Freeride

The station is located in the middle of the taiga on a small river and is comfortably furnished. There is even a log cabin sauna with a small footbridge to the river, where a hole has been cut into the mighty ice sheet for ice bathing. Valentina, the resolute cook, a soul of a person, welcomes us with a hot soup.

The blue of the train station is the only friendly color of our destination. Apatity was founded because of the occurrence of "apatite", a rare mineral used for fertilizer. And that's how it looks here too...

You will look in vain for top-class freeride action or railslides in this freeride film. With Signatures, Sweetgrass Productions present their second film, which once again offers a different perspective on deep snow and off-piste skiing away from the mainstream. An absolute must-see!

"Boots are made for walking" goes a well-known American country song. But not all ski boots are suitable for touring with them. In the PowderGuide market overview, you can read which boots currently available meet freeride requirements.

It was 20 years ago, but Martin still remembers his first skiing vacation with his parents very clearly. He was only five years old and the five-hour drive to the ski resort in central Sweden was a long one. Martin remembers the joy of the falling snow, the cold wind in his face and the sound of his skis on the icy slope. This experience is probably etched in the memory of many children, but only for a few does the simple joy of skiing reach this dizzying level of excitement.

At her first Freeride World Tour participation, German snowboarder Aline Bock surprisingly climbed to the second step of the podium. Shortly before the start of the FWT 2010, PowderGuide spoke to the runner-up freeride world champion about her attitude to freeriding and her personal risk management...

After everything that could go wrong went wrong, the gods finally smiled on us and dumped 30cms of fresh, breathless powder on Termas de Chillan on Tuesday night. We woke up to a foot of dry snow piled on the bannister on the deck, and immediately the trials and tribulations of the past week were out and the electric energy of a pow day was in. Yeah!!!

To recount the joys of traveling, I got stuck in the Lima airport for 2 days after I thought my flight was at 1.40pm rather than am. You would think I would know to check that by now, but I didn`t. Some things never sink in.

Arrival

It was snowing hard as the huge, blue bus ran the gauntlet over the pass between Chile and Argentina. In Bariloche, it was snowing harder, and with stiff backs and heavy bags, we dug in for the night at a hostel. Grande flakes of snow fell in slow motion all night and when we woke up, town was caked and no-one could move. The sky had relieved itself of 1 meter of snow and we weren?t going anywhere- that is to say, the ski hill was shut down, and when it did open, we weren?t leaving until we had skied every centimeter of it.
We never made it up the mountain that first day. And nor did some friends that just arrived from Canada. Their skis had been lost in transit and all they had was what they were wearing.

However, before we are allowed to plunge into one of the gullies, we have to get accredited as freeriders at the lift. This means that we are familiar with alpine dangers, can assess the avalanche risk and are prepared to take the risk of an accident ourselves. Then everyone gets a neon-colored sticker stuck to their ski goggles and the guys from the piste control give the go-ahead.

Las Lenas is huge, but it isn't scary. It is supremely aesthetic and inspires you to leave a single, snaking track down each of its many faces. The thing is, it is very possible to do so with the Marte Chair running and incredible peaks within easy boot-packing distance. From the top of these, the mountains stretch on seemingly forever, and so do the possibilities...

Winter sports in Argentina begin for us with a wine tasting in a bodega in the "Valle de Uco" in the hinterland of Mendoza. It is mid-July, we have come from the European summer and are in search of South American powder snow. But here at 700 meters above sea level, it's not as cold as we expected and the sky is so clear and blue that it almost looks fake. Only the view of the snow-covered Andes towering high into the sky suggests a little winter.

At four hours, the stage from Whitewater to Fernie was the longest on our tour. Of course, on a trip like this, it's easy to fall back on one of the countless fast food restaurants in the land of endless expanses. A&W became our burger joint of choice. And what can we say: really tasty! You should definitely try it on a trip to Canada.