2015 was a strange winter for me – poor snow in Chamonix and a couple of injuries that coincided with the rare powder days. It felt like winter never really happened……..until that is - my annual pilgrimage to Iceland in May.
In the first episode of the new Salomon Freeski TV series the crew heads to Iceland to join our good friend Jökull Bergmann and get a taste of heliskiing on the Troll Peninsula.
In the past weeks the ski community and in particular those living in Chamonix, have said goodbye to some dear friends and truly inspirational characters
Get ready for a season of cruising the pistes in the Alps or tune up the legs for the big heli adventure in Canada with our new partners at the British Alpine Ski and Snowboard School (BASS).
Heli-skiing in Canada conjures up a few images. Vast quantities of deep, dry powder billowing over your head is probably one of them. Fancy, commercial heli-ski lodges and big groups crammed into fleets of oversized helicopters is perhaps another. If you like the sound of the former but the latter doesn’t strike a chord, then a little known corner of northern British Columbia could be just the place to investigate.
Airbag or no airbag, this guy got lucky. VERY lucky. ABS packs are a good invention and can increase safety margins but they are NOT fool-proof lifesaving bits of gear – far from it. Having one on your back should never change the way you ski or the decisions you make.
Just rounded up the first of 6 weeks guiding at Bell 2 Lodge with Last Frontier Heliskiing. Despite some challenging weather we skied awesome snow 7 out of 7 days with big smiles all round.
2013 and Chamonix keeps coming up with the goods...
Out to the Last Frontier...
Memories burned into muscle from an indelible powder journey
Cody Townsend and Chris Rubens take the ferry north.
Jossi Lindblom and the boys from Salomon Freeski TV were there last winter making an awesome short film.
The idea behind avalanche airbags is simple: if you are caught in an avalanche you deploy a large balloon-type device that inflates from your backpack.
In general heli skiing is a pretty male dominated pastime but this week was refreshingly different. We were graced with the presence of an all-girl team from England who were not only strong skiers but served up endless entertainment day and night.
We were a group with a lot of heli skiing experience between us and I think it is fair to say that this trip was something pretty special for us all – and on several different levels.
For a few years I'd heard stories about the bottomless powder and the empty slopes that have turned Gulmarg into an almost mythical phenomenon, so this year, along with Scott Flavelle, I decided to check it out myself and see what all the fuss was about....
Five flights and a hefty excess baggage bill later, I found myself (with 16 pairs of skis) in a small Inuit village at the end of a frozen fjord on the east coast of Greenland, surrounded by apartment block-size icebergs, dogsleds and gun wielding Inuit seal hunters.
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