poooooooow!

(testing powderboards is not the worst job on earth :D)

lucky again! i've been checking on snowforecast.com the whole week through, if there would be a slight chance for pow at zauchensee (my 'local' resort where i grew up riding). SF promised around 20-30 cm overnight from friday to saturday and bluebird the whole saturday. did in fact sound a bit too good to be true, so i just had to take the chance.

(sophia, tobi, nicola and i, getting some rest in the gondola between countless powderruns)

i hooked up with tobi and sophia and texted nicola (as i know, she's always up for a good pow ride at zauchen), so we all met super early on saturday. and what can i say: pow and bluebird!!!

(nicola dropping a chute)

thousands of tourists were thinking the same but they just don't get the first part, so everything kept almost untracked throughout the day. i could also do some more testing for the pow board article and i was really stoked on some of the new shapes!

(the pogo doublewinger fish in its element. great board!)

after 5 hours of non stop pow riding, we finally called it a day. thanks snowforecast! what a day!!!

a day of no-fishing

only hours after returning back home from our US/canada trip, i re-geared my bags to go on our annual family-weekend in ladurns/italy. its a small resort, just some miles south of brenner pass and big parts of my family gather there once a year to spend a nice weekend with snowboarding/skiing and of course nice 'apres' on a small hut in the middle of the resort.

snow was insanely good and i was happy that i brought the snowshoes and the nofish with me to go on a little hike just above the resort. its just a descent of a couple of turns and the climb is pretty hard (almost too steep for snowshoes) and takes almost an hour, but as every year, it was for sure worth the effort. some nice turns and feeling confident again on the noboard.

hope, there's more snow on the way, can't wait to try the NB at zauchensee :)

back to reality

(this setup gets a bit sketchy in turbulences as experienced only seconds after this shot)

after almost a month on the road and countless memories, it was time to pack our bags and head back home to good ol' germany. magazine deadline overdue, we had to finish the last articles on the plane. luckily, the long flight from toronto to munich was only half full, so everybody had a whole row of seats for himself.

working the whole time on both flights straight was maybe the best to prevent a full-on jetlag!

(that's what i'm talking about... having a view like this,

narrow seat rows suddenly get a bit more spacious)

the making of the olympic HP article was probably our fastest ever: took only 36 hours from the event to print. :)

shaun is king, but mu is the kaiser!

the big day was finally there! still without any tickets. we were pretty bummed, sitting on the couch and prepared to spend the day in front of the TV, the big thing happening only some miles away up at cypress bowl. susie, adam and hasi had already left to be up at the venue in time, when mu decided to make a final phonecall.

(mu advanced to 'god status'! thanks so much, buddy!)

and he did it! after talking for just a minute or two, he had organized two tickets for me and christian. oh my god, i can't tell how stoked we were (and still are!). i packed my gear within minutes, as we had to pick up the tickets at the olympic village. as a benefit, we could also take the direct bus from there and didn't have to hassle with the weird transportation system.

(the grandstand was massive! happy people everywhere. our thoughts were amongst kevin too of course!)

the weather couldn't have been better and reflected our mood. sunshine and springlike temperatures. arriving at cypress, we had to do the security check (almost like at an airport security with scanners and everything) before we were let into the venue. smiling faces all over the massive grandstand. the quali and the semis were a bit unlucky for some of our mates. christophe, mä, hitsch and arthur all had some issues with the pipe and did not make the cut to the finals.

(ryan, mu and arthur - the frenchies all had moustaches painted on their faces! :D mä explaining, what went wrong)

not so for shaun. he qualified directly for the finals with his very first run (i'd call it a safety run) and could rest his legs until the big finals. and what a final it was! unlike in daylight, the site presented itself in perfect shape and well lit at night! most powerful lighting i've ever seen at a contest made it easy to get some really good shots.

as for the contest: it was an easy go for shaun. already his

first final run was a contest winner, so being the last to drop in the second run, he could have done whatever he wanted. he decided for his dedicated winning run and included the double mctwist on the last hit. not perfect, yet a 48.4 out of 50 score.

too bad, that danny and kevin could not be here, but to be honest i think, shaun would have won anyway. maybe there would have been a bit more pressure on him though.

(chaka, adam, gabe, sani and mu after the flower ceremony - cathy, shauns mum, soooo stoked!)

(gabe, myself, mu, christian, sani, hasi and adam... thanks hasi for the 'homo shot' :D)

subline: as expected, shaun underlined his already immortal status, and mu became my personal god!

thanks mu, i'll never forget!!!

party on, wayne... party on, garth...

(first party venue: the 'chimera' at the vancouver marina. the olympic flame in the background, even without fence from this side ;) )

it was kind of hard to get the motivation back after this 'most unlucky day of the trip', but hey: some really good parties coming up at the eve of the men's halfpipe finals: scott serfas had invited us to an exclusive endeavour party on a luxurious sail yacht, the 'chimera' at the vancouver marina.

(max, serving vodka shots - johnnie lyall, having a chat with scott and his wife - christian, tech talk with rob)

we had to be picked up at the entrance to the private marina and could already see the impressive mast of the sailboat. tied to the outer dock, right besides the nocturnal skyline of downtown vancouver, facing the olympic flame at waterfront, i could not imagine a better place for a nice, decent party.

(view from the boat towards downtown vancouver. looked a bit like gotham city in batman!)

christian and i had some nice talks with scott, his wife, max jenke, rob dow and johnnie lyall (a.k.a. the lord of the rings), who was telling funny storys from the openin ceremony and the party afterwards. some delicious sea-fingerfood, beers and vodka shots finally made us forget the beginning of the day...

thanks so much, endeavour crew. you definately saved our day!

right afterwards, we headed back to downtown vancouver, as we had an invitation to jake's party at his penthouse suite. we got picked up at the gate by a hostess/concierge, who used her fingerprint for the elevator... :)

we thought, that the keefer was already pimp, but nothing compared to jake's appartment: a two storey penthouse suite, equipped with an indoor pool, some fireplaces, everything designed in a decent, art nouveau style.

the perfect ending for a hard day. thanks so much for the invitation, jake!

bad, bad luck

we knew, that the neighbourhood at the keefer was a bit sketchy with lots of bums and stoners around. still I was pretty sure to leave our car at a quite safe place, right next to the keefer. well lit on a secured parking area.

(fuck you, burglars... we won't loose our sense of humor)

yet, we found our beloved 'commander' broken into in the very first night. we still had boardbags and some of our stuff in the car, thinking no one would see it through the shaded windows in the back. back window was smashed with a bold rock, some stuff missing. my brand new (yet broken) video cam, one ipod and the tomtom mount for the iphone. could have been worse, all snowboard gear untouched in the boardbags.

(thanks, nationalcar! they gave us exactly the same car again. just properly washed and without a broken back window)

police was easy, it was more hassle to drive to the airport to explain what happened and get a new rental for the last 3 days of our trip.

on the way, christian broke one of his teeth, chewing on a gum. almost perfect!

what really made the day perfect was the story we heared, when we came back to the keefer: we had already had quite some hassle before with getting our halfpipe tickets shipped to canada (they were delivered 2 days after we left germany for our trip) by DHL (Da Hella Loosers). long story short: after countless phone calls with DHL in germany and canada, they were finally delivered to whistler, and a friend of ken brought them down to vancouver.

well, i was happy to hold them in my hands, only to learn from chaka, that the category that we had bought just got cancelled because of the rainy weather. the whole site had turned into a swamp obviously and it was considered 'insecure' to let 4000 paying guests just stand there.

of course, a refund (in our case) was impossible, as we had bought the tickets through some third party reseller... what was i thinking? :D

so we now are 2 days before the contest with no tickets and no chance to see the crazyness live. bummer.

a nice crib

hitting vancouver, we brought mu to the burton hotel at the edge of chinatown. the big B had rented a whole building for their staff for the week of the halfpipe finals. the KEEFER is a brand new renovated appartment hotel with 4 floors, a spacious 2 double room appartment with a bar/kitchen area and a huge livingroom on each floor. a 24h concierge included...

(living room with a lcd screen, the size of a table tennis plate. no shit!)

the top floor features a rooftop terrace with barbecue area and a swimming pool. as a special gag, the base of the pool is made of glass and the whole thing is built between the rooftop and the top floor, so you can see into the pool from underneath and look down from the roof into the top floow... absolutely incredible!

(bar area on the top floor with a nice view from below into the pool!)

chief invited us to stay with the burton crew, so we crashed with susie, adam, chaka and hasi on the 3rd floor and made the keefer our home for the stay in vancouver. couldn't have been any better. thanks to the big B for hooking us up. this were definately some super nice days staying with you guys!!!

(rooftop terrace with barbecue area and pool. the BC center in the back, where the opening ceremony was held. thanks to mu for the panorama shot!)

the very first night, we held kind of our own 'games'. some gymn gear inspired to the funniest contests: high kick, medicine ball tournament, sitting-aginst-the-wall... chaka and greg killing it big time. hasi, despite of his hight sucked at the high kick, as you can see. easy game for adam! :)

(hasi, sucking big time at the 'high kick'... josie almost beating sani and mu)

road to vancouver

our trip is slowly coming to an end and we hit the road again for our final destination: vancouver and the olympic halfpipe event at cypress bowl.

(johnnie lyall is the lord of the rings!)

super stoked to see johnnie lyall representing snowboarding at the opening ceremony, jumping through the olympic rings!

coming into the city, we can already feel the good vibes. people in the streets everywhere. everybody is super stoked on snowboarding and looking forward to the big crazyness on wednesday!

revelstoked!

(15" laptop and 13"lapfood)

after spending two super nice days in fernie, we hit the road again towards sicamous, a small town close to revelstoke. setup there was completely different to fernie, as we were staying at the best western and got picked up every morning for catboarding.

(okay, the terrain on this pic is not that steep. :D... this was the last run of the trip. sunshine and the best pow you can imagine!)

terrain had much steeper parts this time and the perfect guide: carl from K3 showed us all the good spots, sani and mu were killing it!

(thanks, scott martin (middle) and K3 for hooking us up!)

super nice chutes and drops, snow conditions almost perfect with sunshine on our very last two hours of our 'powder triangle' trip.

thanks again, scott for making this possible! looking forward to our 'powder kaiser' project already! :)

(this is blasphemy!... see one-but-next entry ;) )

fernie

after a long day travelling across the US northwest, we finally made it to fernie. we had an invitation from FWA catboarding, not only to shoot at their area with the cat for two days, but also to stay at their lodge. totally different style there. everything very laid back and a super good atmosphere. so nice to stay at the place, where the cat starts and not having to hassle in the morning.

the FWA base is in the middle of nowhere and that is another thing that makes it so great. literally in the wild, as christian can tell. he spent some minutes outside in the dark for a ciggy, came back in, pretty scared... he had heard a growling sound pretty close to the parking where he was standing.

the next day, some guys from FWA found large footprints of a wolf or a cougar just some meters away from that spot. since that, the outdoor hot tub was the dedicated 'field kitchen' or 'cougar's fast food'... :)

(yiiha, mu just invented a new trick... i call it the 'mulitwister')

(the boyz on the cat: mu, sani, corey and christian)

(sani, into the great white open)

(the temperature that the body can withstand without getting harmed is about 60°C... the wood fired hottob at FWA is about 70°... beer for sure helps)

we spent three great days at the FWA lodge. weather was not the best and also the snow could have been better, but it was great snowboarding and a very very nice overall experience nevertheless!

thanks to scott & crew for making this possible, you guys rock!

eastbound

we have been leaving baker early this morning and are now eastbound on the way to fernie, BC. we decided to take the south route through seattle and spokane all on US soil to avoid the curvy road through canada. some miles longer maybe, but obviously much faster.

first half of the ride is pretty boring so far... nothing but endless, flat land. corey is coming with us with his car, so its a quite mellow ride. we could put all our boardbags in coreys truck so we have quite some space in the car. i was able to work quite a bit on the way, as pleasure #85 will be due on the day of our return.

grilo will not be coming to interior, he hurt his knee a bit at the canadian open and wants to play it safe for the upcoming contests. lame, but this leaves more pow for us to shred in fernie and revy, hehehe...

we are already lookig forward to tomorrow, it will be our first cat day in interior BC!

mt. baker legendary banked slalom

its probably the best snowboard contest in the world. hands down! the 25th edition of the LBS took place the last couple of days. due to the bad overall snow conditions, some extra turns had to be added to reduce the speed a bit.

mu and sani were both pretty amped on racing. christian unfortunately could not enter as there went something wrong and his spot was already taken by somebody else.

(mark landvik, through the gates)

the day before the first quali is traditionally the night of 'waxing parties'. so did sani and mu. they brought some secret weapons and we had a funny evening with some beers, wine and of course some turns of applying differnent layers of wax to their shredsticks.

(sani, middle of the course, legs already on fire)

(best pricegiving of the best contest in the world!)

in the end, they only missed the finals by some 10th of a second and were pretty bummed. i think, they did really great, considering that it was their first appearance ath the banked and the only way to train for that event is the race itself. heads up, guys... we'll for sure be in baker again next year!!!

temple cummings and maelle ricker took the title for pro men and pro women. the pricegiving was probably the best, i've ever seen in snowboarding. these people at baker are just great! best atmosphere ever! :)

we'll definitely be back in 2011!

sun, son!

finally! we had the first sunny day since we got to baker. and what a day it was! bluebird awaited us in the resort, but we had other plans for today. burton filmer corey koniniec was guiding us, he is local here in baker and knows pretty much every possible spot. thanks for that, buddy! we hiked up a mellow ridge, already got some nice shots on the way up.

on the very top, we had an incredible view on mt. baker and mt. shuksan, the peak 'behind' the baker resort. its said to be the world's most photographed mountain, so the intro pic to this blog entry is mt. baker to get this peak a bit more exposure and even out the balance a bit.

tried some egocams on sani today. the backpack was broken again, but this time i gut it fixed with massive alloy sticks that connect the mount with the backpack. however, the long version of the arm ist still a bit too long so i might just use the hacksaw once again to find a handy ratio between usability and look.

after 6 or 7 spots, we called it a day and went back down to glacier to buy some beer. meanwhile, the cabin smells of expensive flouride wax, as sani, mu and christian will do the qualifyer for the banked slalom tomorrow and hell, the guys are taking it serious! we'll hopefully get back to you tomorrow with some euro-pride news!

and now for the rest of the beer... cheers!