extreme schnitzeling

after a nice day at the mountain, things got even better when sani and mu decided to cook schnitzel for everybody in the team house at flachauwinkel... it was a huge pile of 20 pieces of meat, half a ton of croquettes and a bucket of jelly. don't wanna write too much about it, just wanted to say, that it has been the best schnitzel, i have had in a long time! big respect to mu and sani!

(snowboard pros combined with a certain presence of meat always causes media commotion...)

(mu, enjoying his own creation... yummy!)

(howzee, blotto and kim rune having a feast... hooot!)

teamhouse #02 tried to compete, but their beans (topped with some pineapples and a cucumber) didn't even look half as good... :)

burton team week flachauwinkl

(mugl and i on the park chair... it was running the whole day just for the crew and us!)

mugl and i went to flachauwinkl to join the burton spring teamshoot in flachauwinkl. the absolut park is for sure one of the best parks in europe and the shape crew always build super nice features. the resort is closed already, so we had to drive to the midstation with the cars, then take the first chair at 10 a.m. sharp. the park chairlift was running the whole day just for the riders and us. pretty stoked: sunshine, slush and no people!

(massive gap kicker in the top section - makes mugl look smaaaall)

as it is a corporate shoot, i'm not here to shoot, just to hang out and have a good time. pretty stoked to have a couple of days without bringing all the camera gear. just ride and have a good time. thanks, burton crew for letting us stay with you. global awesomeness! :)

(the chillhouse with its indoor miniramp is quite unique. such a nice place to hang out!)

spring session recap...

(pleasure/isenseven party crew @ indy bar... saturday night fever)

oh my god, what a week! i still can't believe, how good everything has been working out. after 2 days of whiteout weather and a frozen park, the sun came out for friday and saturday and showed the full potential of the new park. big probs to the laax shape crew around roger heid, you guys did an amazing job and big parts of this year's success is due to your creativity and hard work in the weeks before the session.

(seppi scholler - polejam)

same big thanks go out to the party department down in the rocks resort... dario & all deejays, rici, silke and their teams at indy bar and riders palace. you guys rock! clast party was a banger with most of the people dressed up. saturday night rocked till the morning hours and i guess there's not a single bottle of booze left in the bars (which was the intention anyway... hehehe).

(maxi and mugl, introducing the 'beer fountain')

big shout out to the laax marketing crew around flo weidel for all the organizational stuff and the backup 'behind the scenes'!

(alex tank a.k.a. 'klausi', testing my makboard - switch bs air)

warm thanks to oakley for bringing the 'meistergriller' crew back to laax and some extremely delicious BBQ lunches on top of the no name café and putting up the miniramp in the middle of the rocks resort.

('die meistergriller': best thing that ever happened to the spring session, lunch wise!)

last but not least a thankful 'huiiiii' to the 'fucking best awesome' crew in the world, i had sooo much fun hanging, partying and riding with you guys. best snowboard week of the season!

(the officially last bottle of red wine @ indy bar for the season... il passo, i like! thanks, girls!)

(stole this shot from www.atagge.blogspot.com, thanks, alex! 
big ups go out to bob candler from makboard for making this funny board! 
perfect gadget for the spring session!)

(bow) (rock) (beer) (puke) :D *


*damn, only works in skype ;)

oh, what a day!

(benny urban, bonkin' it)

after waiting for almost 3 days, we are finally lucky with the weather: perfect spring conditions! the laax shape crew once again proofed their reputation and made a sick new park at a new t-bar on the other side of crap sogn gion. 

(quite some people up there...)

now, the crap is officially surrounded by 3 (!) parks. peeps had a lot of fun shredding, burton crew with mu, sani and grilo showed up and everybody had super good sessions...


at night, the clast carnival party was due in the indy club. i just post some pics... epic party!

(öfi and i before the clast party)

(miri and carmen, the KISS sisters)

(hitsch, dave and jan)

guitar hero - still a blast...

(kim rune hansen in his element... schawiiiing)

after our first night at indy bar it was kinda tough to get up in the morning. the whole rest of the crew arrived quite early (at least a bit too early for mugl, klaus and myself) and now all 3 appartments in the rocks resort are filled with the whole pleasure crew. really stoked, to have everybody here & shred together.

up the hill it was a bit dull today, as it is still a bit too cold and most of the stuff was frozen and too hard to hit, so we just took some laps and had a look at the new park at 'il plaun', wich looks really good (in fact, i was wondering, where the laax shape crew got all the snow from!). will definately be lots a fun the next couple of days with more sunshine and higher temperatures.

(flo geiger & basti kuhn)

later that day, it was about time to prepare for the guitar hero party at the rocks with lots of people wanting to perform on stage... dario had prepared a nice PA setup again, where we could plug in our WII. after some guys from polad took the initiative, people were really going for it and there was quite some queue of peeps waiting to play.

(dario and leandro just seconds before going wild)

highlight for sure was dario and leandro, performing 'la bamba' later at night, so i guess they can claim the title this year for sure...

now for some nap, gonna be a great day shredding tomorrow hopefully!

laax spring session - its ON!

hey folks,

just hit rock bottom here in laax... best resort in the world, as you probably know by now... :)... klaus, mugl and i decided to be the spearhead before the big crowd moves in. got here couple of hours ago and straight went to the indy club to see rici (best bar tender in the world) for a first warm up.

no words, no lies, just some random shots, first night style... ;)

recap: we've been the last ones in the bar (again)... earlier as expected (wow)... been cleaning up the mess (again)... mugl getting all the shit afterwards (unexpectedly).... :)  laax, we love you... its gonna be another insane week!

kirovsk recap...

(wallride spot in kirovsk... quite some shoveling, but for sure worth it - danger bs3 alley ooping it!)

wow, i don't know where to start. maybe first thingto say is that the trip turned out competely different as we expected it. this was mostly because global warming did its part in northern russia as well, exactly two days before we hit town.

(living la vida loca in st.petersburg)

after an easy travel via st. petersburg (oh, what a night!), we finally reached the small town of kirovsk, about 200ksouth of murmansk (which was the main harbour of the sovjet polar fleet back in the cold war). kirovsk is a pretty ugly industrial style town, built as a residence for apatite miners (a mineral used for fertilizers). also, it is now famous for having the highest dogpoop-per-cubic-meter-snow ratio in the whole world. no kidding, i guess we dug out trillions of bombs during the whole week.

(best item of the trip: the banshee bungee)

the original plan was a 'bit' more freeridish, as the mountain ranges round kirovsk have some sick and yet easy to access terrain to offer. but mother nature had planned differently, so we were forced to deal with the spring-like slush (and poop not to forget).

(above: life begins at 100°C. alex with a massive erection. below: a good whip for new planet sports team member danger)

besides urban shooting, we had a nice trip to a geostation, about 30k in the backcountry, where we were able to build at least one booter (by moving about 40 tons of slush). really nice experience though. super remote place with a very chilled landlord and two lovely dogs. a freaking hot sauna after dinner plus ice cold water in the nearby river combined with lots of vodka and 'baltika' gave me the rest to oversleep the polar lights in the first night.

(the waterfall booter was hella work... 40 tons of snow... the landing was a full size park kicker!)

back in kirovsk, we found some other spots, so every rider in the end went home with some bangers. i kind of start liking trips that turn out this way. where you never know, what you end up with. thanks, crew, you were awesome!

(i swear to god, if somebody serves me something like this again for breakfast on a easter sunday, i might start the cold war again! ;) )

the best april fool's joke

i have to admit, that they also got me, when i read on our webpage that the infamous 'haise park', well hidden in the heart of bavaria, has to close down for disregard of construction guidelines... i was freaking for about a minute before i remembered yesterday's date :)


here's the hoax 'official' letter that they published, saying they have to remove all built obstacles to avoid a financial penalty. it is made really perfect, only the date (that says 30th of april 2010) indicates that this has to be a hoax...

(hannes, a buddy of stefan 'haise' markhauser made this... well done, hannes!!!)

i had been shooting with haise and basti rittig just a week ago, when they gathered the last bits of snow for the production of a tool time feature for next season. here's some impressions from that shoot:

(basti, 5-0ing the long log)

(haise himself on his home turf)