The Himalayas, Nepal, fall 2018 It´s the morning of the last day of September and high above the clouds on the sunny top of Mount Lhotse at 8 516 m, two people are carefully putting their skis on. It´s a mere stone´s throw to Mount Everest, the highest mountain on the […]
Skiing
Insights and stories covering the world of skiing and ski travel from around the globe.
PUSU Skis – Bringing Finnish ski building tradition in to the 21st century
As news about an upcoming ski brand manufacturing innovative, award-winning skis in a farm, somewhere amidst the forests of Central Finland started to circle, it was time to investigate. I´m standing in the parking lot, in front of a traditional Finnish barn, in the heart of the country´s lake district. It´s […]
Vagabond skier with a mission – Ahmet Dadali´s journey from N.Y. into the big mountains
It’s the beginning of December and thanks to a storm, that has brought 80 cm´s of fresh snow in the last 48 hours, Laax Ski Resort in the Graubünden Canton in Switzerland, has just opened it´s lifts. I’m standing above the treeline on a knoll, focusing on a skier above […]
Sustainability, mass tourism and the cult of the real skier
The lore of real skiers and small ski areas that rock Little ski areas rock, the mom-and-pop owned operations are keeping it real, saving the sport of skiing from McDonaldization by the evil empire, that the big ski resort corporations present. Although exaggerated a little, this is the lore […]
The Digital Skiing Exerience
”The internet and gaming are our biggest threats”. The quote was made in a 2013 by Mike Douglas in a ski resort marketing website´s interview, where the freeski pioneer and producer of Salomon Freeski TV was asked to name the biggest challenge for the ski industry in the next coming 10 […]
The North Face Futurelight Story
The Himalayas, Nepal, fall 2018 It´s the morning of the last day of September and high above the clouds on the sunny top of Mount Lhotse at 8 516 m, two people are carefully putting their skis on. It´s a mere stone´s throw to Mount Everest, the highest mountain on […]
B.A.M. Pindung – the story of the Bavarian freeride binding
We´re sitting on sofas made out of pallets in a wooden ex-warehouse building in Oberaching, a small town with 13 inhabitants, some 15 km south of Munich, the capital of Bavaria. On my left is a workbench, but instead of a state-of-the-art espresso machine, standing behind is a row of […]
Good times & deep lines at the Mimmi Freek´End in Pyhä, Lapland
From above, our group of skiers and snowboarders looks like a slowly moving pearl string necklace, as we navigate our way through snow-covered thin spruce trees to the Karhunjuomalampi wilderness hut, following the ski track laid by our guide Katja Heikkinen. The surrounding Pyhä National Park has received a foot-deep […]
The Blizzard of Aaahh´s – How the underground rebels saved skiing in the 80´s.
It´s a cold winter day in 1988 and our gym teacher has decided that instead of playing outdoor ice hockey we would watch a movie instead. The class is packed with runny-nosed 15-year-old kids watching skeptically as the moustache wearing middle-aged ski coach sets up the VHS system. It takes […]
Past, Present and Tamok with Jarkko Henttonen
Professional snowboarder, ski magazine owner, freeride contest organizer, FWT judge, snow safety author and lecturer, husky musher, mountain guide, ski area developer – the common denominator in Jarkko Henttonen´s CV is his passion for the mountains. I sat down with him to talk through his career and current resort project, […]