The first impression of the book: a not very lovingly designed, old-fashioned reference book in curriculum style; and the pseudo-modern 3D glasses included, with which some photos can be viewed three-dimensionally, do nothing to change this. If you are not put off by the initial impression, the curriculum "Freeriding simply" nevertheless offers a lot of high-quality information and can serve as training literature for beginners and newcomers, but also as a reference book for advanced skiers.
Little successful layout, decent content
The book lacks a detailed table of contents or a keyword index, instead you will find the association's own advertising for its "snow sports philosophy". However, the book does not reveal what this philosophy is supposed to be. After the visual atrocities of some purple-colored double pages around a less than successful downhill touring picture, real freeriders may not want to get to know this philosophy at all; however, this is merely a guess on the part of the reviewer.
In terms of content, the book is divided into two parts: In the first five main chapters, the authors describe and explain the equipment required for touring and freeriding (1), the basics of snow and avalanche awareness (2), an introduction to risk management (snow card, 3x3 filter and reduction method, pattern recognition) (3), tour planning (4) and the usual brief topic of "nature conservation" (5). The second part of the book mainly describes ski tactics: The ascent technique, the various forms of technique and ascent and descent tactics are well explained. Even experienced freeriders will find many valuable tips in these chapters, which come from the authors' many years of mountain and training experience.
My first disappointment with the book was already triggered by the cover (an action-packed real freeride picture) of the "new" freeride syllabus from the German Ski Instructors' Association, which promises much more than the book delivers. Strictly speaking, the book is not a "freeride" syllabus, but a slimmed-down alpine syllabus. This is probably due to the fact that although the authors Wolfgang Pohl and Georg Sojer are well-known and highly competent mountain guides, freeriding does not seem to be a subject close to their hearts. Many of the pictures and graphics have already been seen in the alpine curricula by the same authors and in their other works. And it goes without saying that an alpine instruction book does not become a freeride book if you simply replace the word "ski tour" with "freeride tour".
The weak layout and the inconsistent presentation and design certainly do little to help the book become successful beyond the boundaries of the ski instructors' association. But perhaps that was not the publishers' intention. An all-round great freeride alpine textbook in the style and design of Jimmy Oden's "Free Skiing" is still missing for the German-speaking Alpine region. The authors and the publisher are to be blamed: too bad, you could have done better!