Recent Posts

Skiing

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 […]

Skiing, Travel

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 […]

Reviews

Ski Review: Chinese ski brand Stepsnow

The ISPO Munich held yearly in between the end of January and beginning of February in the capital of Bavaria, is arguably the biggest sports fair in the world. Dozens of halls filled to the brim with the latest offering by the biggest companies (and the occasional startups and SME´s) […]

Skiing

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 […]

Travel

Following the road less travelled into Russian Karelia

 The border formalities on the Finnish side go smoothly, but on the Russian side the bureaucratic Soviet influence is still evident: I have to fill several small entry forms and then queue with them from one counter to the next. As I am crossing the border by car I have […]

Skiing

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, […]

Skiing

Ski bumming to the Oscars: Film director Ruben Östlund´s unusual path to success

Swedish film director Ruben Östlund, 44, grew up with his mother on Styrsö, a small rocky island on the south coast of Sweden with only 1400 inhabitants. He learned to ski in Lapland during regular visits to his grandparents. While Östlund continued windsurfing with his friends in the sea surrounding […]

Reviews

Review: Salomon S/Lab Shift MNC binding

Photo: Amer Sports/Salomon The S/Lab Shift MNC hybrid binding has been one of the most talked about ski equipment releases of the 2018/19 season. There has been so much interest toward the binding that Salomon pro skier Cody Townsend had to tell people just before the turn of the year […]

Skiing, Uncategorized

From Lapland To The Today Show – The Club A Story

It´s the summer of 1984 and Barry Levinson, a young college business graduate from Colorado, is driving a rental car in Lapland towards Kemijärvi, a small provincial town in eastern Lapland, less than an hour´s drive from the Soviet border. Van Halen´s Jump is playing on the radio. As the […]

Skiing, Uncategorized

Climate Change and the Future of Ski Resorts

28 December 2017: Koli National Park, Finland   It should be a busy ski day after the Christmas holidays, but the lifts and cross-country trails remain closed. The Koli ski resort has given an official warning to stay out of the surrounding forests due to the heavy loads of frozen […]