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PowderPeople | Nikolai Schirmer: Ultimately, I justify the risk with my videos

Interview with the Norwegian freerider and YouTube star Nikolai Schirmer

by Claus Lochbihler 03/21/2023
His videos are as popular as ski trips to the Lyngen Alps: Nikolai Schirmer talks about extreme skiing in Norway on Instagram and YouTube. In this interview, the 32-year-old Norwegian talks about his attempt to reconcile climate protection and a career as a professional freerider, what makes freeriding in the far north so special and how he tries to minimize the risks of his profession.

Nikolai on Instagram and on YouTube.

Claus Lochbihler: I was looking at what user comments you reply to on your YouTube channel. I noticed that you always seem to reply when someone mentions that they themselves have survived an avalanche. Or even lost friends or relatives in an avalanche.

Nikolai Schirmer: That's right. That's always my answer.

Why?

Because what I do and show in my films could re-traumatize people who have survived an avalanche or lost friends and family while freeriding or ski touring. I want to reach out to them and say that I am sorry for their loss. Especially if perhaps a video of mine has reopened their wound. Ultimately, I justify the risk with my videos. A risk that may no longer be justifiable in the eyes of people who have lost someone as a result.

If you ever have children - would that make a difference to what you do?

I hope so. It's a big responsibility to bring life into the world. After all, children don't choose to be born. If a parent dies - even more so in something you don't have to do - everything is much shittier for the child than it needs to be from the outset. Do you know the scene in Meru? With Jimmy Chin, who promised his mother he wouldn't die in the mountains. When she dies, he says, 'Okay, let's go back to Meru'. I think that sums up the conflict that most alpinists know quite well and even humorously. The relationships with the people we are closest to should have an impact on our decision making.

In the vast majority of videos, you are not out with other freeride celebrities, but with friends.

At the very beginning of my career, I thought I absolutely had to work with other, better-known ski pros. But there's simply nothing better than skiing with friends. The most important thing for me is to have a good time. I'd rather go on tour with a friend or a good girlfriend than with a ski celebrity I don't even know well.

Do you have a favorite ski partner?

My favorite skier in the world is a splitboarder: my friend Krister Kopola. We both know our level and trust each other. Krister also always has good ideas about where I could make turns in my line. I like his attitude, with which he overcomes any adversity, no matter how big.

If you could still choose a well-known professional skier for a tour together, who would it be?

I would like to include more female skiers. My video series is still very guy-heavy. However, many of my followers think I should collaborate with Cody Townsend. That would certainly be fun too.

You'd have to fly to North America for that, though, when you've actually decided to limit yourself to Norway and Europe for climate protection reasons. What COO2 footprint are you currently heading for?

I reduced it from over 40 to 12 tons three years ago - which is at least the Norwegian average. I haven't counted since 2021, but I would assume it's gone down a bit more. I still fly a bit, but now only travel by electric car or train.

A friend of yours only managed five tons back then.

My friend Mika! It's amazing how consistent he is. He travels much less than I do and only goes to Lyngen at most, where it is of course also very, very beautiful.

How did you actually get from Norway to our interview in Munich?

By plane. From here, I continued by train. I had an event in Oslo the day before. If your sponsors (Nikolai is an athlete at Norrøna) expect you to be in Munich a day later, you unfortunately have to fly. The train from Oslo to Munich takes two days. That's why I'm not flying to North America again this winter. I had two invitations to New York and Boulder - but I turned them down. Nevertheless, it's important to me that I don't come across as an absolutist. Many people are put off from trying to do something about climate change because they feel that it's an absolute thing where you have to turn yourself into a saint, so to speak.

Or a monk.

That puts many people off. But it's important to get everyone on board. If someone reduces their emissions by half, they are still much better than most of the world's governments. That's why I think it's important to spread the message: Just do something. Doing something is much better than doing nothing. Eating a lot less meat than you used to is already making a difference.

Are you a vegetarian?

No. But when I get a burger, it's usually meat-free. I love the meatless burgers. It tastes as good as with meat. You can always put a slice of bacon on it.

You've been able to make a living from skiing and filming for a few years now, your most popular video "I've never seen anybody ride that fast!" - Endless Winter 3 - YouTube has 1.3 million views. Were there nevertheless moments in your career as a freerider and YouTuber that you would describe as failures?

My biggest struggle was finding a way to manage all the work. Finding a balance between skiing and film work. Many people think I only ski. But planning, shooting and editing my films is an incredible amount of work. If you're not careful, it becomes even more. If every moment suddenly feels like it could be filled with work, it's not good in the long run. Apart from that, I consider myself very lucky. My injuries have all healed well. And I haven't lost any of my close friends in the mountains yet.

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Among your YouTube followers, I noticed a pretty religious and somewhat bizarre splitboarder from Alaska.

You must mean Faith in action. He really is the best. Laughing.

In his videos, he prays out loud at the summit before setting off on the descent. Apparently his way of showing gratitude for the mountains and focusing on the descent.

I have the feeling that he wants to remind me that Nikolai Schirmer is going to hell one day because I'm not a believer. Laugh. All the more reason for him to like one of my last videos: A Time for Everything.

Why?

Because the video title is a quote from the Bible, but also the title of a book by Karl Ove Knausgård , the Norwegian author that I really like: En tid for alt (Everything has its time). My video is about the fact that everything has its time - whether it's about certain life decisions or, as in the video, about the right time for a descent through the northern flank of Store Jægervasstinden. And that sometimes you have to turn back when the time has not yet come. It's also a bit about the Bible that my very religious grandmother gave me - her not at all religious grandson - as a gift for his youth consecration. Faith in Action should really like that.

Do you think ski touring in Norway, which has become popular among ski tourers from all over Europe, is actually riskier than elsewhere?

No. Of course, you have to adapt to the local conditions - just like everywhere else. For example, here - especially in the north - there are very frequent and long-lasting weak layers in the snow cover. Although this is very similar elsewhere. The weather in Norway is of course often very, very rough, also because of the proximity to the sea. And then you're often all alone on many tours far and wide.

The terrain is often even rockier than in the Alps.

That's right, there are lots of rocks here.

Your last major injury - including a ruptured Achilles tendon - was sustained when you fell over hidden rocks.

There were four rocks. Boom, boom, boom, boom, that's what it did (Watch the video: Doing a 78 week rehab in 15 weeks. Healing an achilles to save winter.) However, I don't know whether the risk is really higher in Norway due to the rocky terrain. I don't know any figures on this. It's probably more a question of the snow conditions and the terrain everywhere. And how early you set off.

In your videos, you can be seen almost as much trudging uphill - bootpacking - as you are on skis. Is that specifically Norwegian?

In Norway, with the terrain I like to ski, you have to get off your skis quickly on the ascent because it's so steep and narrow. Bootpacking has also become a lot easier thanks to new equipment - such as the material from Auftriib. Ultimately, it depends on what kind of terrain you're interested in. I actually bootpack everywhere - and sometimes wonder why more don't do it in the Alps.

What should you know when you go ski touring in Norway for the first time?

The people who report on the avalanche situation here have to cover huge areas. That's why the avalanche situation reports in Norway are coarser and less precise than in the Alps. More like in Canada. Of course, I take my hat off to our avalanche bulletins despite this, or perhaps because of it. We didn't have this quality when I was growing up. In the last four or five years, a few really good people have made the avalanche forecast for the mountains of Norway even better.

Are there any other special features?

You should know that the observers from our avalanche warning service often don't go very high. In the Lyngen Alps, for example, they generally don't go above a thousand meters - which is still very high from the sea, of course. So sometimes you have little idea what the conditions are like above a thousand meters. Unless you find out for yourself.

There were a lot of avalanche accidents in Norway in the 21/22 season.

We had a problem with weak layers for a long time, especially in Lyngen. Unfortunately, there were quite a few avalanche accidents, some of them fatal. The weak layers actually only existed below an altitude of a thousand meters. It was much better above that. Of course, you only know that once you've been there and checked it out. You also had to find a safe way up, which can be quite tricky and technical in some places. This makes it all the more important that everyone reports what they have observed. That's how we pool our knowledge. And this way, everyone has more information for better tour planning.

Do you have a kind of fixed protocol or process for risk management and assessing the avalanche situation when you go on tour?

First of all, I try to find good snow conditions that are as safe as possible. I study the avalanche report and combine this with my own assessments gained in the terrain. I constantly check this in the terrain itself - with snow profiles, by observing the weather and its effects on the snowpack. I try to develop a kind of systems thinking. I develop assumptions about the snowpack and how the wind affects it, for example. Where are there weak layers? How does the sun affect the snow? At the same time, I try to choose the terrain in such a way that the worst possible outcome is not necessarily fatal. I try to choose terrain with clean run-outs, perhaps without big rockfalls that I could fall over, without terrain traps and so on. I also try to minimize the time I spend in dangerously exposed terrain. So if I'm riding a steep face, I try to choose my route into that steep face as safely as possible.

You use FATMAP quite often, a map service that maps terrain and steepness in color and in 3D.

Many more people should be using map services like this! (See e.g. Nikolai's video on this: How I Use FATMAP - YouTube) Especially those who are relatively new to the backcountry. If you are not traveling steeper than 30 degrees, you are very safe on many days. It only gets complicated when you want to ski steeper terrain. Then, like me, you have to be very selective about the days. Then you have to be able to wait and see. For Eulogy Of A Steep Skier, we waited a month until the conditions and weather were right.

Before shooting your first Sofia film, there was a persistent weak layer problem in the snowpack for two months. So you didn't ski anything steeper than 30 degrees for two months?

That's how it was. And we had fun doing it! And we even made a video.

There's a lot of discussion in the alpine scene about error culture. And that people should talk more about mistakes. On the other hand, people who are rescued or admit mistakes on the mountain are often met with a shitstorm. What's your opinion on this?

Of course it's unpleasant to be called an idiot by others. But you probably just have to put up with it. I also don't want to portray myself as someone who never makes mistakes. I make mistakes all the time. I try to avoid it, but I do make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The best mountaineers in Norway have been close to or actually in an avalanche, as have the best mountain guides. It's simply impossible to do everything 100 percent right all the time. This makes it all the more important that we learn from our mistakes together. This is the only way to build up knowledge and move forward. Hating or making fun of people who have made the wrong decisions is counterproductive. It only leads to people no longer daring to talk about their mistakes. And nobody can learn from them.

Sometimes you work with mountain guides on your film projects, sometimes not. What does that depend on?

It depends on my workload. When I'm skiing, directing and also producing the film, I'm sometimes happy if I don't have to constantly worry about the snow cover and the risk of avalanches. But that's the exception. For me, part of freeriding and ski touring is being independent and making your own decisions. Most of the time, I want to be the one making the decisions for myself in the terrain.

A few of your friends are mountain guides. When you're out with them: Is the mountain guide always the boss? Or do you have equal rights?

Of course, I always bow to the authority of wisdom. Laughs. But we usually cultivate a kind of dialectic process. So a discussion within the whole group: what has been observed, what does it mean and what decision should we come to.

Have you ever experienced this kind of diffusion of responsibility? That no one decides because everyone and no one is responsible?

I think that's most likely to happen in a group that's too large and thrown together. And rather not if you are constantly communicating with each other and asking yourself: What is the snow cover like? Does it match our assumptions? Is it safe or not? Where are the safe stopping points on the descent? But of course, this group communication doesn't always work, as you can see in our first WAVY film.

There's Merrick Mordal, the woman in your trio, who is more cautious than you two men. She would like to dig a snow profile, but because the group is running late - the boat engine didn't start in the morning - and you're worried that the warming will throw a spanner in the works, you want to save time and forgo a snow profile. As you enter the slope, you trigger an avalanche after the first few turns - but manage to save yourself on a ridge.

That's where things really went wrong. I still don't think that's a good example of diffusion of responsibility. It's more an example of what happens when two people - me and my friend Krister Kopola - are far too fixated on this one descent. What's more, Merrick, the cautious one, was so far behind us. We couldn't talk to each other. By the time she gets to the top, Krister and I have already made a decision.

Don't ski videos - even if they are as realistic as yours - also create dangerous illusions and pipe dreams?

Of course, ski videos mainly show the good days. If I produce ten videos in a season, then I only need ten good days. But everyone thinks that every one of my skiing days is like the ones in the videos. But we also sit around a lot and wait. In WAVY II, for example, it's basically all about finding good, safe snow. We talk about our snow strategy before the trip and how the heat affects the snow. The Eulogy Of A Steep Skier is also very much about the snow conditions and the appropriate strategy. On the other hand, I don't want my videos to be a tutorial. I must also not overstep my own role and competence. After all, I'm not a mountain guide or an avalanche researcher.

What are you?

I'm just a professional freerider trying to have fun. Of course, I'm aware that some people watch my videos and then emulate them. That brings with it a responsibility that I try to live up to. But again: I'm not an authority in this field and I don't want to pretend to be.

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This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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