Anna Hagspiel

Mountain guide and photographer Stefan Neuhauser tests the top freeride jacket from the current Bergans collection for PowderGuide. Stephan has been freeriding with the Isogaisa jacket and Stranda pants from Bergans in the Allgäu and Southern French Alps since mid-December 2011 and tested the jacket extensively.

We cross a long plateau and are then as close to the mountain as the truck can take us. Now, with heavy backpacks on our backs, it's an hour and a half up and down 5000 meters through a moraine landscape. During a break, a discussion begins which results in Peter leaving his skis behind, while Brigitte and I decide to take the skis with us to the bitter end, even if we might have to carry them back down the mountain, although it is not yet clear whether and how a descent is possible at all.

Passers-by and travelers at Frankfurt Airport stare at me in confusion. "What's a girl doing so loaded down with a surfboard in the middle of November?" asks an elderly gentleman. I find it difficult to explain to him that the big bag doesn't contain a surfboard, but ski equipment, sleeping bag, sleeping mat and tent, and that I'm on my way to Chile to ski the highest sand mountain in the world...