baker... and the rain...

leaving whistler, we headed past vancouver yesterday and had a quick glimpse on cypress bowl, the venue for the olympic halfpipe contest. what can I say, it's looking desastrous. 10 degrees and pouring rain. there's literally no snow left in the resort and I am seriously wondering, how they gonna hold a proper pipe contest there in 2 weeks.

went shopping a bit in vancouver downtown and then drove down to glacier, which is gonna be our home for the next week.
we were lucky to get the very last b&b room in 'town', so sani, mu, christian and I will be squeezing in a super small but cozy room for the next 2 days.


the weather sucks here as well, went up to the resort and then decided to call it a day and drove down to bellingham for some serious crack smoking...


hope, we'll be back in glacier by 8 to watch xgames slopestyle and big air. go, grilo!

powder mountain

first real shooting day was due today for the cat story and once again, powder mountain presented itself from its best possible side: pow and bluebird! we started early to be on the cat at 8:30 already. after the usual pieps procedure, we could finally hit the first run.

i was able to fix the broken backpack for the gopro and tried to film some ego-cams during the day. the big mount is a bit too unhandy and the tubes twisted a bit, so i had to switch to the first angle again. i'll try to get some aluminium tubes though to fix it properly.

made a small demo clip though to show the new angle in motion:

it was a real fun day. not as productive as it could have been, but really nice to ride! thanks powder mountain & fabia for hooking us up!

here's another video that ken filmed throughout the day (courtesy of powder mountain). thanks, ken!!!

Pleasure Magazine at Powder Mountain Catskiing from Powder Mountain Heliskiing & Cat on Vimeo.

first days, first tracks...

we spent the first two days of our trip in the resort, to get some riding before the real deal starts at powder mountain tomorrow. whistler got really good snow this season. solid base an some fresh from the past storm. quite ideal to adjust the bones and the gear for shooting pow again.

this morning surprised us with quite some rarity for BC: sunshine! we took the chance and went all the way up to ride 'peak to creek'. its always funny to see all the pow hunters taking first tracks down the face of peak chair, throwing themselves down every cliff they can find. the waiting people cheering from the chairlift base station.

i tried some new angle with sani (see below). the construction broke after the first run, but the angle looks insane and i gonna fix it for the day at powder mountain tomorrow. its gonna be sick!

we just took a quick one and went straight on towards 'peak to creek' to get some shots. along with us today was leo, the filmer of 'camp of champions'.

it felt sooo good to finally rides some pow again!

later in the day, leo was filming a 'game of suck' with sani and mu in the small park at whistler, mulimu of course riding everything with his fish, including all kinds of switch (in this case fakie) tricks.

weather for powder mountain tomorrow looks insane! seems we are lucky this time!

finally there

after some exhausting 24 hours travel, we finally hit ground at fabias house in whistler. the slalom team, that had been checking in with us in munich (and that had already cost us more than an hour waiting) had been going exactly our route, wich added up some more delays until our final destination. i just don't get it, why you would wanna bring the whole equip (including the gates!!!) on the plane. 5 guys, 5 tons of luggage. no kidding!


whistler is already in full grip of the games, lots of barricades and road blocs, including random security controls.

mu is already with us (häy män häy) and sani will be joining us in the morning. plan for our first day is whistler and blackcomb mountain. getting the feet on the board again and shooting some urgent stuff for our ispo booth ;)
hope, it's all working out.
SHREEED!!!

lucky again

yes, we made it and are on board already. check in was smooth as can be. seems, the canadian slalom team checked in before us, so the girls at the counter were maybe reliefed to see our 'small' luggage.

no extra costs an excellent seating (at least for the first flight to toronto). christian surely would deserve a solid beating, for asking, wether the (massively overweight) boardbags would still have to be scaled or not. thanks for the shocker, dummy! :D




had some final european breaky (for ridiculous 25 bucks) and are now off to toronto, where we gonna meet stephan 'mulimu' maurer...

gearing up

after a very 'office bound' first half of the season, it' now time to hit the road again. canada is due, and its gonna be a pretty long trip this time, almost a month. i had a hard day cutting down the 'necessities' to a reasonable amount (and weight). not an easy task at all!

i wanna bring some new gadgets for photo and video, so i have some extra kilos to calculate. less shirts, less underpants, more tech shizzle :)

we are also doing our powderboard test again, so we have even more weight to handle. luckily, i booked our flights already beginning of december, as air canada (and a couple of other airlines) decided to change their baggage allowance around xmas. i wonder, how things will go tomorrow.

more news tomorrow after the check in :)

laax - rock resort

the burton european open are always my very favourite event to go. having the rocks resort finished since the beginning this season is one more reason to look forward to this week. its a new concept with appartments for 4/5 or 8/10 people.

the cubic, blockish shape of the building repeats in its interior design: only rock and wood from the region was used for the whole construction. all appartments have a nice livingroom/kitchen area, a sick and stylish bath with a steam shower and two bedrooms.

this year, all of the six buildings are open for business, including some nice restaurants in the basements.

if you get the chance to come across laax, you definately have to book in here, directly besides the base station.

staying here with the whole pleasure crew is for sure one of the nicest times of the season... thanks alot, birgit for hooking us up at this incredible place!

pow can come!

having some days off over new years, i decided to give my good ol' fish a new look. i traded some bindings with bene right before xmas (thanks for that, buddy!): the all purple version of the cartel EST! as purple is my colour of the season together with some shades of petrol, the board design of course had to match these colours :) ...

the original fish was nice, but pretty boring (silver with grey edges, 2008/09 design) and i always wanted to have a 'fischi fish' design, so it was about time to do it. i picked a mean looking comic piranha (well, i think i'll use that one also for the piranha 161 once it needs a redesign...) and it already matched the nose of the board pretty much. the tailfin also matched the fishtail, so all i had to do was to stretch the little buddy a bit (which later on does not matter with the bindings mounted).

after some illustrator work, i plotted the green, black and whiteform. the purple is below the design all over the board anyway. the small fish between the bindings had some tiny pieces (especially the teeth), which made me swear alot during the mounting process...

well, its finished now and i have to say, i'm pretty stoked on it. can't wait to ride it and have the evil grinning fish floating right before me. pow can come!