Freeride

Perfect weather, sunburn, new lines, parking lot beer and powder turns in the seemingly endless terrain on the Kitzsteinhorn.

State-certified ski instructor. Mental trainer. Freerider. And filmmaker. Hardly any other female skier has as many professional facets as Sandra Lahnsteiner. She has made freeskiing more feminine with Shades of Winter and tells us in an interview why it's worth just doing something, why it's brave to say "no" sometimes and why her films also inspire men to ski.

Roger Fischer, our Conditions Reporter of the Week, writes guidebooks and finds freeriding best when he can combine it with his second passion, paragliding.

Our third Conditions Reporter of the Week is Zach Paley, who is always reporting for us from the more remote corners of the world - sometimes in the form of powder-filled Japan CRs, sometimes with longer, personal travel stories from Lyngen, Argentina, or Kyrgyzstan.

The community of Conditions Reporters is a central part of PowderGuide. After all these years, it's high time we got to know our CRers a little better! Over the next few weeks, we will be introducing some of our community members in short interviews. We'll start with Chris Berner: The ex-windsurfer is now back on the water in a solid state, preferably on the Titlis.

With the Confession, Völkl has been offering a real big mountain ski since the 16/17 season. 117mm under the binding, a titanium strap and a stiff shovel make the Confession a casual high-speed toy. You can read about how the ski performs in detail here.

The new products in the ski sector are very limited this year, as is the number of manufacturers still represented at ISPO. Amer Sports (Atomic, Salomon, Armada) was no longer at the trade fair this year and other companies are also exercising more and more restraint in terms of their stand presence.

Want to go to Japan? Hakuba is the closest valley of ski resorts to Tokyo, and boasts the best terrain to be found in the country that spends the most per person on snow removal every year. Here's a few tips to make sure the froth factor is fufilled:

The SENDr came to me unexpectedly, but at exactly the right time. My old ski still works, but its best days are over and the ravages of the mountains have taken their toll on it. So I'm more than happy to have the opportunity to test this new gliding device.

We are delighted to be able to offer a place at the training session, the next level camp and the end-of-season chillout again this year together with risk'n'fun. risk'n'fun is the training program of the Alpine Club Youth. In addition to learning technical skills, the freeride camps also focus on "human" topics such as group dynamics and personal risk perception.

Once again, the Back on Track Freeride Contest at the Saarbrücker Hütte last weekend exceeded all expectations! To celebrate its 5th birthday, the BOT crew came up with a very special surprise for the participants. In addition, the Silvretta-Bielerhöhe once again provided the freeriders with an incredibly good time. But first things first. A look back.

Freeriding as a women-only domain is a long outdated cliché. Men are confidently conquering the powder, the industry is offering more and more products that are specially tailored to men's needs and there are also more and more freeride camps where men can keep to themselves, hone their skiing technique with professional help and learn to push their limits. As a counterpart to the very successful Kästle Powder Department Ladies Days on the Stubai Glacier, we will be offering the PowderGuide Powder Department Gentlemen Days next winter!