fischi's blog

too hot to be true...

2011-08-25T14:47:00.000+02:00

did anybody complain about the middle european summer this year? you phonies couldn't wait until the end before snaggering, right? and now, that we finally have it hot here, well above 30 degrees celsius, everybody is complaining again...

yes! is kool, man!

as i work alot from my home office, which is directly below the roof in a super small room (where the temperature is probably in the higher fifties right now), i already moved my stuff over to the livingroom, where i have more space and - more important: i can work AND survive!
last couple of days were too much though and i had to think of something else. i have a quite big balcony right in front of the livingroom and i remembered, that i always wanted to get a small wading pool, so i just got a super cheap one from the supermarket (strange though, that they still did have some... can't believe, that nobody else came up with that idea).

i had to pull the garden hose up to the balcony to fill in the water, but now i have my own private pool, just two steps next to my workstation. sick!

swimming laps ain't too easy... you gotta be creative! ;)

big friday

2011-08-12T18:58:00.005+02:00

first hit

summer at my second home was waaay to short this year... it might have been three weeks, but it hurts more and more every year to kiss afiartis goodbye and go back home and back to work. i didn't shoot too much this summer, played with the gopro a little bit, but mainly surfed as long as possible every day.

just say no to four-O...

of course, we had one big day again. all stations were closed. proper rescues would have been impossible. it didn't look exceptionally strong in the morning, so we chilled a bit at breakfast. the guys from the station were out already with sails around 4.0
when i saw them coming in again after only one turn, totally exhausted, i started to get a bit nervous. andy was telling me that there was no freakin way and he took the smallest sail he had rigged at the station.

harald, backloop try onefooted... or lets say: blown away

breakfast was history at that moment already. totally hyped, i rigged my 3.5 that i only bought for conditions like this. from the beach, you could already see the gusts ripping water off the surface: whiteout! the rigging was done in record time, still it felt like hours.

looks crowded, but we were the only ones on the water... harald, myself, andy and freddy

when i finally jumped in the water, i started hyperventilating already. i knew that i was gonna be so dead after just a couple of runs. surfing overpowered just takes its toll and has absolutely nothing to do with what you do in 6 or 7 beaufort.

backloop try... almost!

the waves were quite big (well, afiartis is flatwater so it seems kind of blasphemy to speak of 'big waves' here) and in combination with the high wind it was pure insanity: once you hit the lip and the wind catched the board you were only flying. always in mind to keep the center of gravity low.
man, did i fall! i took some really bad beatings that first hour and i couldn't remember to ever have surfed overpowered like this.
after an hour (it might have been way less), i started to get cramps, so before it got dangerous, i went back to the beach.

airjibes are way fun at 9+ beaufort

on the way home

later in the afternoon, we took a quick ride over to the wavespot, but it was super crowded there, so we headed back for another session... tried haralds small waveboard and liked it. definately need a small one like this! :)

and thats how it looked from the masttop :)
klick on the picture to see some motion!

its days like this, that you remember for the rest of your life. even though its not even fun to ride. its just pure survival and the thrill to be out in such conditions. i don't want more of these days, i just want one or two every year.

yes, i love that island! :)

thanks heidi for the shots!

bad brünö

2011-07-08T10:44:00.000+02:00

brünö in action...

whistler in summer is already a good old tradition. the perfect mixture to have the opportunity to shoot some last pictures for the upcoming season in a good park combined with a sick village and lots of parties is a blast every year.

world's first 'throwing-stones-at-bears-all-in-one' sequence... :)

throwing sticks and stones shall break your bones...

we rented a big house this year and and schiller and i went there together with marc swoboda, dominik wagner, elias elhardt, benny urban, alex tank, ethan morgan, dani rajcsanyi and ludde lejkner. as you can imagine, 10 guys make alot of trash and there is no garbage collection here in whistler, so we used one bacony to store the growing pile of black plastic bags. the landlord had already warned us about bears searching for trash, so we used the only balcony of the house, that not even black bears are able to climb.

marc did some bad ass screaming

when it was time to clean the house, we were planing to load all the trash in the car and drive to the grabage disposal in fuction junction, about 10 k from whistler. marc had already brought the bags down to the car some minutes before we wanted to start.

walking up to the car, there was a big black bear already starting to make big mess... ludde had cooked two lobsters and a massive king crab past week and buddy bear obviously was after the remains of them.

bröno finally fucked off

i wanted to scare him off, so i ran towards him, screaming and waving my arms. he did exactly the same and i had to chicken out and run up the veranda. we started throwing rocks at him and after a couple of minutes, he was so pissed off that he fucked off.
he had made a big mess at the car parking, took us almost half an hour to clean up.
luckily, wögna had his camera with him. thanks, buddy for the footage!

as you can see, brünö is definalely a troublemaker (sticking out his tongue)

brünö then was checking our garden, he had already stolen elias' backpack a couple of days ago and elias, marc and wögna had to search it in the woods (and found it with only some granolabars missing and a chewed pack of sunscreen). luckily, the backdoor was locked :)

threee deee!

2011-06-15T23:02:00.001+02:00

i've been experimenting with my gopro cams alot in the past 2 years, so i was pretty stoked, when gopro finally released their 3d housing a couple of weeks ago. the setup is quite simple (gopro style): you just pop two seperate gopro HDs into the housing, connect them with a small cable and you are good to go.

helmet mount followcam

the two cams need the latest firmware update of course and its recommended to use similar SD cards. the settings of the left cam override the settings of the right cam (both cams need to be set to the same program however), so you always get a useable pair of stills or mp4 videos.

i couldn't shoot very much with this new toy when i was on the road for pleasure mag this spring, so i was pretty excited when we went down to karpathos this week for a short vacation. i have been shooting windsurfing with the gopro already last season, but never tried the photo burst function (which takes a 5MP photo every X seconds).
also, i was quite curious, how the 3d effect would look like in stills and movies.

mast mount

the wind was quite low this week, which is unusual for karpathos at that time of the year, so i couldn't shoot in real high wind, but at least i could try two of the basic mounts: mast top and helmet cam. worked pretty good. i feared, that the cam setup might be a bit too heavy especially for the helmet mount, but it was quite okay. the weight even helps keeping the cam more steady.
mounted on the mast, things get a bit shaky up there, but i guess, it will be good for some additional footage.

came across this full grown walrus... ;)

some friend of mine had his 3d laptop with active shutter glasses with him, so we could have a look in 'real' 3d. for now, i decided to use red/cyan anaglyph mode however, because this type of 3d glasses are still more common than the new active or passiv shutter versions.

made a small demo movie to showcase the possibilities... more to come this summer! ;)

short trip to lofoten

2011-05-25T18:43:00.000+02:00

nice sunset at one of the most scenic surf beaches in the world!

shooting in riks is very productive, yet the weather is a bit unpredictable. as the forecast looked super shitty for friday and saturday, we decided to do a spontaneous short trip to lofoten! everybody was up for a change in the daily schedule, so michi and I got up early morning and took the train to narvik (which is only a 45 minutes ride), got a small rental car there, picked up botner an justin (we barely could fit in all the gear) and drove down to lofoten 5 hours straight!

goPro fun during the drive!

arriving in unstad (the most famous surf spot), we booked us into a nice and spacious cabin (it even had a small sauna!) and went straight for the beach. waves were a bit chaotic, but erik, justin and michi tried anyway. i knew that erik & justin were good surfers and still they were struggeling with the changing conditions. michi impressed me, he didn't surf too much in his life before and just went for it... he even managed some stand ups after justin gave him some tips... stoked!

cabin #05... that's what's up!

of course, we needed some fitting dinner that evening, so we went to leknes (to the biggest supermarket north of oslo i guess) and bought some nice salmon and pasta... fatøl for sure! :)

Erik, checking the surf

yummy lofoten fish!

the day was topped off by a relaxing sauna session and due to the never ending light, it was once again well beyond 2 a.m. before we went to bed...

next morning, the waves looked much cleaner, so michi and justin went to the beach to get some shots... erik and I had other plans: we had spotted a small patch of snow right behing unstad that looked like a giant banana and I asked eric, if he could hike it and do one spray on it...
didn't work out perfect, as the snow was crusty and frozen on the top layer, but we got a shot anyways.

Erik on the way back from 'the banana'...

we left erik and justin behind, they wanted to get some more surfing days. michi and I drove back up to narvik again, where we met arthur, who was taking a day off as well and he also had to take care of a small infection in his eye.

so now, the last days in riks have come. we were able to do two more spots with arthur. two gnarly rock landings, but being a brave frenchman, he killed both spots!

after some victory beers, our ways finally parted, as flo and arthur were already leaving a day before us.

big shout out to the pirates (especially flo)... it was a pleasure working with you! what a nice & productive trip!!!

riksgränsen!

2011-05-17T11:44:00.000+02:00

riks train station (pic: michi lehmann)

my last 'real snow' trip for this season is bringing me up high above the arctic circle. michi an i flew to stockholm and took the night train from there to riksgränsen. i never been up here, so i'm super stoked on that trip. its also our first trip with the pirates crew!

the train ride was easy, we slept very well in our bunk beds. its for sure a nice way to travel. we arrived relaxed in riksgränsen. flo had already checked a room for us, nice!

the first night was a bit strange, as the sun goes down at 10:30 and rises again at 3:30, but it never gets dark. of course, we didn't bring sleeping masks, but a black beanie is doing a great job, too! :)

we were shooting alot now the first couple of days, as the weather was almost perfect and we tried to catch every possible minute.

we started shooting on friday 13th. not the best omen for the first day in the backcountry on sleds again, especially whan you have to cross several water ponds that grow bigger and bigger every day from the melting snow. the guys had found a nice spot for a quarterpipe and we were able to do a complete tooltime feature that very first day with danny larsen and arthur longo!

michi, finetuning the quarter...

the next couple of days were a mix of good and bad luck, but we can not complain, as we got shots every day and the crew is really motivated to be as productive as possible.

walking on water... :)

one highlight for sure was a quarterpipe session, that gigi rüf and björn lindgren organized. the spot was close to ingemar's quarter at the border right on the backside of the resort. we got some BBQ stuff and took the last chair only to find a big crew already waiting for us. the nike crew had already been shooting in riks for a couple of days with gigi, nicolas and justin bennee. danny kass also brought his posse with eddie wall, eero niemela and dustin craven!

gigi testing the quarter, while we fired up the grill!

we had a nice session up on the mountain with a tasty barbecue (bennee, the name of the cheese is 'haloumi' :D).

what a crew!

as we came back late and the bar aready closed due to sweden loosing the hockey finals, we went to a small secret bar in a cave. 12 guys, 2 bottles of whiskey, eddie wall and his guitar. what a night!

the sickest location for a bar!

yesterday, erik botner joined the crew and danny had to leave us. we did a nice kicker to rocklanding spot in the resort. gnarly shizzle, arthur backflipped it!

sick shit!

stay tuned for mor coming up the next couple of days!

bella italia - part 1

2011-04-28T09:12:00.003+02:00

hotel pier - beautiful morning view from in front of the room :)

seems like italy is gonna be my favourite place for the next weeks... after a really successful shoot in val senales last weekend, i went down to lago di garda this weekend to start the windsurf season. the lake is still bitter cold (around 10°C), but the wind was excellent! what a nice start!

beautiful riva del garda...

i really love the way of life in the northern part of lago di garda... steep rock faces, falling almost vertical into the lake, nice architecture and - of course - great food!
so we were strolling through limone, riva del garda and torbole, went shopping alot and had a really relaxed weekend in our favourite hotel down there.

windsurfing was great, best 4 days in a row since quite a while! its always inspiring to watch all the italian riders throwing their moves right in front of the hotel like 20 year old Mattia Fabrizi in the short clip below...

now its time again for another shoot in val senales before i go back down to the lake!

german halfpipe championships

2011-03-30T11:22:00.000+02:00

Christophe Schmidt, old and new german HP champion! congrats, vogi!

yeah, so stoked! good things came quite unexpected, when it was announced in january, that the 'pipe aid' movement (dedicated to bring back a hafpipe for germany) finally succeeded at Oberstdorf with the help of red bull and some other sponsors. of course, it was logical to hold a german championships again (after 4 years without a halfpipe on german soil).

the smalls on their way up

so last weekend, it all went down and i have to say it was a banger! soooo many of the old crew from back in the days came to ride and to compete. it almost felt like a highschool reunion! the pipe was good & the spot at Nebelhorn is just perfect. weather held on (at least for the first couple of hours) and the whole thing on the mountain was a blast!

Xaver, Cab5 Shifty

Mini with his actual board and his very first one. he is still riding both of them... siiiiiick!

after some beers at the pricegiving down at the 'Out Of Bounds' shop, it was time for alot of talks with old friends. we all had a nice dinner at Primavera Pizza and went to Hörbar afterwards for more drinks.
sorry i don't have shots from the night... i was having such a good time that i just forgot to take pictures :)

nice trophies! vogi like!

thanks everybody for a nice reunion and a nice comp.
i guess, everybody's gonna be back next year!

tokyooooooooo!

2011-03-11T04:46:00.000+01:00

staying in tokyo for the last two days of our japan trip was a really good idea. this city is just the bomb! our hotel was literally in the city center near shinjuku station, so we could just go out and walk most of the stuff we wanted to see.

our cubicle was quite big, at least by japanese standards. and it was a room with quite a view (see pic on top)

goh and ron, both working for 'championsvisions', our distributor for isenseven in japan, took us on a small shop tour before diving into tokyo's nightlife. it was really interesting to see, how many snowboard shops (and we are talking proper ones with all kinds of fresh stuff) can exist (and obviously do good) within a 200m radius. the riders did some signings and it was nice to realize, how good the movie has been selling in japan this season (in fact, place 2 among all available snowboard movies!!!).

it was cool to see, how stoked people are on isenseven in japan. doumo arrigatou!

peter and kevin, checking out their new headwear for 2012. and we met grilo (left upper corner) ;D

as we were quite hungry (and peter, kevlar, fips and alex had started a bet to drink 15 cans of asahi), we asked goh and ron to show us some nice sushi place and we headed to a small restaurant right around the corner of the 'snowboard shop district'... really good shushi and a funny chef and an even funnier waitress, who could not believe, how kevin was treating his shushi... :)

the crew, raging through toyko's subway...

after we all stuffed ourselves and already pretty intoxicated, we demanded karaoke and it didn't take god and ron long to find an excellent place: small room, high above the streets with an incredible backdrop against one of tokyo's main roads. insane! needless to say, that we spent more than three hours at that place!

if i remember right, this was 'it must have been love' by roxette. classic! insane backdrop!

the next day started late and we finally had some time to check out the countless camera stores, boutiques and some of the more weird stuff... well, pictures say more than 1000 words:

so many people all over the place!

so many girls all over the place!

so much gambling all over the place!

so much rubber all over the place!

we all had a nice last japanese dinner after the shopping. sashimi at its finest!

yummy... i definately gonna miss japanese food!!!

time for us to leave beautiful japan. it was a sick trip and we definately gonna be back soon! :)

thanks iku and tobi for arranging everything and goh and ron for showing us around in tokyo! doumo arigatou gozeimasu!

asahidake - lots of snow, lots of crews...

2011-03-08T03:46:00.000+01:00

asahidake was next on our japan trip. its famous for the shit loads of white stuff it gets every season between january and march. asahidake mountain is the highest peak on hokkaido, so its only logical, that the cold northwest stream from inner russia, that picks up moisture over the japanese sea gets rid of its load along the mountain ranges of hokkaido again and especially at asahidake. there is no 'bad weather' in asahi, as its either nice weather or snowing (which we didn't consider as 'bad') ;)
asahidake has become famous through nicolas müller and kevind pearce's part in absinthe's 'neverland'.

somebody dug out our car every second day...
i so wanted to know the total amount of snow that fell during our 5 days stay...

arriving late in asahidake, we met the head crew with riders christophe schmidt and shayne pospisil, photographer christian brecheis and teammanager bernd pösl and had some brewskies after the long ride. and guess what, it was puking again outside! by the time, we left their hotel again, it was already 20 cm on top of our car and it wasn't even midnight! the head guys gave us some last minute tipps, as they were leaving the very next day. soooo many crews shooting in asahi in the past days, that it was almost impossible to find spots that hadn't been done before.

view from asahidake gondola

asahi only has one gondola and the terrain is much less steep that we had expected. except from some steeps atop of the mountain and some ridges in the lower parts, its quite flat. the gondola only makes sense to go fun riding or when the weather is clear (didn't i say, there is no 'bad weather' in asahi? :D), so we instead been hiking most of the time, which was ALOT. hiking waist-to-shoulder-deep pow is just fun and amazing for the first ten steps, after that it gets extremely annoying, especially without snowshoes. damn ANA, they have a baggage allowence of only 35kgs per person, which means, we had to leave our snowshoes at home and the rentals up in asahi were 35 bucks a day...

one of the few spots, that hadn't been done before...

culinary highlight for sure was the small kiosk at the gondola base, who offered a wide variety of japanese snacks like 'sausage on a stick' or meat buns with some rather secret ingredients and of course all sorts of japanese candy, my personal favourite being strawberry 'air-chocolate' in a ice cream cone. totally looked like an ice cream, tasted like an ice cream...

sorry for this colour shot amongst all the b/w stuff, but i had to show these items in full colour ;)

we had some great days in asahidake, snow was incredibly good and it was well worth the trip. shooting there ain't easy though. five days of hiking (i was tracking more than 20km on my GPS) through deep pow was showing us our limits. also the myth of asahi has already attracted alot of crews (and i guess it will be rather more than less in the next couple of years).

our hotel offered fresh kimonos every day. unfortunately, it wasn't allowed to wear these at dinner...

time for us to kiss the pow pow goodbye for this season. guess, we not gonna have any conditions that only come close to asahi back home for this season...

kevlar throwing down some steezy cab 7s

tokyo will be next for two days, before we return home!

niseko and the bluest bird...

2011-03-01T03:12:00.000+01:00

mt. yotei

today we woke up with perfect bluebird, which is kind of exceptional here with the fast changing hokkaido weather. as the last days havent been too successful due to the frozen base below the new snow, we were really happy about this last chance that niseko offered us.

the hike got pretty steep about 100 meters after this shot. legburner!

we took two guides who took us deep into the backcountry and we finally could do some nice shots the way we wanted. the hike was short, but pretty exhausting as it was quite slippery and steep.

peter in the magic forest

in the end, we only had to do one basic hike to do about 5 or 6 different spots. the snow was pretty baked in the end, but it still looked cool on the pics!

fipse's spot: switch millerflip! stoked!

at night, we went out, as it was our last day in niseko before cruising to asahidake tomorrow. we found a decent steakhouse, as we all longed for some european food (after a couple of dinners at a sushi restaurant)... highlight was for sure, that each of us could pick some other's drink which ended with quite wild mixtures (vodka/tomatojuice/beer - whiskey/gin/absinhe) and of course the mixture i had to drink, containing 'fleshcleam'... :)

bettel than broody maly!

tomorrow, we'll be off to asahidake. we hope to be there by night, so we can catch the head-crew who were shooting there the last couple of days and have some brewskies with them before they leave on wednesday.

hope, i can post from asahidake as we won't have internet in our hotel there.

japan!

2011-02-25T08:51:00.000+01:00

konnichiwa!

having the last issue of the season finished, its time to hit the road again. destination: hokkaido/japan! as none of our crew (peter könig, kevin bäckström, fips strauss, alex schiller, öfi and myself) has ever been to japan, we are of course all super excited.

arriving late night in our first hotel in sapporo, the first action was of course to check out the infamous japanese 'full service' toilets with integrated 'ass shower'...

japanese toilet experience: fun for the whole family :)

alex didn't dare to sit on it for the first try. result was a wet, curious öfi who though he was watching from a safe distance. being a polite guy, alex of course did clean up the mess.

toyota hiace '10 seater'...

next morning, it was time to pick up the rental car and i got the first impression, how much fun it is to make a phonecall. the guy from the rental didn't speak english at all, but after a few 'mushi mushi's, we somehow managed to get a pickup from the hotel to the rental car place. i had reserved a 'rearry rearry big car', a toyota hiace 10 seater. turned out, we barely were able to get all the gear in. all the guys in the back had to climb over the driver's seat to the rear.

finding to niseko, especially navigating through sapporo was also quite a mission, but we had the route on google earth and we managed to get through smooth. so after 2 days of traveling, we finally made it to niseko!

mt. yotei

so stoked to be here! as soon as this first facebook/blog nerd session is done, we gonna go for a ride in the resort. night skiing!

stay tuned!

one week at monashee powder snowcats - a recap (part II)

2011-02-03T10:28:00.001+01:00

peter, cruising down to the lodge on the ÄSMO...

what can i say about one week at one of the best places on earth? two-and-a-half meters of powder, 17.000 acres of rideable terrain, 29 drop off points with countless runs... a bunch of good riders and friends... excellent food... what else can you ask for?

the daily schedule was getting up at seven (it was still pitch dark at that time), breakfast at half past seven, the cat waiting for us at a quarter past 8! we had our own cat for the whole week with two guides (one driving the cat, the other one guiding us)... we were really stoked to have a guide with us at all time, as we didn't know the terrain at all and most important, these guys are experts when it comes to snow conditions. they were doing everything to keep the whole shoot perfectly safe: from digging snowpits at the dedicated spots (especially the landings of the jumps) to proposing special shots that suited our movie and photo ideas. i can't thank these guys enough, especially lead guide mark!

lead guide mark, checking the snowpack near the landing of our first jump

basically, we were riding/shooting every day from half past 8 till 4 p.m., no problem having our lunch sandwiches, salads and cookies with us. the average cat day ends by 4.30 latest, followed by a brief visit at the bar and discussing the day's events with some brewskies... dinner was at half past 7 sharp... did i mention before, that tommy, the chef is a god? :D

the crew, unloading the cat at one of the first drop-off points

so the first day went by with scouting basically, but we already did shoot some drops and sprays. for the second day, we had already spotted a nice kicker spot... quite easy to build, as the takeoff came off a cat track, traversing the slope. but first off, we wanted to get some fresh tracks, as the weather had cleared up. perfect sunshine made everyone smile on the way up.

what a view, when we reached the drop-off point! slightly on the edge of the treeline, endless powder all around. i had to gather the group, before everybody was peacing out towards the pow pow to get one special shot i had in mind all the days before: a panorama shot with the three riders in it.

worked out perfectly as you can see below. come and check it out in almost life size at our ISPO booth, hall A1, booth 514!

as the weather was getting more and more cloudy again, we decided to build the jump at the dedicated spot. turned out to be one of the easiest kicker setups ever, as the cat pushed up some snow right on the cat track, so all we had to do was shaping it. the jump worked good and the landing was pretty safe, exactly as mark had predicted.

freddy, hitting 'sunrise booter'...

after the session (with some nice backlight shots), it was still time for some riding, and we checked a different zone to get some sprays and just ride a bit and get the feet warm again.

öfi, getting some! life as an editor can be really, really tough!

stay tuned for part III ;)

one week at monashee powder snowcats - a recap (part I)

2011-01-30T12:47:00.004+01:00

the lodge under a starry sky...

leaving the icy conditions of middle europe, the past week brought me deep into the monashees in interior BC, canada. a good friend of mine, scott martin from catskiing canada hooked us up with the nice people at 'monashee powder snowcats', a big cat operation in the very heart of interior BC, well known for its insane terrain and deep powder. 'us' means riders riders peter könig, fredrik evensen and simon gruber as well as filmer maxi seefried, pleasure editor christian öfner and myself.

we were doing an article for pleasure mag for next season and filming for the new isenseven movie and this place is for sure perfect when it comes to shooting pow pow: the lodge is locaded on a big, logged field in the middle of a 17,000 acre snowcat-accessible terrain.

travel was quite smooth and everything went easy as one-two-three... we all met at calgary airport to hop onto two rental cars. we made a short stop at scotts house near olympic park in calgary to get some last minute advice for the seven hour ride to vernon, BC. it had snowed alot in the past week and we were a little concerned about kicking horse canyon (near golden) and rodgers pass (between golden and revelstoke). turned out that our concerns were justified, as both passes had been closed for four days prior to our arrival.

on the way, entering the rockies...

sicamous was our destination for the first day, as we had arranged the pickup for the ride to the lodge at 2 p.m. the next day and it was supposed to be sharp, no more possibility to get up to the lodge within the next 3 or 4 days. the motel rooms in sicamous were probable the coldest we ever stayed in. luckily, there were enough blankets available...

öfi in the coldest motel room ever... you can't see the icicles haning from the roof on this picture...

arriving at the pickup point near cherryville on time, the last hurdle of the journey was taken and we were welcomed by some of the guides as well as george, the bus driver and threw our gear onto an old, yellow school bus for the first half of the transfer. the bus ride takes about one and a half hours on snow road, only interrupted by the appearance of a moose, who couldnt't / didn't wanna get off the road, so george had to chase him for a while, gently pushing him to the side. we met the two snowcats in time, loaded all our gear onto the cats and had another one hour cat ride up to the lodge, where we were welcomed by the owners carolyn and tom morgan. after the mandatory safety briefing by chief guide mark stanley, it was time for our first dinner on site!

pickup near the small town of cherryville... reloading the gear onto the snowcats near sugar lake...

tommy veillette, the chef of MPS used to work for chateau lake louise, before he decided to come to where the powder is. many returning guests already told us about his skills and that they had his food was the best they ever had on their trips.

bison steak, anyone?... deeee-licious!!!!

turned out to be no lie, dinner was delicious. guess, i've never eaten so good on any of my trips. tommy is a god!!!

stay tuned for part II!

travel season is on!

2011-01-20T07:10:00.000+01:00

finally! after a really tough first part of the season with more days behind the screen than ever and less behind the lens and a very nice, but exhausting european open, the travel season is finally on again!

the first trip is taking us deep into the monashees to shoot for the new isenseven movie and produce a story for pleasure with peter könig, fredrik evensen and simon gruber... epic conditions awaiting us!
had a nice and easy travel so far through calgary and trans canadian highway #1, stopping in sicamous for one night to get some sleep before we are brought up to the lodge at monashee powder cats tomorrow.

stay tuned!

the ÄSMO is ready to rumble

2011-01-07T08:18:00.001+01:00

sorry for not posting for such a long time... it has been quite busy since end of august when i came home from beloved karpathos. one mag after the other left no time even for short posts. there hasn't been too much interesting going on in that time either, except for some gems that i'll re-post next week when i finally have some time off.

got my ÄSMO this week from wolle, who went to interior BC for the noboard race together with steve... met steve at the airport and finally held this piece of art in my hands. after a quick setup (the pads still need to be attached by hand, depending on the riding style), the ÄSMO is now ready to ride. can't wait to try it! only thing missing now is some pow pow!

portraits for atagge ketchup

2010-08-31T19:20:00.002+02:00

i'm once again back down in greece after completing the first issue of pleasure for this season. its been pretty windy the first couple of days (see last post from end of july), but yesterday and the day before it got quite calm. just before getting bored due to the lack of wind, an email from alex tank reached me, asking for a 'ketchup' interview on his atagge blog and a 'decent portrait' to go along with the interview.

somehow, i can still taste the ketchup, when i'm looking at the shots, my eyes still burning. we shouldn't have used the extra spicy one!

wanting to do something fitting the topic of the interview, i just grabbed a bottle of ketchup from the restaurant and my nephew tobi spilled it all over me. in your face! heidi captured some nice ones with my lumix... thanks, sweetheart!

fucking sharks!

after the shots were done, i walked down to the beach to get rid of the red jizz... the other guests were bit shocked, they all thought, i cut myself or something... rumors were going around, that the 'big white' that harald claims to have seen every year had finally found its first victim... a big fat seal... hehehe.
thanks, alex for the inspiration! i owe you a real fun afternoon. check out the ketchup interview here on his blog!

high wind fun vs. low wind fun

2010-07-26T09:42:00.003+02:00

hell yeah.. .we picked up practising on the backloop again. already works pretty good. its a bit hard to get the hight though...

sorry for lagging with posts recently... after coming home from whistler, i only had a few days at home, before i packed my bags again for karpathos. vacation finally! as we have all of our gear in greece anyway, it was an easy task this time. another reason for my absence from the computer was the incredible good wind conditions in the past 2 weeks with an average of 30 knots and peaks of over 40 knots. we didn't have a single day with sail sizes bigger than 4.7... :D

my favourite angle for the gopro this season... i wish, the quality would be better for stills though...

flying high over andy.. bit my ass, when i saw that frame and realized, that the background was all blurry... i'd love to have this one with 20mpx...

duckjibe in the shallow waters in front of the mainstation... with the mast mount, you can finally see all the colours...

airjibe at 40 knots... feels ALOT different, almost as if you had no sail at all... until the next gust hits!

best day for sure was last friday, when we were able to sail the smallest sails (3.5). meltemi was hauling ass, still not as gusty as usual, so we could practise a bit on the backloop.

nerd of the day I was (you could not possibly think that i was wearing this cap on purpose...). the sunbed setup was good for like 10 minutes...

meanwhile (and thanks to the bad weather back home in middle europe), mr. meltemi stopped its work and is taking a break for 2 or 3 days... though we were more than satisfied the last 10 days, we were bored after the first couple of hours without wind. to avoid a good, solid buzz already in the morning hours, we had to get creative and took a sunbed, mounted a mastfoot on it and put some airbeds below. worked better, than expected, yet needs some modifications. with 2 more low wind days ahead of us, i'm pretty sure, we'll get some good ideas for that :)

to be honest, in this pictures, the airbeds below are already missing... wanted to have that 'naked' shot though as it looks way more spectacular this way :D

eurotrash, glowsticks and vodka cranberries...

2010-07-08T21:58:00.001+02:00

after a couple of days of successful shooting it was about time for another great party at garfs... eurotrash was on and as i missed this party last year, it was about time for me to enter the world of glowsticks, eurotrash and vodka cranberries...

warmed up a bit at sushi village and had a great dinner there, went to garfs straight. the whole place was coverd with zillions of glowsticks and heavy eurotrash pumping from the speakers. we had some hard times, using all the drinking tickets that fabia gave us, somehow managed to get rid of them :)

thanks, fabia & COC for another brilliant party... thanks for the headache :)

bears... beers... baers...?

2010-07-06T07:03:00.001+02:00

one of the best things here in whistler is the wildlife, especially the furry, cuddly buddies in the woods. since we came here, we saw bears every single day. sometimes even three or four of them, especially on the first chair on our daily way up to the glacier...

one day, i came across two one-year olds ('cubs') on my daily jogging round at 5 a.m... i was a bit scared at first but i remembered, that there has never been a bear-attach in the whistler area ever. the two little buddies were scared a bit too, but then decided to give a shit and kept on chewing grass right besides the path.

a day off - vancouver

2010-07-05T06:13:00.000+02:00

(granville street is a pedestrian zone since the olympics... lots of street artists and bands playing all the time...

we took the opportunity to shoot some nice group portraits...)

being pretty unlucky with the weather so far, we decided to have a break today and go to vancouver for some shopping... way better, than to wait the whole day through for better weather and sit in the crib doing nothing but hanging, eating and checking facebook every minute...

(starting from our crib late morning, we passed by mcdonalds in squampton...

peter made sure, not to spill any food on his outfit and the car... thanks, pete!)

compared to whistler, the weather was quite good in downtown vancan and we did the usual tour along robson street... urban outfitters, nike store, levis store and of course the apple store in pacific centre.

(wögna and swöbi, doing some arm-wrestling on granville...)

(we have no idea, what these guys were up to... free salmon for everybody?

mugl didn't care and checked out some new sony 3d glasses... classy!)

(these shots are for sale, as we somehow need to refund the nice parking ticked we got -

for parking on a corporate parking lot on a sunday afternoon)

mugl wanted to stop by at the seaside, so we had a small break (and expensive) stop at coal harbour... we stayed there for maybe 10 minutes, been just like 50 meters away from the car, still managed to get a parking ticket of 40 bucks... the guy must have sneaked upon our car right behind our backs... fucker!

a nice day all in all... big hopes for the upcoming days, better weather is about due!

prom night portraits

2010-07-01T18:57:00.001+02:00

(dominik and swöbi)

after the first couple of days here at whistler and the usual life, it was about time for the first big camp party at garfs... 'prom night', so we had to look for some vintage stuff to dress up. we went to function junction, some miles before whistler to a secondhand store and got ourselves some outfits. with prices between 5 and 12 bucks, we saved alot for the drinks later on... :)

(mugl, the crew and öfi)

the dress-up was already hillarious and as i still had to do portraits with dominik wagner for his youngblood, it was obvious, that we'd do the portraits in his prom night outfit.

(heisä, basti and myself)

the party once again rocked (thanks for the tickets, fabia!)...
its perfect that we can sleep long today, as thursday is always the day off at the camp, plus its canada day, so we gonna cruise down to vancouver today for some shopping...

on the way to whistler

2010-06-27T12:38:00.002+02:00

after some very intense weeks of photo editing, i'm finally on my way to Camp Of Champions in beautiful (and hopefully sunny) whistler. öfi and mugl have aleredy been hitting the road on thursday, but i decided to join a class reunion yesterday and follow a couple of days later.
it was definately worth the delay, haven't seen most of my classmates for decades literally!

(11 men and an italian jerk today are going home to this country that i saw from above :D)

am leaving sunny germany (well, it was about time for some sun!), only to find out that i'll be airborne for the worldcup game between germany and england this afternoon (somewhere between iceland and greenland to be exact). so i'm hoping that lufthansa kept its promise to re-invent wireless internet on their long distance flights, so i can watch the game or at least follow it on some live ticker. otherwise, i hope that the pilot is a bit of a foolball fan and announces the goals at least... :)

keep you posted ;)

UPDATE:
i meanwhile made it to whistler... of course, there was NO internet on the plane, yet the crew were patriot enough to announce every single goal... could not believe it... sooo stoked!!!

(enough of the sarcasm... i leave it up to sign language)

the streak continued, when i picked up the rental car and got an upgrade to a freakin' suburban... sorry for the gas-bill, chris... but i love this car! equipped it with two german flags i bought, we will be a pain in the ass for the austrian part of the crew.
stopped at serfas' place in downtown vancouver for a quick visit and to make the pick for an insane AK story for the next december issue... brainfarm with trice, jjack and lando... iiiinsane.

(oh, beloved rental, oh beloved vancen!)

to make my day complete, öfi called and announced a reservation at sushi village. could not be any happier right now... met fabia and most of the crew there and had a nice dinner... what a day!!

(oh, beloved sushi village)

item of the month - june2010

2010-06-26T11:27:00.000+02:00

well, this month's item isn't really an item, but a little piece of software - expression media pro - that i spend more time with than with my wife at the moment. the reason is, the big annual photo edit is due and there's submissions to edit from about 100 photographers worldwide.
the number of submitted previews has already passed 100k again, so for previewing and editing i need a piece of software that is simple, does not generate huge piles of data and in the same time is reliable enough to safely juggle me through the picture jungle. i found this software already years ago, when it was still named 'iView media', before it was bought by microsoft.

in contrast to way more popular software like lightroom or aperture, this program concentrates on what it can do best (and what i need in this case): make easy editable catalogues of piles of previews. rate them (with colours and/or stars) and narrow down the mass of submitted pictures to a reasonable amount.

the editing process this year already takes longer than expected, yet i could not imagine how long it would tage without this little program...

nice jackson hole review...

2010-06-17T17:08:00.000+02:00

just found this nice review about our last year's jackson hole trip with bryan iguchi, sani alibabic and peter könig on peter's blog:

peter könig's blog

thanks peter, nice memories!... my own blog hasn't yet been online at that time so check peter's version for some of my shots.

karpathos for the weekend...

2010-05-27T09:45:00.001+02:00

(mythos and ouzo - for sure one of the most lethal combinations in liquor history)

had to go down to karpathos for a couple of days to sort some stuff out with our old windsurf equipment from the surf station. the weather sucking big time in germany, this wasn't the worst idea. also, the whitsun holiday on monday made a perfect extended weekend for this.

(byebye, rainy germany - sunshine, here i come!)

with no existing direct flights until after the weekend, i had to fly down via rhodos island and take a small 'island hopper' plane the next morning... a perfect opportunity to visit my friends at the surf station at theologos beach. we had a nice evening, chatting about all the changes in the windsurf biz and all rumors that had been summing up since our last get-together.

(hotel irini - all brand new!... the new puppy at anemos bar does not care)

arriving in afiartis/karpathos the next morning, i found the hotel completely renovated and finished. they were just about to flood the brand new pool. i'm pretty impressed how fast (especially for greek conditions) the finishing process went. holy moly... here's some shots i took:

(the pool area with the new restaurant...)

(hotel overview... really nice done!)

the days went on with pretty hard work, cataloging and repacking all the station equipment and preparing the boardbags for the flight home. at night, i visited some friends at the anemos bar nearby. lots of talks there as well... thanks for all the raki!!! ;)

having everything finished, i'm now looking forward to come here in already two weeks for our first real holiday this season...

stay tuned!

summer season has started!

2010-05-11T07:40:00.000+02:00

(view on the lake from our room... this spot rocks!)

beginning of may is always somehow a turnpoint in the daily routine as well as in the course of the year. last shoots (except camp of champions) are done, season preparation for 10/11 is in full swing, which means more hours in the office again. the slopes being more water than snow anyways, its also time for me to change the element and finally switch to summer mode.

(from bed to board within just 10 meters or so... niiiice!)

karpathos being still some weeks ahead, we decided to take a small break and go down to nice lago di garda in italy. hotel pier is a famous spot here with perfect sideshore conditions both in north and south wind, the rooms just meters away from the waterfront.

(the 'speedy', a tourist motorboat throws the only 'wave' on the lake. good for some airtime! upper right pic shows heidi cruising back towards the hotel... below: water is still pretty darn cold... around 14° celsius... brrrrr...)

the weather wasn't too good, yet better than expected with a wild mixture of sun, rain and everything in between. we were super lucky and catched two days with really good winds, so i could try out the gopro in the water for the first time. still no luck with mounting it on the masttop, i have to think of some proper way to fix it there. boom angle is okay, but a bit too close yet...

all in all a nice weekend with good italian food, lots of surfing and even more relaxing... summer can come!

item of the month...

2010-05-07T12:19:00.004+02:00

yeah, i decided to post my personal 'item of the month' here... starting off with a new gadget for my lumix GF-1... i just love this camera with its 4/3 interchangeable lens system... the small 20mm kit lens with its 1.7 aperture is already pretty sick, yet i was searching for a possiblilty to use the canon EF lenses of my big cameras.

(the-all-new 4/3 to canon EF adapter ring)

found this small adapter-ring on the internet. now i can use all the 'big' lenses on my lumix. focus only works manually and due to the lack of aperture adjustments on the lenses, it only works with fully open aperture. still, its amazing, what effects are possible with the use of that small piece of metal. imagine the 300mm tele lens (which is a 600 due to the 2.0 crop factor of the lumix) or a 80mm tilt/shift... or the huge 85mm/1.2 (see the mounted lens left)... endless possibilities... besides i can now just take the GF1 and some lenses with me when i'm not shooting snowboarding or when i don't need the high speed of the EOS bodies. perfect for holiday trips or just random shots...

(some examples shot with the tilt shift and the 300mm tele lens)

kaunertal recap...

2010-05-03T08:55:00.001+02:00

(beautiful view on the reservoir 'lake')

oh, kaunertal... soo different to all the other spots! for those who are unfamiliar with the 'kaunertal phenomenom': it is a small, remote valley in the back of beyond of western austria. the small village of feichten (which is pretty much the 'capitol') is already far back in the valley, the glacier is even half an hour drive farther back. you pass a massive reservoir lake (which is dead empty most of the time), past the most beautiful mountain road. its about a million turns in the way, like half of them make you shift down to the lowest gear.

(mugl and I found the gayest beer helmets ever made and realized, that they are perfect for mixing jacky coke!)

the terrain is incredibly good and every year we swear to ourselves to come back here mid season to find all the rollers and windlips rideable. never happened though and so we were back for another 'spring classics', couple of weeks with the park shaped properly, lots of party, barbecue and hanging at the appartments. oh... getting some last shots for the next season of course :)

('the beer game' was funny for about an hour, before we realized, that we could drink

even without being forced by the game rules. alex, paying some debts)

the weather was surprisingly good the first couple of days (meaning bluebird and tee-conditions), the chairlift still rideable, which is one of the best arguments to come here: take the upper t-bar, cruise through the park, then take the long run down to the chairlift. sooo much fun!

(öfi and klaus, chilling on our balcony... that's the way you do it!)

this year, we returned to 'haus gfall' and had the big appartment there. alexandra and her husband - the landlords at gfall - are super mellow and have a sick appartment on the upper floor. its just a 200 meter walk to 'kiwi' and just a 50 meter walk to 'pfiffalm', two of the local bars and it has a 'milk station' right across the street where you can get fresh milk 24 hours. sweet, especially when coming home late from a party.

(the 'pfiffalm' is always fun, just 50 meters away from the appartment.

check out alex' sunburn on the middle frame!)

shootings went very well, did some stuff with the MOG crew with flo achenrainer, julia baumgartner, bobby dangl and wulle wanner the first day... they had prepared a nice rail feature near the dam, flo and julia killing it till the sun went down.

(the rail spot of the MOG crew... nice one!)

next day, i shot a 'stick-a-trick' with nicholas wolken. he did like 200 handplants and was pretty much done after that... thanks, fäst... it worked out super good!

the MOG crew had spotted a nice 'natural halfpipe' in some avalanche debris halfway down the valley, which we did on the third day. before, it was time to go up to shoot sani on the huge film/photo kicker on the glacier. he brought shitfaced maurer with him, who came home from the party at 6 am, so all he could do was roll around, cursing and having som not-so-amusing date with a guy called hangover... :) so funny to watch... sorry, mu ;)

(sani brought his very own 'mu' in the trunk, then nailed some nice sevens... thanks, bro!)

after sani nailed some decent front 7 and a super clean front 3 (yeah, dreamteam!), i went back down to the avalanche thing to shoot with the isencrew (fips, basti, alex) and flo achenrainer... the guys had already shaped two nice hits into the 'halfpipe' when i came there.
we were just about to get going when we heared some rocks tumbling above us and realized, that there must have been a big slide going on atop the mountain and everything was coming down through a small ravine towards us. we were super scared, it looked like a fucking hollywood movie, all the slush shooting through the ravine above us. all we could do was running sideways. surprisingly, the whole thing stopped literally inches away from our spot, so we could shoot the feature, still a little bit nervous that more could be coming down the hill.

(basti kuhn, hitting it... scary moments, when the 'lochfickende berg' came down...

see where the small pole is? that was the 'halfpipe spot'... the brownish debis is what the avy brought down...)

the next couple of days brought a lot of bad weather, so i decided to call it a day and have a 'normal' weekend at home (which was a good decision photowise, but i missed some good party i heared)...

(we tested some rubber gear (not what you think) for the shoot next week)

thanks, 'kauni'... we'll be back next week for some 'super duper mega last shots' for the boardtest :)

extreme schnitzeling

2010-04-24T23:44:00.000+02:00

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

2010-04-23T19:05:00.001+02:00

(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...

2010-04-19T16:18:00.003+02:00

(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!

2010-04-17T08:38:00.001+02:00

(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...

2010-04-15T08:47:00.001+02:00

(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!

2010-04-14T02:55:00.000+02:00

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...

2010-04-12T17:41:00.004+02:00

(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

2010-04-02T01:00:00.013+02:00

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)

russia, here we come!

2010-03-31T15:18:00.006+02:00

(kirovsk backcountry, here i come. back in black (and pink... hehehe)

after some office work during the last couple of weeks and bringing the summer issue on the way, its time for another trip again. destination is kirovsk, a small, industrial town well above the arctic circle surrounded by an endless mountain range. perfect for both: backcountry shooting and urban stuff. snow should be still super sick, as the temperature did not rise above -5°C yet and there was one storm after the other coming in throughout the winter.

the crew will be christophe schmidt, dave bertschinger, fipse strauss and colin frei, anne schmidt from planet sports, alex schiller filming for isenseven and öfi and i as pleasure media bitches.

having some backcountry shooting before us, i tried to get some shit done that i already wanted to have for the canada trip: a detachable noboard pad, just fixed by the screws of the EST system... tried around a bit and it now seems to work pretty good: a 2 pieced pad on alloy plates that can be mounted on any board with a channel system.

(yes! the first ever detachable NB pad... it just mounts on a normal board with channel system)

the backpack mount for the gopro cam got some redesign and the curved part (that is used for reverse angle) got a straight brother (sic!) so we can get some nice sled-cams.

can't wait for the trip to begin... i'm super hyped!

stay tuned!

niiice and cold!

2010-03-31T14:33:00.019+02:00

just checked sani's blog, he is on the way to kamchatka, which ist the most remote eastern part of russia. a peninsula, the size of germany which is even more east than japan. hella travel to get there, as it is a decent 11 hours flight from moscow.

reason why i'm posting is that they seem to have an exceptional cold period right now. and cold there means F***** COLD... check sani's blog or check out the temperature forcast for today and tonight... including the wind chill, its a solid -80°C... i can see penguins and ice bears moving south:

everybody send some warmth to the crew... good luck & bring some icicles!

how to make 85 grand prizemoney on one day...

2010-03-07T16:01:00.042+01:00

(not from this world: peetu, taking an easy run)

well, just win the arctic challenge AND the TTR world tour. just be an alien, name yourself peetu and thats how easy it is... :D hands down: it IS peetu's season finally. he always had been the man for 2nd place in the recent years, so it was about time for him to step out of his own shadow and kill it.

(ståle was a bit unlucky this time... great riding nevertheless!)

the finals at TAC was amazing (though almost impossible to shoot), just look at the TV coverage. the third round of the finals was one of the best i've seen: first torstein topping mikkels already high score and then peetu cracking the 90 points with his run... ending his run with a massive crail... sooo cool!

(mikkel on one of his switch backside twelves)

peetu can now go the the US open with his TTR overall win already in his pocket and ride without any pressure. well done, bro!

(no party without l'arrogs & arthur, the mustache boys)

oslo was super cool again for parties, sushi dinners (we had 4!) and though i'm a bit disappointed i have to say it is still one of the best places to go for a contest and i am really looking forward for the 2012 world championships with pipe and slopestyle will be happening here...

(öfi and i, having a good time... red wine in plastic cups rocks!)

see you soon, oslo... thanks henning and crew and of course matty swanson!!!

back to the arctic (challenge)

2010-03-06T11:02:00.001+01:00

(big oncreeen ad at the oslo airport)

its once again time to go to the best city in the world to attend TOAC 2010... öfi and i flew in early yesterday to be there in time for the qualifications... nothing spectacular going on yet. the course is looking quite well, one of the kickers didn't have enough speed, so the riders had to skip it. slope should be good after some changes though.

(wyllerløypa slopestyle course)

(finnish possee)

(first beer on the bus back from wyllerløypa - first good music of the day b.t.w.)

we took it easy and just had a nice sushi dinner with hasi, hitsch and grilo and crashed the hotel bar afterwards. charging the batteries for the first 'real day' today with the semifinals and the big party going on tonight. weather could not be any better, bluebird, just a bit cold (minus 17 this morning at the slope)...

(hitsch and grilo)

we got word that arlberg was getting a really good dump the last 24 hours... bummer :)

i know, what we gonna do next season!

2010-03-03T13:26:00.020+01:00

(pleasure crew, going out in fancytown)

just went to kitzbühel for our big annual editorial meeting. never done the meeting outside the walls of our office, so we thought, it was a good idea to do this in a more relaxed atmosphere. also, we wanted to check out the brand new DC park, so it was kind of logic to combine this and go to kitzbühel for a couple of days.

(xaver visited us for some shredding in the DC/planet sports park)

though we felt a bit misplaced in the city with all the fancy pantsy shops and more fur running around than out in the wilderness, kitzbühel was great and the park really rocks... prefect beginner and intermediate lines and a sick hip and pro jump.

(heads smoking...)

thanks karin for the hookup!

poooooooow!

2010-02-28T09:53:00.004+01:00

(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

2010-02-20T09:06:00.004+01:00

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

2010-02-19T18:13:00.009+01:00

(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!

2010-02-18T05:27:00.017+01:00

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...

2010-02-17T09:29:00.003+01:00

(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

2010-02-16T09:04:00.000+01:00

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

2010-02-15T08:25:00.003+01:00

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

2010-02-15T00:10:00.000+01:00

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!

2010-02-14T12:10:00.000+01:00

(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

2010-02-12T03:20:00.004+01:00

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

2010-02-10T04:13:00.005+01:00

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

2010-02-07T07:54:00.005+01:00

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!

2010-02-05T07:24:00.004+01:00

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!