After "Time for the Whiteroom" and "For a few Lines more", the Innsbruck-based film crew led by Johannes Hoffmann and Simon Platzer have now produced their third major film "Trail and Error". As the name suggests, not everything always goes right at the first attempt in a ski film production, and sometimes things go really wrong. But that's no reason not to try. And so last winter, the Whiteroom crew once again took to the mountains far away from the usual film locations to try their hand at perfect lines.
Innsbruck was once again the home base for almost all of the riders involved in winter 2013/14, including snowboarders (Alex Hoffmann, Max Zipser) and telemark skiers (Michi Trojer) as well as skiers. From Tyrol, the first film trip took David Pitschmann, Fabian Lentsch, Johannes Hoffmann, Simon Platzer and Jakob Schweighofer to Georgia, where the boys found fine snow at the end of the trip after having been to remote, quiet places. Back in Austria, it was time for the big dumps in South and East Tyrol. Together with filmer Pete Oswald, Jochen Mesle and Björn Heregger focused on lines in the Eastern Alps and were rewarded with incredible treeruns and pillowlines in this almost legendary southern winter. In the Deffreggental, they not only found the deepest powder. At the end of a day of filming, Roman Rohrmoser, Raphael Webhofer and Michael Trojer found a deer that was apparently having a much harder time than the freeriders in the meter-deep snow and got stuck. The rescue operation was captured on camera and the Witheroom crew got their 15 minutes of fame not only on local Tyrolean television.
The next big trip was to be one of the most challenging and, for one RIder, the last of the season. The destination was Iran. In Europe, the country in the Middle East is hardly associated with great mountains and freeride opportunities. However, there are ski resorts in Iran and the backcountry offers many opportunities that have hardly been considered so far. However, the infrastructure and security situation don't make it easy and so at the end of the trip, there were only two successful days of filming on the balance sheet. But at Gahar Lake, Daniel Regensburger, Fabi Lentsch, Raphi Webhofer and Roman Rohrmoser were probably the first skiers ever. Unfortunately, Roman injured himself on this trip and was out for the rest of the season.
In February and March, some of the riders focused more on freeride competitions again. Neil Williman and Raphi Webhofer had to deal with a lot of postponements on the Freeride Word Tour and ultimately failed to qualify for the next season, despite giving it their all. By contrast, things went much better for Alex Hoffmann and Fabi Lentsch, who both secured a ticket for the FWT 2015 with a win at the 4* FWQ in Obergurgel at virtually the last second. However, Neil and Raphi were still full of energy and planned a film trip to Norway, which they were again denied due to the bad weather. As a replacement program, a caravan trip through Switzerland was on the agenda. But here too, difficult snow conditions made it anything but easy for them and Raphi broke his hip in extreme terrain and had to be rescued by helicopter. Neil recorded his experiences on this trip in his blog. But even this serious injury couldn't stop Raphi from trying out spectacular lines on New Zealand's glaciers again this summer.
Russia was the destination of the last trip of the 2013/14 season and the film project "Trail and Error". David, Fabi (back on skis just a few days after a brutal fall in the Ötztal backcountry), Michi and Joi were out on the glaciers of the Altai Mountains with filmmaker Jakob Schweighofer in a tent. But this time the crew's persistence in exploring new areas to find the best lines paid off. The three weeks turned out to be one of the crew's best trips and a worthy end to the season. "Trail an Error" will celebrate its premiere on October 22, 2014 in Innsbruck with almost all riders and crew members (even Kiwis Neil Williman and Pete Oswald will fly in) as part of the Alp-Con Cinematour 2014. If you can't be there in Innsbruck, you definitely shouldn't miss this big mountain freeride film. Alp-Con is still showing the film at around 40 stops in 4 countries.
