Freeride

In recent years, many freeride suits have become thinner and lighter. Three-layer jackets and trousers are now state of the art. However, anyone who really pushes their outfit to its limits, e.g. by climbing on the rocks, will certainly have had a cut or two in their clothing. The Vertic series from Scott shines here with its very robust material and stylish look.

You need all kinds of equipment for ski touring and freeriding, and often the first thing you think of is skis, ski touring boots and skins. But you shouldn't neglect the ski poles either, as these also contribute to a successful ski tour. That's why our Gear of the Week this time is the "Traverse Pro" poles from Black Diamond.

We three ladies don't know each other from the barbecue, but from Davos. We've lived there for many years. Why we have to go to Andermatt of all places, even though we have the Davos mountains on our doorstep, is easy to explain: firstly, we fancy something new and secondly, at home we rarely take the time to really ski for 4 days in a row. Especially since two of us have children.

Two years ago, Lisa Hempfer was given the opportunity to take part in the Training Session (Level 1) and the Next Level (Level 2) through the cooperation between PowderGuide and the risk'n'fun training programme. Last winter, Lisa also completed the Backcountry Pro (Level 3) and Alpine Professionals (Level 4). Lisa has once again taken the time to summarise her experiences. In the first part, Lisa reports on the Backcountry Pro Camp:

The Mindbender 116c is the widest ski in the K2 Mindbender series and, according to the manufacturer, is nothing less than "the ultimate big-mountain powder ski". Reason enough for us to have two testers scrutinise the ski in two lengths. In our gear review, you can find out how the innovative combination of carbon fibre mesh and wood core built into the ski has proven itself in practice.

The ConditionsReports (CRs) are a central component of PowderGuide and a great help to many freeriders when planning their next powder trip. Without the effort of all ConditionsReporters who write down their impressions concerning snow quality, snow quantity and snow stability during theirs trips, this would not be possible. That's why we want to invite you to become part of the ConditionsReporter team.

Children and young people are still heavily underrepresented in the Videos of the Week. We would like to counteract this. This is an episode with overly cute children and their overly proud fathers, and with incomprehensibly good young skiers.

Spoilt for choice: who hasn't been there? That's how I feel about freeride ski boots, which should actually be able to do everything. They should have inserts for pin bindings. They should offer 100% ascent and 100% descent performance. And in addition to the aforementioned performance, they also need to be comfortable and warm. So I'm looking for an egg-laying, feel-good product. The Freetour from Lange tries to combine the best performance from the racing and touring worlds.

This episode of "Videos of the Week" is presented to you in english! English is an aglo-saxon language and spoken by hundreds of millions of people all around the world. It is fair to say that this beautiful language is our common ground and only a little community, the French, so far resisted to adapt.

Livigno, a duty-free municipality in the Italian province of Sondrio in Lombardy with an altitude of 1,816m. With the surrounding mountains towering more than 1,000m above the charming little town, Livigno is not just a paradise for winter sports enthusiasts on paper. We were there in spring as part of a press trip to check out the winter sports on offer in the Italian valley and quickly fell in love with this unique region.

Since the merger with neighboring Fieberbrunn a few years ago, the "Skicircus" really does offer an almost infinite number of descents for freeriders and ski tourers. During our visit, we were particularly impressed by the opportunities to access long descents in great freeride terrain with short hikes. From extreme variations on the Wildseeloder to relaxed alpine terrain - there is something for everyone.

In addition to the Candide Thovex Pro models, Faction also has a second backcountry/freeski line in its range - the Prodigy series. We extensively tested the widest model, the Prodigy 4.0, last winter. Find out what makes this ski so special and what you can use a freestyle-oriented twin tip with a 112 mm waist width for here in the test.