Tobias Kurzeder

On March 13, 2010, the Nebelhorn Classics freeride race will take place in Oberstdorf for the 10th time. For the 10th time, skiers, snowboarders and telemark skiers will be battling it out for the coveted title in the freeride scene. The starting signal for the spectacular race, which leads off-piste from the summit to the Seealpe, will be given at 11.00 am at the Nebelhorn summit.
PowderGuide congratulates the organizing team around Nebelhorn Classics founder Sven Gittermann and wishes all participants and organizers a worthy anniversary event.

Stefan Widauer (28) is a semi-professional mountaineer. Mountain competitions, ski touring races and marathons are as much a part of his life as going to the office every day is for others. Last Sunday (31.1.2010), however, the mountaineer was caught in an avalanche on his local training ski tour. Equipped without emergency equipment (avalanche transceiver, shovel, probe), the athlete was nevertheless rescued from the avalanche cone after 50 minutes, buried 1.50 m deep. He only just survived the accident thanks to a small breathing cavity and a body temperature of just 27° C.

It's extremely chic and very trendy, the modern little freeride guide for Salzburgerland by Heiko Mandl. 24 freeride routes from easy powder slopes to Dachstein classics are described in detail here, and those unfamiliar with the area will discover plenty of playgrounds for their next freeride days in Salzburgerland with the help of the freeride guide.

The best German snowboard freerider Aline Bock in a PG interview

Until now, the annual reports of the avalanche warning services were mostly a more or less dry chronicle of the past winter, usually only of interest to specialists, in which the avalanche accidents of the previous season were listed. Patrick Nairz and Rudi Mair from the Tyrolean avalanche warning service show how things can be done differently in their "(blatt)form für schnee und avinen des tiroler avalanchewarndienstes 08/09".

The Swiss mountain sports outfitter Mammut has long been known for its innovative advertising campaigns. Some of the current campaigns feature several hundred amateur models in extraordinary settings in the Alps. Mammut has now received the prestigious Swiss Marketing Award for its current campaign.
PowderGuide asked Mammut how such ideas come about, how such mass campaigns are staged and how the safety of 220 freeriders skiing the same slope at the same time is ensured.

THE ski tour of superlatives: 105,199 vertical meters and a distance of 1760 km! These are the phenomenal facts of a phenomenal ski tour, on which the authors set off from the Mediterranean and actually carried their skis all the way to Vienna.

Several particularly serious avalanche accidents occurred during the 2009 Christmas season, this time affecting northern Italy in particular. Here, 7 winter sports enthusiasts, including four mountain rescuers, lost their lives within a few days. Anyone who followed the avalanche reports and warnings from the avalanche warning services before and after Christmas would have realized that we were dealing with a very dangerous avalanche situation.

Just in time for the start of the freeride season, a book about "the most beautiful freerides in the Austrian Alps" is being published. This book is the Austrian version of last year's freeride guide to the most beautiful freeride tours in the Swiss Alps.

After the Monterosa ski area of Gressoney and Alagna had made a name for itself as a world-famous freeride resort over the last 15 years, the closure of the old Punta Indren cable car meant that the freeride suitability of the area declined sharply, as this area was no longer accessible.

The winter sports resorts in Ticino are in a serious crisis. The resorts in Airolo and especially in Bosco-Curin have repeatedly faced economic collapse. Even millions in investment could not bring the ski resorts back on the road to economic success. One man's bad luck is another man's bargain: True to the motto, the municipalities of Airolo and Quinto, located south of the Gotthard, took over the Airolo ski area for 70,000 Swiss francs, the price of a mid-range car. The value of the lift facilities, including the buildings, was estimated at 7.7 million Swiss francs. This means that the new owners acquired the area for a mere 1% of its value.