Wallis

The Doors sang about it, the Avengers made a movie about it - and only the sausage has two. The end. However, Ullr and the PowderAlert are not about something existential like the end of our own existence, the end of the world or the last relationship, but only about the end of our west or northwest situation, which is now rolling inexorably on. People in Valais and France are probably quite happy about this and even the oracle whistled through his teeth this morning when he saw that the avalanche danger had been upgraded to level 5. The little cousin of February 1999 is showing his teeth. (And who else but the Oracle finds a downgrade at level 5 a bit odd? "That's like getting an F+ at school," was the best comment in the chat today). Before the westerly thaw is over this weekend after almost two weeks, some more alarm-worthy snow is coming.

For freeriders, these are not necessarily memories of the 1.57 m tall "Sexy" [censored swear word that deals with mothers and sexual activity], or of the "Artist Formerly Known as Prince" and his song, but of the exceptional February 1999 (exciting memory from the SLF). And this time Ullr invites us to another powder party.

Everyone is waiting for The Big One, albeit for different reasons.

For weeks, keen freeriders have been wandering through the vastness of the Alps in search of powder, like whalers on the ocean in search of lantern oil or pirates in search of bounty. For a long time, there was nothing in sight. But now, finally we can hear: "There she blows, dump backboard ahead!" and there's snow again in the north-western Alps.

"You don't have snow for ski touring in Europe? Let them go heli-skiing in Alaska!". This famous quote from Marie Antoinette about the frequent situation in early winter in Europe famously led to the snowflake revolution of 1999.

Dr. Ullrstein stands impatiently in his laboratory and attaches power cables to season 2025/26, which is laid out in front of him. At the end of October, his capacitors have enough energy for a first power surge and something twitches through the early season.

The life of a cowboy is dusty, hard and full of hardships, just like the freeride season 24/25. But just before Ullr sends the season into retirement, he calls us back to the powder rodeo.

This Chinese curse (all Sinologists roll their eyes because the oracle is giving out dangerous half-knowledge) describes our coming days quite well. But the oracle wants - no, has to - write something now, even if a lot is still unclear for Friday/Saturday, because it's snowing. And it's actually snowing right through to Saturday with short breaks.

The time has come. The Oracle says "all systems go", squeezes into the skintight clothing of an attractive pit crew member, as found in motor racing, and waves the green flag, officially heralding the start of the Christmas race.

It's finally that time again. Christmas time, PowderAlert time. And not just one but two holidays are coming up, because Ullr has finally woken up from hibernation. At the beginning of December, it looked like there would be a real second PowderAlert, but two days before the Alert was due to take place, it was swiftly cancelled and instead of the expected 70-100cm, we got 20-30cm. The oracle was quite surprised at the accuracy of today's crystal ball. That's why PowderAlerts always come just before the snowfall, because nothing is worse than snow that doesn't fall but has been hyped up in advance. Now the time has come, because first there will be a little warm-up until Friday evening and then the second Alert will come on Saturday with a really big bag of fresh snow, then also in the EAST!

In times of crisis, people are happy to see not only the colours of the traffic lights in the news (german politics joke), but also the best colour of all, white. Educated physicists with an affinity for art may now lament that it is not a colour, but the oracle doesn't care, because white is the colour of love. The love of any freerider and finally we get to see it again on our beloved mountains.

We had the opportunity to get an exclusive interview with Maude Besse, a former FWT competitor, based in Verbier. She was also part of the Arc'teryx Winter Film Tour in Munich on the 6th of December.