japan!

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)

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)

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!

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

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

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

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