Christiane Eggert

PowderGuide user Philip Crivelli won the WhiteSession competition organized by PG partner Julbo last winter and spent ten days on the slopes with Sam Anthamatten and Vivian Bruchez. Phillip had already ticked off one or two steep faces beforehand - now, in the company of the two pros, he tackled two more. We asked Phillip how he got on: a conversation about steep slopes and skiing at eye level.

The Freeride Junior World Championships were postponed from Thursday 28.01. to Saturday 30.01.16 due to poor snow conditions. Our reporter Christiane, who unfortunately couldn't be on site until Saturday, briefly describes her impressions and interesting background information from Thursday before going into the results of Saturday's contest. This is followed by a short interview with German junior skier Leo Birker and a spot check of the mountains in Andorra.

The winter of 2014/15 was characterized by an exceptionally snow-poor early winter with correspondingly below-average snow depths. Over the entire winter, snow depths were only just above average above 2200 m and above average on the southern slopes of the Alps. These marked differences in snow depth depending on altitude were caused by above-average temperatures, which repeatedly melted away the snow at medium and low altitudes. With the exception of February, the months of November to March were all too warm, and early winter was record warm in some cases. Despite the excessively warm winter, large parts of the Central Plateau and Jura experienced an average number of snow days thanks to a favorable combination of cold and precipitation. The snow cover build-up was weak in the inner Alps, but also at times on the northern slopes of the Alps, whereas it was much more stable on the southern slopes of the Alps. Compared to the long-term average, last winter was more dangerous. Danger level 3 (considerable) was forecast more than normal, level 2 (moderate) less. Two major avalanche accidents led to an above-average number of avalanche fatalities overall. By April 15, 32 people had died in avalanches.

The first stop of the Freeride World Tour 2016 took place today. This year, the world's freeriding elite met at the start of the tour on the northern flank of the Pic D'Arcalis in Andorra. Rookies who had risen from the qualifiers and experienced World Tour veterans shared the first places.