose pants fell down at the Olympics,” and within the sport as an unparalleled innovator at the top of his game.

Henrik and Phil Casabon’s three B&E Invitationals at Les Arcs set a new standard in creative snowpark design, while giving Europe its most core freeski gathering of the vibes. At the most recent one in 2016, Henrik shared the podium with Candide while the two received the week’s highest honors—a seminal moment in freeski history, one that we reported somewhat cheesily at the time as “like father, like son.”

Meanwhile, Europe’s female freeskiers were busy taking the sports to new heights as well. In 2012, Lisa Zimmermann made headlines with the first double cork 1260 in a women’s contest at the Nine Queens Big Air in Serfaus-FissLadis. “That was like ‘Yo, we got ladies here crushing it’,” remembers Downdays editor Mark von Roy. “It was a defining moment.”

“Candide is the GOAT, has been the GOAT and always will be. When you watch him ski, it’s easy to understand who he is. No one skis like he does. This guy is from another world.

Four years ago, he showed up unexpectedly at a World Cup slopestyle in Copper Mountain. He was trying to qualify for the Olympic slopestyle in Sochi. I was judging back then, and I remember how everyone in the judging booth went quiet and just watched. I never experienced that before. When you see an artist, someone important, you sit down and and you watch quietly.”

Raf Regazzoni, Downdays editor 2009 – 2012

While Lisa was stomping her groundbreaking double, a 10-year-old Kelly Sildaru was watching from the sidelines, not allowed to jump due to her age. Fast forward a few years, and the tiny Estonian phenom is now a somewhat less tiny phenom currently besting competitors twice her age at the top levels of the sport. Still only sixteen years old, Kelly is one standout in a strong field of young female freeski talent currently on the come-up in Europe.

Lisa and Kelly are just two of a major wave of new talent pushing the boundaries in women’s freestyle. Meanwhile, Sandra Lahnsteiner’s Shades of Winter

“Ten years ago, Henrik spoke only in hip-hop slang, wore grills and talked non-stop about Mick Deschenaux. All he wanted was skiing and to ski for life.”

Raf Regazzoni

Jérémie Heitz rewriting the rules of steep skiing on the Obergabelhorn, Switzerland. Photo: Tero Repo

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“I’ll always remember my first memory of Henrik. It was at the end of the LA Session in Les Arcs and all the riders were drinking or going home. Henrik was still on his skis, playing around on this tiny little bump—like a 10-centimeter transition. No one else would have even looked at it, and Henrik was using it to play. That’s how it all made sense to me. When a guy can have fun on something so small, he can become the best skier in the world, because he lives for that. He became the best because he’s the most passionate.”

David Malacrida

The B&E Invitational in Les Arcs was a true gathering of the vibes that broke new ground in snowpark design. In other words, just the right event for Phil Casabon and Henrik Harlaut. Photo: David Malacrida

women-only films have cast the spotlight on some of the biggest names in the freeride scene, like Nadine Wallner and Mathilda Rapaport (Ski In Peace).

Candide may steal the spotlight, but France has produced no lack of other incredible freeski talent. Loïc Collomb-Patton showed that if there really is something special in the water in La Clusaz, then Candide isn’t the only one drinking it. Loïc first made a name for himself as a halfpipe skier, landing on several major podiums before embarking on a radical transformation into a top freeride competitor. Ten years after narrowly missing the X Games halfpipe podium, Loïc was cradling his second overall Freeride World Tour title. He’s one of the rare breed, like Candide, to have mastered the freestyle-freeride crossover.

Speaking of Frenchmen in the halfpipe, Kevin Rolland demands mention as the king of the halfpipe in a country crazy for the sport. Kevin racked up four straight X Games gold medals in 2010 and 2011 between the Aspen and Tignes, took bronze at the 2014 Olympics, and remains one of the world’s elite pipe skiers today.

Naturally, many other individuals could and probably should be mentioned, but for the sake of leaving some room for photos, we must move on. Yet don’t fret, our journey has only just begun.

Kelly Sildaru on her way to a win at the 2016 European Freeski Open in Laax. Photo: Ethan Stone

Sandra Lahnsteiner’s Shades of Winter films have put female freeskiers, including Sandra herself, in the spotlight. Photo: Klaus Polzer

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CRE WS

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veryone knows that skiing is best with friends. And so it makes perfect sense that a few influential crews have played big roles in the freeski culture that’s appeared in our mag. Crews are the stoke incubators of the sport, where the passion is shared, and we’ve regularly dedicated pages to crews from Spain to Russia who’ve been making moves in their own scenes.

The history of the Legs of Steel crew is weirdly similar to our own: founded in 2009 in Innsbruck by four friends who got together to start something new. The combined powers of Bene Mayr, Paddy Graham, Tobi Reindl and Thomas Hlawitschka created the most high-profile film production in the German-speaking realm. LOS’s string of high-quality ski films put central Europe solidly on the

“The first time I saw Loïc, he was doing some of the first switch down-the-pipe spins at a halfpipe contest. I was blown away at the height he was getting. A few years later I heard he won the FWT and thought, ‘Wait, is that the same dude?’”

Ethan Stone

map, while giving a platform to guys like Fabio Studer and Fabian Lentsch. Some of their shoots, like the 2011 rapid-fire triple jump in Kaunertal, have been downright legendary.

On the other end of the spectrum: even though they are officially sanctioned, the Swiss Freeski Team is still a crew. Since its inception in 2009, the team has become a powerhouse to be reckoned with on the contest circuit. The Swiss investment in a well-funded program has catapulted its country’s riders into the upper echelons, from original wunderkind Elias Ambühl to the current roster of Fabian Bösch, Kai Mahler, Andri Ragettli and more. The women’s side of the team is also strong (see page 37 for proof ).

Gpsy Feelin coalesced from a group of friends shredding around Val d’Isere,

“I was always shooting with different crews.

The Life Steeze Media guys from Russia sent me a video and I wrote back and said, ‘That’s cool, what are you doing in January? Can I come shoot with you?’ On Sunday I talked with the guy, and on Tuesday I bought my flight for Russia. With The Bunch it was the same. I was interested, I wanted to see how they lived.

Working for Downdays gave me an international vision of freeskiing.”

David Malacrida

and grew into one of the most influential squads in the French-speaking scene.

Their long run of moviemaking from 2007 to 2015 brought a splash of inimitable style to the European scene, while nurturing many of the rowdiest French skiers on the slopes today (see the cover for proof ). Les Crapules was another influential French crew, with talents including the skier-filmer double-timer Etienne Mérel, who’s been behind the camera on some of the best European freeski filmmaking in recent years.

The group of mostly German migrants to Innsbruck called simply Freeski-Crew are arguably the most down-to-earth crew to ever reach international recognition.

Traveling the world with their ski gear, boundless enthusiasm and raw talent— while partying all along the way—they regularly turned their endeavours into entertaining movies that even managed to win some IF3 awards. More underground than any other crew in this listing, they never strived for fame or sponsorship money, but simply followed the pure path of skiing.

The 2011 Legs of Steel triple-jump shoot in Kaunertal went down in freeski history as one of the wildest jump segments on record. If you haven’t seen this one before, Youtube is calling. Riders: Tobi Tritscher, Fabio Studer, Lolo Favre & Toni Höllwart; Photo: Klaus Polzer

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“All the Gpsy riders were really different. Leo Taillefer had his influence, Julien Lange had an influence. As a crew they were really creative, always showing their skiing in a really particular way. They’d bring you into a new world. They were no-compromise guys, they did what they wanted.”

David Malacrida

Up in the Nordic countries, an outsize number of crews made their mark as freeski influencers. In Finland the webisode game was strong early on, as the raw energy of Nipwitz and the unbridled creativity of Real Skifi gathered international acclaim. In Norway, Field Productions grew from a core freeski crew into a heavyweight production company with mass-appeal hits like Supervention, showing that ski movies don’t need to be niche. The crew riding the private snowpark of Andreas Håtveit made mind-numbing edits as well as developing incredible young talents (see page 36).

Perhaps more than any other crew, the unlikely alliance of Swedes known as The Bunch played a pivotal role in the kind of skiing being done in parks, streets and powder around the world today.

Lucas Stål-Madison and Magnus Granér’s back-to-back Level 1 SuperUnknown wins in 2012 and 2013 heralded the ascendance of the squad’s broad palette of unique riders. They changed what skiing looks like in the eyes of the next generation.

Julien Lange and the Gpsy Feelin crew made the most of the skiers’ playground of Val D’Isere.

Photo: Fabrice Wittner

“The Bunch: that was an evolution of skiing in front of our eyes.”

David Malacrida

“Nipwitz & Real Skifi always got me super stoked. They were doing their own thing with whatever they had in front of them. They didn’t care that they didn’t have massive cliffs or epic parks, because those are just ‘nice to have.’ The only ‘need to have’ is a pair of skis.”

Sean Balmer

In 2013 Downdays editor and photographer David Malacrida headed north for Sweden to check out a crew that was—and still is—redefining what skiing can look like. Rider: Per ‘Peyben’ Hägglund

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PLAC ES L

ike a weed, freeskiing sprung up wherever a niche would sustain it, from homemade snowparks in the woods outside of town to the highest reaches of the Alps. As Europe’s ski culture adapted to the trends, destinations arose to cater to this new category of skiers. In all cases, the passion of a small group of individuals—and sometimes just one—helped tip the scales in turning these locations into the crown jewels of the scene that they are today.

It’s hard to talk about freeskiing in Europe without bringing up the name Laax. For decades, this forward-thinking resort in the Swiss Alps cultivated a dedicated freestyle community with some of the best parks and biggest events in winter freestyle sports. Until 2017, Laax’s European Freeski Open was a linchpin of the freeski scene as the biggest open event on the continent. Here, anyone

“It didn’t matter that we didn’t speak the same language or had never met before. We were freeskiers and that was cause for celebration.

Hence, the Banana Bar was born on 14 March 2008 at the afterparty of the LAAX Euro Open slopestyle. Line team manager Skye Darden and Atomic team manager Rex Thomas were at a bar, and I caught wind that they wanted to set up a little bar up on the slope. I wanted in, so I went to the little supermarket and emptied my bank account, filled two garbage bags with plastic cups and booze, and piled into the gondola. About halfway up, I spotted a pair of eyes peeping over two cases of beer—it was Skye. At that point I knew we had something epic brewing.

We got to work building the bar at the bottom of the LAAX halfpipe, a natural amphitheater where you can see all of the action and all the athletes come by. In the finals only eight guys were skiing, leaving a lot of people to watch and celebrate with you. Rex ate a banana and stuck the peel onto a ski pole, and that’s where the name came from. From there I could meet all the athletes, team managers coaches, filmers, fans and photographers. It was a social networking masterclass, because the likes were tangible.”

Sean Balmer

could try their luck against the who’swho of the sport, make friends from around Europe, and imbibe copiously at the Banana Bar. Though the EFO joined the annals of history—for now—Laax remains a central meeting point for the European scene.

With a history of freestyle dating back to the late ‘90s, Absolut Park in Flachauwinkl, Austria is a heritage destination

A young Swiss up-and-comer named Kai Mahler throws down in the Laax European Freeski Open halfpipe in 2011. Photo: Klaus Polzer

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Last year’s Spring Battle at Absolut Park was accompanied by some spring powder, but that didn’t stop riders from enjoying the park.

Riders: Morten Aulin, Quinn Wolferman, Ferdinand Dahl, Nicky Keefer; Photo: Ethan Stone

within the park community—a pillar of freeski culture in the Eastern Alps. Here it’s not just Austrians in the park, but bands of riders from all over Eastern Europe, as well as plenty of other international visitors.

Absolut Park’s Spring Battle emerged as one of the most prestigious contests in Europe, drawing hundreds of contestants for an innovative video-based contest where riders have one week to film a follow-cam of their best possible slopestyle line. Last season’s prize purse was a whopping $130,000 USD, drawing the crème de la crème of the sport to throw down in the legendary parks of the Shuttleberg.

A DECADE OF DOWNDAYS

The Italian town of Livigno is another of the Alp’s major success stories and the resort of Mottolino is at the core of that success. The area blossomed as a freeride destination with its own avalanche reporting service and at the same time, Mottolino’s excellent snowparks became a major draw, with big film shoots like Legs of Steel and the iconic Nine Knights events helping propel the resort to the forefront of the freestyle scene.

Some of the most memorable moments of the past decade went down at Mottolino—for example, Jesper Tjäder’s double backflip over a death gap at Nine Knights 2014. With its great snowparks, readily accessible backcountry and the unique perks of Livigno’s tax-free status, Mottolino is sure to make for a memorable visit for all skier types—double backflips over halfpipes strictly optional.

Many resorts built terrain parks; only a few rose to the top to join the select club of Europe’s premiere destinations. The Italian resort of Seiser Alm is one of those places. Here, the F-Tech shape team took the European tradition of exact jumpbuilding to the extreme, carving out snowparks that look and ride like works of art and draw the acclaim of riders worldwide. In particular, Seiser Alm’s World Cup slopestyle was lauded as the best on the FIS circuit. Underneath the watchful spires of the Dolomites, Seiser Alm continues to be a major center for the freeski scene in the Southern Alps.

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The Nine Knights mega-shoots brought freeskiing to Livigno in a big way, with ever more spectacular snow features growing from the slopes of Mottolino. Ben Valentin flies high over the castle in 2012. Photo: Tim Lloyd

The sculpted snowparks of Seiser Alm match the stunning spires of their Dolomite backdrop in beauty. Lisa Zimmermann enjoys the views. Photo: Klaus Polzer “The Nine Knights and Nine Queens events are definitely a highlight. Almost every year, crazy shit went down that really put Europe in the spotlight.�

Mark von Roy, Downdays editor-in-chief 2014-2016

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PLACES, E VENTS, CO NCLUSI ON “La Balme in La Clusaz—they don’t have a snowpark and they don’t need one. It’s a playground: Candide’s playground. I brought LSM and Linus Tornberg from The Bunch there when they’d never ridden powder or skied big skis before. We arrived at La Balme, and I heard ‘Hey David’ and turned around and it was Candide. Now imagine these two Swedish kids who just showed up, and they meet Candide Thovex at the bottom of the resort.

We took the gondola up with Candide’s old coach. These two kids, that was a dream come true for them. La Clusaz is like that—you go there and see the best skiers in France riding for fun, and guys you’ve never heard of just going crazy.”

David Malacrida

W

e’ve touched on a handful of the hot spots and major players in freeskiing in Europe over the past decade, but to cover everything would require—

well, ten years’ worth of magazines and online content! We didn’t talk about huge events like the X Games in Tignes and Oslo, or the iconic Jon Olsson Invitational and Super Sessions in Åre. And then of course there’s the enduring presence of the SFR Tour as Europe’s independent slopestyle circuit, the storied history of La Clusaz, and snowparks popping off in Mayrhofen, Champery, Andorra, Kläppen, Ruka and dozens of other places.

Peeps to the North, we see you: the Nordic influence has been unmistakable in the Downdays decade. Norway, Finland and Sweden are lit with activity like a damn Christmas tree. Ruka has emerged as the top breeding ground of freestyle talent in Finland, while in Sweden Kläppen developed a reputation as the park to be at. Rikgränsen remains a classic backcountry destination, while Norway’s Lofoten islands have become one of the most sought-after touring spots in Europe.

French freeski legend Seb Michaud lines up a big drop in Norway’s spectacular Lofoten Islands, a true freeriding gem. Photo: Manuel Ferrigato

A DECADE OF DOWNDAYS

“It’s always been about passion for the sport and representing it in the right way. That’s where the tagline ‘curating freeski culture’ came from. Freeskiing is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a culture, and we wanted to be a part of it on a European scale.

Looking back, we have a history of what happened in freeskiing throughout Europe that’s second to none. No one else claimed that spot, to cover Europe and touch all the bases from freeskiing to freeriding, from urban to ski ballet. How doesn’t that all fit together? With so many young kids getting into freeskiing now, it’s more important than ever to know how we got here in the first place.”

Mark von Roy

The UK’s dryslopes keep the stoke alive, even producing major talents like James Woods (see page 108). In the east, freeski culture thrives in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The Life Steeze Media crew brought street skiing to Russia, while Fabian Lentsch’s Snowmads expeditions uncovered the powder stashes of southeastern Europe. Guides whisper about the potential of Iceland, while Georgia has become a flocking point in the untapped Caucasus rage for heli-skiing and freeriding.

Where were we going with this? Ah yes: the present. It’s been a whirlwind ride, and the best part is, it isn’t over yet.

New frontiers beckon. In freestyle, the dawn of freeskiing’s Olympic era—as well as its counterpart, the world of the streets and the new wave: skiing in ways unquantifiable on a judge’s scoring sheet.

In freeride, we see equal momentum: bigger, bolder, faster lines, and always new worlds to be discovered in the melting pot of backcountry freestyle. New challenges beckon as well, as the prospect of accelerating climate change casts doubts on the future of the magical snow that makes all this possible.

For the past ten years, we’ve been here to fill your down days with the awesome stories, people, places and energy that we call freeski culture. It’s been an honor for the whole Downdays staff—passionate freeski fans every one of them—to be a part of the movement across Europe.

We’re stoked to be a part of such an amazing and inspiring community, and for what the future holds. Cheers to 10!

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Photos (in alphabetical order): Jeremy Bernard, Flo Breitenberger, Damien Deschamps, Jesus Andres Fernandez, Louis Garnier, Pascal Gombert, Klaus Polzer, Ethan Stone, Sindy Thomas, Mark von Roy

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Photo: Daniele Molineris

MARKUS EDER SOUTH TYROL’S PRODIGIOUS SON

HIGHLY RANKED YET STILL UNDER-APPRECIATED, MARKUS EDER FIRST EMERGED ON THE SCENE AS ONE OF EUROPE’S MOST TALENTED PARK RATS, NED SWIFTLY TRANSITIO CKINTO AN EXPERT BA , THEN COUNTRY ASSASSIN TRANSFORMED INTO A FULL-ON SCROGGER .

THESE DAYS, SOUTH TYROL’S MOST PRODIGIOUS SKIING SON IS

STILL MORE THAN CAPABLE OF FLOATING CASUALLY BET WEEN DIFFERENT WORLDS. HE’S THE MOST UNDERRATED EUROPE AN SKIER OF THE LAST DECADE. Movie Segments: 2011: Life Long – Aestivation 2012: In Space – JOB 2013: Satori – JOB 2014: Days of my Youth – MSP 2015: Fade to Winter – MSP 2016: Ruin and Rose – MSP 2017: Drop Everything – MSP 2018: Hoji — the Movie – MSP

Born: 30 November 1990

Home: Luttach, South Tyrol, Italy Home Mountain: Klausberg, South Tyrol

Sponsors: Völkl, The North Face, Red Bull, Smith, Marker, Dalbello, F-Tech Snowparks

Results: 2010: 2011: 2011: 2011: 2012: 2013: 2013: 2014: 2016: 2018: 2018: 2018:

1. Nine Knights Big Air 2. Red Bull Linecatcher 1. Swatch Skiers Cup 1. SFR Tour Slopestyle 1. World Heli Challenge 1. FWT Courmayeur 1. Swatch Skiers Cup 15. Olympic Slopestyle Sochi 1. Swatch Skiers Cup 2. FWT Kicking Horse 3. FWT Verbier Xtreme 2. FWT Overall Ranking

INTERVIEW

MARK VON ROY

outh Tyrol is a special place. Although they speak German, Italian and a strange mountain tongue known as Ladin, it’s definitely not a part of Austria, and it’s not really part of Italy either. It’s simply South Tyrol: a breeding ground for quite a few talented humans. The one we focus on in the following pages was born 28 years ago to a fanatical skiing couple and grew up in a small valley called Ahrntal. His father is a veteran member of the local mountain rescue, his mother a ski-touring devotee since before the pin binding was a thing. I’m talking about Markus Eder, who—naturally—first stood on skis at age three.

I first met Markus about six years ago, but only really started to get to know him in the last year. To be entirely honest, I may have developed a bit of a man-crush for Makke, as his friends call him. It started in Hakuba, Japan on the last night of the Freeride World Tour stop. Everyone was leaving the next day, and after two weeks of swimming through sweet Japow, there was finally a chance to experience a bit of Japanese culture. A random person I’d never met before insisted that I go see this band, the Seppuku Pistols, a traditional Japanese band that played punk covers. “Fuck yeah,” I thought, and proceeded to try to find a crew to join. After trying to convince anyone I barely knew to come to the gig, Markus was the only one who actually came. We weren’t really good friends yet, but after moshing, laughing and head-banging for an hour and a half, I reckon we were officially mates.

Unlike some other “professional athletes,” Makke isn’t in possession of an oversize ego, a silver spoon or an ivory tower.

Not only is he authentic and humble, he is also kind, funny and pretty damn quirky. I guess I do have a man-crush, because if I could choose to ski like anyone in world right now, it would be Markus Eder—and it’s somewhat of a mystery to me why more kids out there don’t see him as their skiing icon. Yes, Candide is the man and Henrik is a boss, no doubt. But my take is that— perhaps exactly because of the aforementioned human elements—Markus Eder is the most underrated European skier of the last decade.

I know that Markus doesn’t like talking about himself, so this interview was conducted in the basement of a bar. With the help of several rounds of beers, I was able to loosen the lips of this soft-spoken individual.

MARK VON ROY: Tell me all how it all started. How did your love affair with freeskiing develop?

MARKUS EDER: I was first on skis at three years old, and started racing quite early.

My coach was always pissed that I never did what I should be doing. I was always a bit of an oddball. When I was fourteen, I threw it all away, and I remember clearly how bad I felt about it. I had been in the ski club my whole life, and had to tell my parents that I didn’t want to do it anymore.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so I blitzed around on snowblades for a year. Back then I had no idea what the X Games were and had no idea that freeskiing existed. We just built kickers into powder without any hope of actually landing anything: just send the kicker, spin or flip as much as possible, and somehow impact into the snow. There was really only one local freeskier at our ski area back then, Fille (Philip Kaiser), who is still a really good friend of mine. He gave me my very

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first ski movie, Happy Dayz from Poor Boyz Productions. I still remember it exactly—he gave me that when our home resort closed for the season, and I watched it two or three times every day that summer. I learned everything in it by heart, and in autumn my dad had to buy me my first pair of twin tips.

What was it like growing up in Ahrntal?

It’s a small village in a small valley with a population of about 6,000, so naturally everyone knows everyone. I think people in our valley are quite humble. If someone tries to show off, he isn’t very popular. Perhaps we’re all introverted, which I definitely was, especially in the first few years I started traveling around. I was super shy, but now over time that’s not really the case anymore.

I studied to become an electrician, not necessarily because I liked it much, but because from among the paths I could choose to get time to go skiing, becoming an electrician seemed the most reasonable to me. I finished it off and worked as an electrician for three years. I specifically tried to get jobs where I didn’t have to work in the winter. The first year I had one month off, the second year two months, and the final year I got the whole winter off. Then I quit that job. I still remember clearly how some people in the company gave me shit, either straight to me or behind my back. They couldn’t understand why I was so fanatical about skiing, what kind of sport it was. Yeah—I didn’t give a shit what other people thought about it, and if they didn’t want to understand.

Did you ever plan on becoming a pro?

When I started, you couldn’t really imagine freeskiing as a career. Maybe as a North American, but it was really only just beginning there as well. In Europe there were maybe a few people making a living as freeskiers. But making a career out of it? That was never really on my mind. It developed kind of automatically.

Because I liked skiing so much, I never really thought about whether I could make a career out of it or not. It wasn’t on my mind. I had a Plan B, being an electrician, but as long as I could, I’d follow the freeskiing path.

When I was seventeen, I had no idea where I would be in ten years. I just went skiing all the time, because it had always been my biggest passion my whole life. I never thought I would get to where I am now at 27—that I would make it this far, that I could follow my dreams, and create and realize my own projects.

What did your parents think of you making skiing a career?

My dad was jumping on skis way back—I have an awesome photo of him doing a massive superman front flip—so he understood straight away, and my mother did too actually. It was still important for them that I finish something, that I have an education for the future if the ski career doesn’t work. No one in my family thought that you could make a living from it, me included. But every year it all kind of progressed a little. I got a little better and drove a little further away to a contest; got invited to a shoot here, a shoot there. And that’s how the snowball started rolling and kept getting bigger, and I hope this snowball continues to grow.

Who else do you have to thank for getting that snowball rolling?

I’m really thankful for the “Aasche Crew.” They started the snowpark back home and I got “adopted” by them, and together we made the park bigger and bigger year after year. We organized contests and were constantly driving around to other events. I think those boys left the biggest mark on me. They were all older than me, and even though they were all snowboarders except for Fille, they gave me the passion for freeskiing, gave me confidence and basically shaped me into who I am today.

Naturally there were a few role models, although I can’t say if there was one person in particular. It was more the whole scene that gave me that drive for the sport. The scene had this certain rebellion, although I didn’t exactly see myself as a rebel. I first found this special feeling through skiing, living this lifestyle that only we could really understand: no

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Spot: Tordrillo Mountains Alaska, USA / Photo: Blake Jorgenson

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What do you like most about skiing?

I really just like every aspect of skiing, from the park to street and everything offpiste. Pillow skiing, hitting backcountry booters, mini-golf, big lines, steep skiing and all of that. Last year in Georgia, I got to go on my first expedition. That experience made a huge impression on me. I have always needed this variety. Our sport has so many different elements, it never gets boring. Even these days, I’m super pumped to head up the glaciers in the summer to shred slush, rails and kickers in the snowparks. It’s such a contrast to being in the backcountry, where you need way more equipment and experience just to even be able to move around safely. In the snowpark, you just need a hoodie and your park skis. You don’t even need ski pants these days, haha. I find this contrast super exciting—all these different worlds you can explore.

Not many pros still ride everything, at least at such a high level across the board. Why do you think this is the case?

Back then, everyone did everything— everyone skied slopestyle, halfpipe and

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was in the backcountry. These days, the NATURALLY THERE WERE level in every aspect has been pushed so far that it’s not possible to be good at A FEW ROLE MODELS, everything—except for Dollo (Henrik Har- ALTHOUGH I CAN’T SAY IF laut) of course. If THERE WAS ONE PERSON IN you want to go to THE WHOLE the Olympics, you PARTICUL AR. IT WAS MORE can pretty much SCENE THAT GAVE ME THAT DRIVE FOR THE SPORT. THE SCENE forget about strapping into your powder skis, because you HAD THIS CERTAIN have to be 200% focused on that. It’s simREBELLION, ALTHOUGH I ilar with the Freeride World Tour. I think DIDN ’T EXACTLY SEE this is part of the reason why these areas have moved away from each other. But MYSELF AS A REBEL. this is also the reason why we now have so many more different sub-areas. Like the When did you realize that you could “new wave” from the likes of The Bunch—I make a career out of skiing? think what they are doing is super cool There are two moments that kickand innovative, and I wish I could learn started my career. The first was getting that stuff as well. first place at Nine Knights in 2010, when Before the Olympics, I was actually a I got there through the video contest, little worried about what will happen to and as a wildcard rookie somehow manskiing, worried that the whole competi- aged to win the event. The other was the tion scene—with FIS and all the rules— following year when I got second at Red could destroy freeskiing. But mean- Bull Linecatcher, which to this day is still while, freeskiing has developed its own the achievement I’m most proud of. At strong culture that supports and devel- first I didn’t even want to compete at ops by itself. It doesn’t matter if some- Linecatcher, because up until I got one like FIS comes along and tries to invited I had never even skied with powinfluence or change anything. I think der skis. that’s also part of the reason that freeskiDecember 2010 was insane snow, and ing has split into more different, strong that was the first time that I went shredsub-groups—the core scene is even more ding in the backcountry—still on full-camcore than before. ber, skinny park skis at first. That season

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Spot: Klausberg Ahrntal, Italy / Photo: Klaus Polzer

coaches, no authorities, just friends doing their own thing, and having a fucking great time. No need for justifying anything.

Spot: Alagna Val Sesia, Italy / Photo: Stefan Mahlknecht

was the first time I skied powder skis, and then at my first Linecatcher I managed to get second place. In the finish area after my run I actually cried because everything worked out so well. All my skiing idols were there, like Rory Bushfield, Richard Permin, Wiley Miller, JP Auclair, Sage Cattabriga and Sean Pettit, who won that year. Back then I was still too shy to say anything at all, and when I did say something, it was total bullshit. I was really nervous to all of a sudden be surrounded by all these idols of mine.

The feeling I got from landing that run at Linecatcher—I had never experienced that before, and I don’t think I will again any time soon. It was comparable to winning Nine Knights, but at Linecatcher it was even more intense. Even this year, after the butter at the Verbier Freeride World Tour stop and ending second overall—I was super stoked, but I think I could have done better. At Linecatcher I knew that I had gone beyond my limits. I’m a much better skier now, but that run would still get me super stoked today. It was like a whole new world had opened up to me. Suddenly it wasn’t just park, street skiing and slopestyle contests. In this moment, I got a peek at a different world and everything changed. I think

MARKUS EDER

this was the moment that my career really started.

That’s when you started filming with Matchstick Productions, making waves on the international scene and competing on the FWT. How was the transition to the Tour?

I think I underestimated the FWT quite a bit my first year. I had a few years of powder skiing under my belt, and had done well in a few contests. I thought it would be easy actually—competing doesn’t look really look that difficult, but it is! In particular, technical skiing on tracked terrain or variable snow was something that I wasn’t good at in the beginning, because at that point I only skied powder when the conditions were good. I was still doing slopestyle contests at the time, on the path to qualify for Sochi. Even if I was always skeptical about FIS, it was a big goal to compete at the first Olympics of our sport.

Last season, after a year of no competitions at all and just filming with MSP, was the first time I really started to work on my ski technique, shredding hard even when the snow is shitty and everything is tracked. Now I totally dig that. It’s amazing how good it feels to go

fast down tracked terrain and still have everything under control, top-to-bottom runs without stopping. I think that really helped me last season.

It seems like you are continuously trying to push yourself on multiple fronts. Do you ever get scared?

That’s probably the question I get asked the most. Yes, I do get scared, sometimes a lot. Like Hoji (Eric Hjorleifson) says: “If you’re not scared, it won’t make the movie.” It’s fear, but I rather see it as respect. If you do something big or learn something new, the fear helps to analyze every detail. And that’s the fun part about it: learning and overcoming the fear with skill.

What comes to mind from last season is the massive triple flatspin on a backcountry booter, and the nose butter 360 on the Bec Des Rosses during the final stop of the FWT. How did those two compare?

The kicker for the triple flatspin was just perfect. I had it spooking around in my mind for a while, and I guess I was quite scared then—but I knew that this was my chance and that I could do it. In Verbier, I wasn’t scared so much of the

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Spot: Munich, Germany / Photo: Klaus Polzer

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Spot: Whistler, Canada / Photo: Blake Jorgenson

Spot: Mestia, Georgia / Photo: Tero Repo

nose butter itself, because it didn’t have too much consequence. It was at the end of the run and if I’d fallen, I would have just landed in some powder. But the rest of the run was pretty damn scary. At the top, I was the only one who entered into this part of the face. Sam Lee entered exactly where I initially thought of going and avalanched that section out, so I had to switch to Plan B, which was the only other way to get to that one cliff I wanted to hit. Getting there was super steep and technical—if I’d fallen there I would have fallen all the way to the bottom. Luckily nobody else went there and I had really good snow, which made things better to deal with. That top section really scared the shit out of me far more than the nose butter 360. Now that I think about it, the feeling I got from that run in Verbier comes pretty close to the feeling from Linecatcher all those years ago.

What are your big goals in the next few years? What lies in the future for Markus Eder? Freeride World Tour overall champion?

That’s pretty high up on my list. Winning the FWT has been my dream for a while now. However, the level last year was pretty damn high and kept on getting higher, and I think next season will be even tougher. I reckon you can be pretty proud if you manage to make it to the top. How the rest will continue is hard to tell—we can talk about that for the twenty-year anniversary issue, haha.

But my goal is definitely to stay active over the next ten years. I want to continue to be on skis as much as possible, and the ultimate goal is to still be super stoked on skiing when I’m 50 years old, and still be able to throw a good old backflip here or there.

You are pretty tight-lipped when it comes to expressing your opinions.

Tell me how you really feel! What annoys you?

Ha! Okay, FIS annoys me. The mentality with which they approach our sport annoys me. It annoys me that the competitions are so damn stale: no creativity in format or judging whatsoever. It annoys me that kids these days only have a chance to make it if they go through all the bullshit, competitions and national teams. The sport has grown, but back then everyone knew everyone, everyone hung out with everyone, and you could travel the world with people from loads of different countries. Now it seems like it’s almost all constricted to national teams. It annoys me that the kids have to do everything that the federation tells them to, it kills their individuality. This isn’t the case for all national teams, but

MARKUS EDER

it’s definitely the case for most of them, including the Italian national team.

I guess the good thing about it is that the sport has become more understandable to more people. It’s broadcasted to the mainstream, and maybe some people discover freeskiing because they watch the Olympics, and then they discover all the other directions. And I feel that because contests have become more mainstream, that all the other aspects, like new wave, have become even more core.

run. I really respect that he was even able to motivate himself to get back up again.

It’s been claimed quite often that freeskiing has reached a limit—back when the first switch 1080s were thrown, that was “the limit,” and now we’ve reached quads. But in the halfpipe, I think we are really close to the limit. But I’m open to being proved wrong.

AT THE TOP, I WAS THE ONLY ONE

What do you WHO ENTERED INTO THIS PART OF think of halfpipe contests?

THE FACE. SAM LEE ENTERED Of all the differ- EXACTLY WHERE I INITIALLY THOUGHT ent aspects of freeskiing, half- OF GOING AND AVALANCHED THAT pipe is the only SECTION OUT, SO I HAD TO SWITCH TO thing I never really PL AN B, WHICH WAS THE did. It’s so damn ONLY OTHER WAY TO GET dangerous, in my TO TH AT ON E CLIFF I opinion. I love watching it, but it’s the only WANTED TO HIT. GETTING THERE thing that I never really felt the drive to do. For it to be a WAS SUPER STEEP AND

TECHNICAL—IF I’D FALLEN THERE I WOULD HAVE FALLEN ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM.

good pipe, it has to be icy, and the tiniest mistake will have you crashing on the coping or going all the way to the bottom of the transition. There are five to ten riders that are super good, basically in their own league, and the rest are not even close. That doesn’t exist in slopestyle, where there are about 50 skiers competing on the highest level, with not much gap between them. Pretty much everyone who focuses on pipe also has issues with injury—for example, Kevin Rolland was basically limping out of the pipe in Pyeongchang on every

What feedback would you give the FWT judging system?

Gosh, you’re making me feel like a hater today. But let’s roll with it this time.

I would like to see lines with difficult or big tricks, that don’t have massive consequences, being rewarded more than a straight air off a mega-cliff in a no-fall zone where you can die if you don’t stick it. It feels like these kamikaze moves are still highly rewarded. I don’t know if this will change, but I hope it will—especially for the riders on the qualifier tour. The organization has to ask themselves if risk,

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Haha, alright, we can finish the interview. But let’s have another beer… and win or die—or get seriously injured— are the right messages to bring across. We can still progress on the level of tricks I think, but not on the level of danger.

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Photo: Blake Jorgenson

What advice do you have that isn’t communicated enough for people adventuring in the backcountry?

A few years ago I started to do some mountaineering and ski touring, and I really discovered a whole different aspect of the mountains that I didn’t know before. The more you experience different situations on a mountain, the more you learn and can judge different scenarios. I was lucky to learn from experienced people who passed on their knowledge; I think I’ve learned the most while filming with MSP and skiing with Sam Anthamatten.

You shouldn’t just go out and put yourself in difficult situations right away, but rather slowly build on what you know.

Take avalanche courses and go out with experienced people you can trust. When you travel anywhere new, the first thing

to do is study the past conditions: was there ever any avalanche danger? Has this situation ever relaxed? How warm YOU SHOULDN’T JUST GO OUT AND PUT or cold was it? What YOURSELF IN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS temperature shifts occurred? RIGHT AWAY, BUT RA THER Was it windy? You need to talk to locals SLOWLY BUILD ON WHAT who know the area, and get a general feeling for the situation.

YOU KNOW. TAKE ND GO It’s difficult to say “follow COURSES A E H C N A L these steps;” it’s rather a quesA V PLE A IENCED PEO R E P X E tion of a feeling and gathering H IT OUT W information. I have often been very cautious. While other YOU CAN TRUST. people would just throw themselves down a face, I would wait with my crew, watch for a while, and often even turn around. My motto is: you will always find something fun to shred. You don’t always have to ride the sickest or steepest line.

You can find super fun things right next to the piste, a fun hit here, a little jib there, or shred what’s already tracked. Or just find a snowpark. I don’t want to put pressure on myself to go into the backcountry. It has to be right.

Spot: Mestia, Georgia / Photo: Tero Repo

Right on brother. Okay, final question: What is the meaning of life?

To me the meaning of life is to find out what you really love. Once you find it, you automatically do everything to keep it. Success to me shouldn’t be measured in how much you earn, but rather in your own happiness. Damn, the beer is starting to go to my head now.

Spot: Secret Spot, Nomansland / Photo: Tero Repo

What else have you learned over the years as a professional skier?

I learned to appreciate a lot of things.

Through all the travels you get to see an unbelievable variety of different cultural aspects. Affluence, poverty, and all the privilege that we have living in Europe— I’ve really learned to be thankful for that.

A small example: I hear people complaining that skiing is getting more and more expensive here in the Alps. That may be true, and that isn’t good, but in Europe it’s still far cheaper to go skiing compared to most other places in the world, where it’s just a sport for rich people. A day ticket here costs about €50, but in the USA, Australia or Canada, you’re looking at about $150. The ski areas here are much bigger—you can get almost up to 4,000 m, to amazing zones without needing a heli or walking forever. I’ve come to appreciate what we have here at home. And not just in relation to skiing; generally, we are privileged here. Most people can afford to educate themselves...

MARKUS EDER

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Skier: Markus Fรถhr / Spot: Espoo, Finland

FINNISH

NIGHTS

NO SUNLIGH

T? NO PROBLEM. THE NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME TO A RIDE THE STREETS OF FINLAND, PL ACE

TEXT & PHOTOS

STEPHAN SUTTON

WHERE URBAN SKI DREAMS THRIVE.

FEATURE

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NIGHTS FIN

FINNISH

In the dark winter nights of Finland, generators hum, winches whine and flashes pop. No mountains, no problem—the icy streets are good to go for neighborhood kids and visiting pros alike.

Photographer Stephan Sutton was born and raised in Helsinki, and rode the streets with his friends until injuries led him to pursue photography instead. Now Stephan spends the long subarctic nights capturing images of local riders and out-of-town crews on their nocturnal prowls.

FINNISH NIGHTS

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The main reason why people come to Finland to ride urban is the amount of spots that cities like Helsinki have to offer, as well as the more laid-back and accepting attitude you get from passersby and the police. Sure, you might get a few complaints and sure, the police may come talk to you. But with the right attitude you’re not going to get into any trouble, and quite often you’re allowed to carry on riding and filming. When it comes to finding spots, there are so many to choose from that the real trouble is picking what you actually want to hit.

FEATURE

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NISH NIGHTS F Skier: Will Wesson / Spot: Espoo, Finland

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FINNISH NIGHTS

Skier: Lauri Kivari / Spot: Oulu, Finland

NISH NIGH

Shooting at night is normal here because we don't get much sunlight, if any, during winter.

Flashes and lighting equipment are a must, which can make shooting a lot more complicated and time-consuming. I wouldn't say it pushes you to be creative, since you can be creative doing anything. But it does push you to learn how to use external lighting and control the exposure by yourself, which opens doors to being creative in new ways.

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On the night we decided to hit this spot, the weather went from +3°C and raining to around -13°C and clear skies, so everything turned to ice. This made it really difficult to build anything, and with three riders wanting to hit the spot, everything took much longer than expected. Times like these can make you question what you’re doing and why you’re even trying. Let’s just say that not everyone involved left this spot in a good mood, even though every rider got a shot and no one was injured.

FINNISH NIGHTS

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FIN

For Finnish riders, hitting urban is something you just kind of grow up doing. I remember as a kid, if we couldn’t get a ride to our local mountain, we'd just go hit an urban spot somewhere close by, or build something in someone’s backyard. We don't have mountains and deep powder, and in the south we’re stuck with ski resorts with an average height of 60 meters. That’s probably why Finland doesn’t have many skiers who kill it in the backcountry or riding powder, but a lot of guys who are great at rails and in the park.

FEATURE

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S FINNISH NIG

This was one of the first spots I turned up to when Antti was shooting for his X Games Real Ski part. He actually wanted to hit the rail on the other side, but it was full of skate stoppers. Pontus Penttilä wanted to do his thing on this rail, so we set up and started shooting. Antti decided to have a couple tries, and we ended up with this shot. Eventually we went back with an angle grinder, cut off all those stoppers and had a session on the other rail as well.

Skier: Antti Ollila / Spot: Oulu, Finland

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I

t’s snowing. Hard. Downed logs and small bumps transform slowly into fluffy pillows. In front of you lies one of many steep lines plunging through a well-spaced forest. The only tracks are those of you and your friends from the last run, where you went a bit farther to the right side. You drop in on the left, and are instantly immersed in fluffy, untouched powder…

This is a dream, one that seems to come true less and less often these days.

It’s not just that the number of people freeriding have swelled in the past decades. It’s also the power of Internet research, not to mention the ever-flowing social-media stream, which have clued in enough hungry powder-seekers to all the once-secret spots that in order to get first tracks, you need to either get up really early, or hike out really far.

Sometimes both.

I remember one example in Switzerland a few years ago: a lone ski lift on a

pass, half a meter of fresh snow and an empty parking lot. It seemed we’d hit the jackpot. But as we returned to the lift after our first run, a bus in the lot began disgorging a swarm of helmeted Italians, all armed with fat powder skis. And it was mid-week! The liftie said it was happening more and more often. Two hours later, the last remaining patches of untracked were gone.

Does this mean the dream is dead?

Not quite. Luckily, I can think of more than enough counter-examples of still-untouched hidden stashes. Not just out somewhere on the edge of the map either, but right in the middle of wellknown ski areas—even ones that are known as freeride hotspots. Two years ago, we were on a freestyle shoot in Saalbach. Since it was snowing so hard that we couldn’t get enough speed for any of our features, we took the day off. Meanwhile, the Freeride World Tour was also in town in Skicircus Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Fieberbrunn; in other words, not optimal timing for hunters of deep powder. Even so, we still found a tremendous playground, simply by cutting across the ski-school grounds at the top station and heading for a ravine behind it. No one besides us had noticed this little patch of

HIDDEN GEMS

terrain, and so we spent the day carving our signatures into our own private winter wonderland. At the bottom, a quick traverse to the road brought us swiftly back to the lift for the next lap without difficulty.

As we heard from several friends afterwards, we weren’t the only ones finding their own private stashes in an overlooked corner of the mega-resort that day. Since then, I’ve regularly found peace and powder in unexpected corners of the valleys between Saalbach and Fieberbrunn, just the same as in many other well-known resorts. Yes, they’re still out there: the secret spots where dreams come true. You just have to know where to look for them. That works best, by the way, with a topographic map and the right skill set. Many untracked spots stay that way for a reason and may lead to a dead end, making things not just difficult, but dangerous. So keep your eyes open out there on your quest for the next hidden gem.

TEXT & PHOTO

KLAUS POLZER

FRESH POWDER, AND NO ONE RIDING IT? DOES THAT EVEN STILL EXIST?

Skier: Mark von Roy / Spot: Saalbach, Austria

STASH

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EVENT

Skier: Sophie Lechasseur

GIRL

POWER

TEXT & PHOTOS

KLAUS POLZER

AT THE TENTH EDITION OF THE FILM AND PHOTO CONTEST CLICK ON THE MOUNTAIN, A TEAM OF FEMALE-ONLY ATHLETES JOINED THE FRAY FOR THE FIRST TIME. ENTS CHASSEUR BRAVED THE ELEM LE IE PH SO D AN GO NE MO GIULIA TO SHOW OFF THEIR SKILLS AND LEAVE THEIR MALE COMPETITORS IN THE DUST.

W

omen have never had it easy in the ski world. While FIS contests and the Freeride World Tour have recently been able to celebrate at least a modicum of equality, men still stand prominently in the foreground at important invitational events, and almost always play the lead roles in the big film productions. Whether it’s due to the unavoidably smaller field of candidates that women often aren’t the first pick at film and photo contests, or if other motives play a role, is hard to say. Be that as it may, it will probably surprise no one to learn that in a decade of the Click On The Mountain contest in Courmayeur, no women have participated—until last season.

When I heard from the organizers about the planned jubilee edition of COTM, I was even more excited to enter the contest with a team of female athletes. Actually, really doing it properly would also mean filling the positions of filmer and photographer with women as well; but since they are possibly even less represented in the ranks of actionsports filmers and photographers than they are as athletes, the organizers were looking to find a working team for two female skiers. Without thinking twice, I said yes. The skiers were Giulia Monego, a standout freerider from Italy, and Sophie Lechasseur, a Canadian transplant to the mountains of France. Giulia is from Cortina d’Ampezzo, and has spent most of her career—which includes successful appearances on the Freeride World Tour—in Verbier, and currently lives in Chamonix. Sophie, who has a lot

GIRL POWER

of experience as an action model and in steep skiing descents, is married to French freeski star Enak Gavaggio, and lives with him in his home of Les Arcs.

Florian Albert from Innsbruck, who I’d worked with before, completed the team as our filmer.

Naturally, we conceived a plan of how we would be successful at the tenth edition of Click On The Mountain. Our task was as follows: in four days, shoot photos around Courmayeur for four different categories, and also produce a longer video clip and a shorter Instagram video. The resulting to-do list was based on the alpine competencies of our athletes, as well as Giulia’s valuable local

knowledge. One of our plans was to ascend to an alpine hut, so that we could catch the best light at sunrise and sunset on some interesting lines. But as is often the case, the weather threw a wrench into our well-laid plans. It had snowed before the contest, but then temperatures got so warm that the snow conditions, even well above the tree line, had taken on some remarkably unpleasant qualities. Adding to the challenges, a layer of heavy clouds on the first day made it impossible for us to do any shooting in open terrain.

The second day greeted us with sunshine, albeit with a storm visibly brewing behind the rows of peaks. Giulia

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EVENT

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Skier: Sophie Lechasseur (Best Lifestyle Photo @ COTM 2018) Skier: Giulia Monego

and Sophie discovered a spectacular line that they wanted to ski, but which had a challenging entry. Flo and I were able to shoot from the opposing slope, and quickly found our position; but then we had to wait a long time for our ski protagonists, because the storm was interfering with operation of the gondolas at the ski area. Just as the light was threatening to dwindle and disappear from the side of the mountain, Giulia and Sophie appeared at the top of the line. We got lucky, or at least so we thought—until Giulia dropped in first, and the whole slope ripped out in a single slab. The storm had evidently turned the mountain into a minefield.

Thankfully Giulia and Sophie escaped unharmed, but the whole effort had been for nothing.

After a day and a half, we still had barely any useable material. Given the circumstances, we gave up on our plan to stay at the hut, and replaced it instead with an afternoon mission heading out from the ski area to get some sunset action, then finishing with some flash photography on the way back down to the valley. Once again, nothing came of our best-laid plans. At three o’clock the clouds rolled in again, killing the light.

As we started out into the backcountry after catching the last gondola to at least try doing something with artificial light, we became witnesses to the avalanche accident of another ski group. The small slab avalanche hadn’t buried the skier, but he had injured his leg in the tumult, and couldn’t move. A mountain-guide candidate, Giulia rushed in to help, and once again we couldn’t be productive.

Since a substantial storm was still blowing through, the helicopter had a lot of difficulty even getting to the injured skier. With daylight dwindling, the operation was finally completed thanks to some skillful maneuvering by the pilot; but our motivation for continuing to shoot was gone, and we rode back down into the valley empty-handed.

Our hopes now fell on Day 3, where Click On The Mountain’s traditional heli drop-off stood on the program. Each team would be dropped off via helicopter on a different peak, exploring the backcountry from there under their own power. We got lucky, and were given the drop-off spot that we preferred, where several steep lines would play into our hands. Nevertheless, the avalanche risk was still considerable, and we had to operate with the necessary precaution.

Secured by a rope, Giulia worked her way slowly to her planned entry point on the first line…*whummps*! Again, the whole slope ripped out in a white, frothy inferno. There was nothing to be done—

GIRL POWER

we had to move to tamer terrain. To make matters worse, at exactly this moment the helicopter dropped off another team in our zone, after they’d been unable to land at the location originally intended for them. This gave us some competition, with already limited possibilities to work with. But after the other group kicked off another slab on their first run, they headed off down the slope unnerved, and we had the mountain to ourselves again.

Giulia and Sophie were not easily discouraged. From our drop-off point, we put on skins and toured up to a bowl that wasn’t so steep, and offered great lighting conditions. From the rider’s point of view, it probably wasn’t the most fun thing ever to generate enough action on

Our Click On the Mountain experience concluded with the evening closing gala and award ceremony in Courmayeur’s central conference center.

Everyone was in suspense, waiting to see what the other participants, of whom we hadn’t seen much over the past four days, had managed to accomplish, and how the members of the jury had rewarded our efforts. In addition to us, there was an Italian team with the snowboarders Simon Gruber and Marco Grigis, a French team with the skiers Julien Eustache and Nathan Gaidet, and the Swedish skiers William Larsson and Erik Lundmark, all in the running.

Despite the challenging conditions of the last days, all of the group submissions were worthy, but two teams

The team at the Click On The Mountain: filmer Flo, Giulia, Sophie, mountain guide Alex and the author.

relatively unspectacular descents. The timing was crucial, which sometimes meant long periods of waiting, followed by hectic scrambles to get into position.

But the girls worked hard, and at the end both Flo and I were very happy with the result. It was dusk by the time we got back to the valley floor.

The final day of the event again offered us gray skies, which when combined with the modest snow quality, didn’t leave us with all that many options. We headed out onto the mountain anyway to get some lifestyle shots for the film clip, and eventually landed upon a hidden pillow field, where Sophie and Giulia were able to open up the throttle. Despite a landing that was barely there, both stomped fat backflips.

ended up splitting up the prizes between them. Team Sweden with photographer Adam Klingelteg and filmer Sebastian Oden Sandblad won the award for “Best Video” with a very creative clip, as well as “Best Action” and “Best Street” in the photo categories.

Meanwhile, our hard work paid off with the award for the best Instagram clip, and the “Best Lifestyle” and “Best Use of Light” photo honors—the latter of which was also selected as “Best Photo” of the whole event.

We were surprised and overjoyed to have done so well in the contest, but more than anything it was a true pleasure to be able to work together with two such talented, enthusiastic, charming and most of all dedicated athletes over four days of shooting. Thank you Giulia, thank you Sophie! I hope that in the

ing for Flo and I; after all we needed to hand in our submissions first thing the next morning.

such occasions.

THE STORM HAD We spent the rest of the EVIDENTLY TURNED THE MOUNTAIN day down in town in Courma- INTO A future, more g irls and yeur with some more lifestyle shots, women get the chance to MINEFIELD followed up with a late night of editprove their mettle at .

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TYPE

TEXT

ETHAN STONE

FUN PHOTO

KLAUS POLZER

UNPLEASANT

I

KNOWING THE FUN U S YO P E E KE L A C SLOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SID E, EVEN ON OUTINGS.

t ain’t always cupcakes and roses. Sometimes things don’t work out the way you planned. Halfway through your ski tour, the weather closes in and your planned

way, way more strenuous than you thought. Probably shouldn’t have packed that six-pack of brews. Congratulations: You’re experiencing Type 2 fun.

run turns into a precarious ordeal, picking your way down slowly through whiteout. You’re skiing sidecountry, take a wrong turn, and spend the next few hours hiking through elephant snot out of a ravine. Maybe you’ve spent all day hitting a street spot, coming ever so close to the end of the rail, only to come off early, every, single, time. Or you’re out on a multi-day hut trip, and come to realize with a drop of your gut, that today’s leg is going to be way, way longer and

The Urban Dictionary defines Type 2 fun as “an activity that’s fun only after you stop doing it.” Another article defines it as “miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect.” For the Downdays definition, a simple practical analogy will suffice: the experience itself may have not have been fun while it was happening, but you will still have a good story to tell at the bar afterwards.

The concept of Type 2 fun exists because, like I said before, it ain’t always

SPRAY

peaches and cream. Passionate skiers aren’t going to have a good time, all the time and every time they go out. It’s the nature of the game: the mountains are fickle, and we’re putty in their hands.

You will be turned back, whimpering and broken, from some of your goals. Bindings will break, skins will slip, slopes will be iced, routes impassable, bootpacks deep and taxing, lines unskiable and tricks unstompable.

Understanding Type 2 fun allows us to make the most out of these situations. Sure, you didn’t ski the greatest line out there in that blizzard—but still, you were out there, weren’t you? Sure, you just spent five hours bushwhacking out of that dead-end line—but you still skied it, right? Sure, you rag-dolled all the way down that landing—but at least you tried the trick. Sure, your muscles are screaming in anguish after that 2000-meter ascent—but you did it, you made it up that goddamn mountain, and you’re now drinking a brew that

was way too heavy on the way up. The soothing balm of Type 2 fun will quickly assuage the pain. “Dude, you really did that?” your friends will ask incredulously. “Yeah,” you’ll reply with just a hint of pride. It was definitely a Type 2 fun kind of scenario.

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PORTRAIT

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WOODS

IN HIS OW N WOR DS:

Spot: Kimbo Session @ Kläppen, Sweden / Photo: Ethan Stone

JAMES

THROUGHOUT A CAREER THAT’S TAKEN HIM FROM THE DRYSLOPES OF HIS SHEFFIELD, UK HOME TO MULTIPLE OLYMPIC, X GAMES, DEW TOUR AND WORLD CUP FINALS, JAMES WOODS HAS SLOWLY BUT SURELY ESTABLISHED HIS PLACE AS ONE OF THE MOST PERSISTENT, TALENTED AND LIKABLE SKIERS ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE. NOW GROWN OUT OF THE SKRILLEX HALF-SHAVE LOOK AND ACCOMPANYING PUNK ATTITUDE , THESE DAYS WOODSY IS A SEASONED PROFESSIONAL— MORE THOUGHTFUL, BUT STILL AS DRIVEN AND GENUINE AS EVER. WITH AN INFECTIOUS PASSION FOR SKIING AND AN UNRELENTING DRIVE FOR SUCCESS, THE MAN WHO PREACHES FREESKIING’S TRUE ESSENCE AS “THE SIMPLE AC TEXT T OF TWEAKING TORI BEATTIE A MUTE GRAB” HAS PLENTY OF WISDOM TO SHARE. ORIGINS.

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hen I grew up it was incredible— you could be a professional skier or snowboarder and not leave the UK. We had magazines, we had movies. I idolized so many people from Great Britain that you’d have never heard of, and they were so sick. Obviously we idolized the guys at the international level too, but this was so close to home. In a sense the mountains were unrelatable, because I had no money and I couldn’t go there. That’s

why I struggled watching ski movies, because it was like: “I hate these people for having this opportunity, I could do that if I was there!” I was just so jealous.

I couldn’t even sit through a ski movie.

There was never a transition, it was just passion. The transition was: I’m leaving home. I didn’t like the town I grew up in. I hated it, and I was going to leave anyway. I would’ve done anything, you know? There was no way I was going to end up there. So I left in a caravan with all my mates and went to mainland Europe and bummed around, and that’s when I found competing as a viable way to get around.

Photo: Danny Warley

COMPETITION.

Born: 19 January 1992 in Sheffield, UK Currently residing: Nomad, home is where my boots dry

Hobbies: Surfing, skydiving Sponsors: Monster Energy, Salomon, Planks Clothing, SunGod, BawBags Underwear

JAMES WOODS

I always wanted to be a skier. But it wasn’t until I left home and was running around, and money just didn’t exist—I had NO money—when I realized that competing was the only way that I could get it. Competing became so huge for me because of that. I was running around Europe, and that was the mission really.

It’s a funny mission, because obviously money shouldn’t really be your drive; but when you’ve got no money at all, it’s a basic drive. And it was quite cool. I was like, “Well I’m doing this, and I’m quite good at it, and I’m earning money from it.” That’s how it all started.

I never want to stop competing. I’ve always wanted to be the best that I can be, in any situation. I love it. And there’s never been a better time to be competing, because we went through so much crap with FIS, and now the World Cups

are some of the best [contests] out. Like, they’re brilliant. We’ve got people on our side, there’s so much opportunity from national teams coming in, and it’s a whole different world.

LONGEVITY. Things became a challenge overnight once I wasn’t a kid anymore. There was a big change in my mindset from when I was obsessed with skiing, desperate, and just so hungry. I realized that skiing is my job now, and it’s OK sometimes to not enjoy the day. It was like: “OK, I don’t want to be up here today because it’s blowing a gale, but this is the only way that I’m going to qualify for X Games.” Or I need to take a picture, or whatever.

That was a huge realization—that it’s OK to have a crappy day. The next realization was that I’m not that underdog that everyone can get behind anymore—I have to live up to myself. Like, I earned my right to be here, and now I have to live up to that, and ski well, and take it on the chin when things don’t go my way.

And I realized that people are going to be better than me at different things, and that I’m going to be good at what I do.

FOURTH PLACE.

[Woodsy’s taken fourth place in many an X Games slopestyle, and added another major fourth at the 2018 Olympic slopestyle.]

When I think back with my rational brain, I’m incredibly proud to come in fourth. I compete because I love competing and pushing myself to the next level, but what hurts is knowing that you could

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Kimbo Sessions at Kläppen, Sweden is an annual gathering of freeskiing's brightest stars. In other words, the perfect place for Woodsy to be. Photo: Ethan Stone

PROGRESSION.

SOCIAL MEDIA.

All of us, myself included, are past it. It’s not for us to say what’s coming next. I’ll keep hanging on for as long as I can, but I’m past it because I didn’t grow up seeing these things as possible, and now these kids are. It’s our responsibility to go beyond. Human progression is the sickest shit out, and if we start getting all philosophical and thinking we’re in the right, just because we’re good at this at the moment, it’s like saying, “Ah no, we shouldn’t go to space, because we don’t need to.” I mean, we all know what style is, and what we’re looking for. And that’s the thing that stays true. Like, there is nothing to stop a triple cork looking

It’s changed the game from the professional side of things, absolutely. There are good and bad sides. For me personally, competitions aren’t the be-all and end-all.

You can definitely be a social media star and go a long way with it. I think we’re all still figuring out the balance. We’re figuring out what’s cool, what’s kosher and what’s not, and what we want to see. I personally want to invest more of my time in the social media side of things, not for being famous, but just because I want to portray what I’m doing in the best way possible. I’ve got a sick life, and I know people are going to want to follow it, but the medium is something I’ve got to figure out. I would like to make some more videos, and I think it’s up to me to drop in with it, rather than expect things to be a handout. It’s time for me to reassess everything and give people more than just the fizzy 16-year-old version of me—give them the slightly more mature 26-year-old version of me, and see how they like it.

That’s where I want to go.

4TH PL

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[freeskiing] might go down the route of aerials, and I’d be really sad if in twenty years’ time it was this boring sport that I don’t like. But that will just be one tiny part of our bigger sport, and people are still going to go skiing and they’re going to love it. For the most part, everybody who’s upset about it, there’s nothing to stop you from going out and doing a 180 mute grab. There’s nothing stopping you from going out and doing those turns you want to do. Don’t follow the Olympics if you don’t want to see that type of skiing!

E

know? And when I think about it like that, I don’t care [about not winning]. I don’t give two shits.

The fourth place thing is funny.

Everyone treats it a little differently.

There are people who came before me who were incredible, and never got the wins. I’m in a fortunate position because I do have those wins, you know what I mean? I’ve got a lot of cool titles to my name, and because I’m fun and happy and that sort of thing, it’s OK to joke about it. But fuck, it does sting.

E

F COOL I’VE GOT A LOT O TITLES TO MY NAME, AND BECAUSE I’M FUN HAPPY AND THAT SORT OF THING, because we were AND IT’S OK TO absolutely insane. successful as a collective, we’ve JOKE ABOU T IT. I mean, shit, been invited into this world again.” You

C

win. That’s what hurts. In this sport, this whole thing that we do, you can’t aim to win, because in my opinion it’s a beautiful mixture of art and science, and there’s no way to formulate winning, you know?

It’s a feeling more than anything. So it stings not to win, when you could. That’s what stings.

Particularly with the Olympics, when I get upset that I didn’t win, I think, “Hang on a second. The reason I’m here, the reason I’m doing this and the reason I’ve found myself in this life, is that I was running away from all the nerds who cared about money and accolades and the likes of the Olympics. They drove me away and into this life, and then just

TEXT

MARK VON ROY PHOTO

KLAUS POLZER SKIER

BENE MAYR SPOT

STELVIO PASS, ITALY

I

n retrospect, this project was possibly a bit of a stupid idea. Don’t get me wrong, it was great in theory; but when it came down to actually building this behemoth line, then trying to ski it, almost everyone involved felt that maybe we’d bitten off a little more than we could chew.

This sequence—consisting of almost 80 photos carefully stitched together— doesn’t even show the half of the full line.

In total, the run included over 20 features with a grand total of 12 road gaps, (some of which had landings consisting of dirt and rocks), dropped over 500 vertical meters, and basically, was a total bitch to ski; full of consequences that no one wanted to think about for too long.

After over a year of planning, a team of nearly 20 shapers spent countless man-hours building the line, only for the sun and rain to destroy almost everything two weeks before the shoot was planned.

As our dreams melted away, we moved everything up a week so that Bene Mayr and Markus Eder could throw their carcasses down the sketchiest line I’ve ever seen. It was definitely a touch-and-go scenario…

See the results of our questionable decisions at redbull.com for the full Stelvio Road Gaps edit and behind-the-scenes footage.

OUTRO

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STELVIO PASS ROAD GAPS

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DON’T LET FRIENDS

DROP IN ALONE

BECAUSE FRIENDS

*DISCLAIMER: IT’S ACTUALLY NOT ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO DROP IN TOGETHER. CONSIDER SNOW STABILITY FIRST BEFORE THROWING YOUR OWN PILLOW PARTY!

MARKUS EDER

SKIERS

ROB HEULE

FELIX WIEMERS

PHOTO

SPOT

ALEX MELISS

APRÈS

GOLDEN BC, CANADA 114

36 RIDERS | 2I CAMERAS | 2 LOCATIONS | I EVENT

[O] KLAUS POLZER

TO THE FUTURE OBERGURGL HOCHGURGL / NIGHTSHOW

SÖLDEN / PUBLIC CONTEST DAY

www.downdays.eu

#FREESKI CULTURE