Tromsø Freeride Challenge 2010

So it seems that after the many years of non-existence (after the demise of the legendary Krokjævelen a few years back) the Tromsø freeride competition scene is finally back from the dead. Like a phoenix from the ashes one might say, but we prefer to say like a nice hot dog from a burgerstand or Narvesen when there’s pølsefest going on!

Obviously we’re all superduper stoked. big ups to the organizers !

Strap on your scwuanqers and head for Kattfjordeiet on april 17.!

Screen caps and epicness on home turf

Got some cool footage on card in the alps, and editing as we speak (not really…) and it will air in a couple of days (not gonna happen). But at least u can have some caps from it! The two last days were epic, with perfectly light snow and bluebird, so the stoke couldn’t been higher. And we should have been bummed to go back home, but as the forecast said one week of dumpage we weren’t too sad. And we went almost straight out of the airport to kroken and what I will call the best krokisshred of all time!

Giving the austrians some chair lift entertainment

After a week of pillowcase practice i was ready to take my game to the mountain

We even got two runs on tape and actually managed to process them within a reasonable amount of time, so here is for ur viewing pleasure. Kroken shred the movie!

Krankenhouse

This trip didn’t go quite as expected at least not for me. Coming down here I was hoping to get some pow, cliffs and pillows. Well, the only pillows I´ve been getting is the pillow in my bed, the only cliff i´ve hit is the one that sent me to the hospital and the pow is still waiting to get tracked.  So while the others are out shreddin i´ve pushed the sheets to the limit and worked my sleeping stamima up to olympic standards.

The proving ground for my extreme sleep training

Enjoying the view and some high end gulash soup on top

The first day we took it quite easy to begin with,  had some nice tourist sightseeing around Valuga, enjoyed some good quality goulash soup on top and straight out had a good time as long as it lasted. After doing some Swede slalom down to Stuben we took a couple laps in the woods before we continued to the higher elevations and some more challenging terrain.  Coming from Japan I should have been used to soft landings, but the forgiving snow on the first of  two cliffs  came as a surprise. Happy as I am in tomahawkning I did some hella smud araber-flick-flacks over the cliffs. In the middle of these nice gymnastic moves my head got in a little argument about who´s stronger  with an grumpy rock and unfortunately it had to see it self beaten by this angry austrian granit bastard. Couple minutes later I found my self in an ambulance on my way to Dr. Josef Spitzgaren at der Krankenhaus am Zams. At least thats what I´ve been told… This nice doctor could give me the pleasant news of no skiing or alcohol in 1 week. What to do down here then? Well, as I said i´ve been working my sleeping skills from 2200 to 1600… But its getting a little bit boring so i´m thinking about making a guided to some of the nice SPA´s around here, so stay tuned!

Andy gettin some air while iam gettin some sleep

The others have been kind enough to let me know how epic things are on the mountain during the day and the bars at night. Well, today i actually joined the other guys along with Hjalmar the danish extremskiier of himmelbjerget for a night out. And got to say it, the backslick factor is high and the ralph lauren polos sits tight, but had a good time. Even though i felt a little like Andreas Håtveit sitting there along with all the drunks and only nipping to a coke. We even got a bit of action when Andy was so cheap that i wouldn’t pay the 1.5 euros for his jackets safety, and guess what. A sneaky as polish dude in shorts liked the smell of it so much that he tried to sneak it with him back to poland, and blamed the high oil prices for his misery. So good fun both on and of the hills here in swedemanialand.

The kitchen section of our apartment, right next to the bathroom section, bedroom sec tion and the livingroom. Compact living!

Iam back on skiis to days before departure and if the forecast is right i think those two days will be the best. So iam just gonna sit tight till then and work my sleeping stamina to unseen levels.

Looped put!

Not so serious in Zürs

After a long taxi ride from München we found ourselves between møkkakjellere and Draculas (swedes, äppleflickor).
The crew this year were Andy, Andreas, Lars, Vegard, Eirik and J-man aka Thor aka the young-gun, and everyone in the crew was stoked about the powder that we never found in St. Anton.

In Stuben, aka Looped town no.1 we actually found some good powder, and Vegard got too stoked and strapped on his fucked up helmet, and did a double drop to headplant. He woke up in the hospital high on drugs and with a concussion.

We travelled to the  north-west to Zürs and we found some sweet ass pow, to Vegards frustration because he was home eating candy, wienerschnitzel and bratwurst. The pictures speaks for themselves.

Andy sprouts

J-man checking out the conditions

Eirik aka it-man squirting some snow on the german ravers

More to come, stay tuned Looped out

Back to the ice rink!

Will the mustache man dropped his shovel to shred some pow

So, after two days travel with a quick pit stop in Tokyo we´re unfortunately back in northern norways ice skating capital Tromsø. Sucks, specially when our last day were our best and Torkel is reporting of epicness  and 10 second faceshottubes. Well well, at least  Tokyo was hook with Datarock playing at La fabrique and the xtmandatory good times that follows when a norwegian band  plays the one night we were there

Would ul eave this for an ice rink?

Subwayin around Tokyo

So after a long night at La fabrique and a not so long night at our hotel we were packing up our stolen trollies and headed for Narita airport with a suitable headache and somewhat irritable stomach. Unfortuanally we reached our flight and had go go back to the hella epic ice skating conditions.  At least we have tons of footage for the upcoming film and its just to start editing. U have seen the “teaser” and thats just some of the action we trapped inside our canon 7d´s memory card! So stay tuned, this time it will not turn out looped style!

Gamblin!

Backstage with Datarock!

Early morning rollin towards the airport!

Had the most epic three weeks in a long and it kind of sucks to be back in Tromso city as its covered in enough ice to host the ice skate olympics. On the bright side we´ve heard rumors of knee deep pow in the higher elevations and we´re probably hittin it up to the weekend.

Looped ut!

Last day in Niseko

The Black Diamond Lodge is pretty rad. Yesterday they hosted a party/jam in their backyard, where they’d built a sick park with a a kicker, a rail on top of a garage and a quarterpipe. The lodge crew (Will, Tanner and Chris + boss man Clayton) had been working on the setup all week, and there were insane amounts of snow that had to be piled up and shaped. The day before the jam the setup wasn’t finished, so pretty much everyone staying at the lodged grabbed their shovels (essential part of avy kit kids!) and helped finish it up, dugnad style.

Pleasing the crowd

The Burton team and some spanish pros stopped by, and so we sessioned it with flashes going off and the crowd cheering. The lodge crew were really stoked to finally hit it after all the work they put into it, Will and Tanner were the last to stop hitting the setup because it started snowing a lot. I really liked the concept, my two favorite activities in the same place in one night! The dj played old school gangsta rap all night, and we got tired we could just go up to our rooms, just like having a houseparty but without any of the responsibility.

Vegard getting that tailgrab

Turns out it had been really dumping last night, today we woke up to more powder than we’ve ever skied before. And even a bit of sunshine at first! We spent the entire day cruising pow in the trees and getting the last shots for the movie. Some pictures to give you an idea of how deep it was:

As you can see there was a lot of the white fluffy stuff. We couldn’t get enough, skied till the lifts closed at 9.

Nightskiing

Pretty much a perfect last day, but we’re bummed to leave all this snow behind. Luckily Torkel is picking up were we left off, so be sure to follow his adventures over here.

We’re both agreeing this has been our best trip ever, the snow, the people, everything has been hella rad. We’ve even gotten a few good shots for the film, so I’m actually thinking it’ll turn out all right, and Torkel says he’ll contribute too so chances are it’ll be hella good, maybe even hella hella good. Anyways, now it’s back to school for a month before Vegard goes to Stuben, St. Anton to ski more powder and I head off to Åre to do some park skiing and party with the swedes. We’ll edit the footage as soon as possible, Vegards working on a little edit now and we’ll have a longer film by the end of next month I hope. And if anything cool goes down back home we’ll keep you posted on that too!

Peace folks!

Concrete, party, fluffyness

Two days ago the mountain looked like this:

Windblown concrete snow

We were not stoked at all, Japan seemed a lot like a shitty day back home. And when we were caught ducking ropes by the ski patrol we gave up skiing for the day. Ended up shooting some sick lifestyle shots in the kids playground slope.

Day after was pretty much the same, except for a light dusting. So we faked some faceshots and bonked a tree stump (the shots actually turned out to be pretty good). Skiing all day is hella hard, we’re dead and ready for bed by 6 pm every day. We’d actually decided to skip the Burton party, but everyone at the lodge were hella stoked so we dragged ourselves off the beds, brought the partycam and tagged along with the crew from the lodge.

Partypeople! (from left) Vegard, Chris and Tanner + random japanese chicks

Mandatory drunk chick dancing on the bar

The party was pretty legit. Not too many people, but then again the bar wasn’t the biggest either so you didn’t feel like the place was empty. They’d really gone all out on the Burton theme too, with method and handplant drinks and the b movie playing on repeat. And everyone seemed to ski or snowboard. The whole night seemed to be a long discussion about how good Nisekos powder is, and everyone were agreeing so there was definitely hella hygge. Turns out it was the japanese burton team, not the international one, that showed up. Oh well, guess they rip too.

Me and an alleged 686 pro rider, definitely the craziest character that night

PROOO

Will, the inspiration for my mustache

The evening shall be put in the “pretty sweet, not totally mindblowing” category of our memory, and I’ve gotta say the B movie is the sickest. The vibe is totally different to ski movies. None of that gangsta tall-tee, “powder dude, it’s like skiing on a cloud” or “I’m a hella cerial pro skier” stuff. Just good times. I think that’s what we’re aiming at with our film from over here.

Today we woke up to half a meter + of the fluffy stuff. Gotta say it’s pretty awesome that it goes from rock hard to more snow than you even need in just a day! We decided we were sick of filming, so we just shredded all day. And ate lunch at the best lunch buffét around, at the melt bar which is at the Hilton. For 1500 yen you can stuff your face with the most delicious food, while listening to soft classical music. Pretty sweet.

Did take one photo today:

Powder!

Booters, Pillows and Hitchhiking

Today Clayton drove us to a kicker spot he’d told us about not far from Chisenupuri. It was a nice rollover/stepdown, seemed hella mellow, but jumping in the backcountry is hella different to jumping in the park. We crashed so much today. Luckily the snow is soft though, so except for a minor concussion for Vegard we were unhurt.

After the booter session we hiked over to some pillows that weren’t too far away. The snow conditions were hella inconsistent there, with soft snow in the upper sections and hardpack further down. The shots turned out ok though, you can check them out (oh yes, that’s right!!!) in our first edit of the trip.

And I do realize that your birthday isn’t till the 9. but I wanted to dedicate the edit to you anyways papz. Much love from Nippon!

Seeing as we were lost in the wilderness, with no way of getting back, we decided to hitchike back to the lodge. Turns put japanese people aren’t hella stoked on having to random euros in their high thech super toyotas, so we’d almost lost hope when a guy pulls over in the sickest minivan. He’d rebuilt the entire interior of the car, with a bed, sink and all other necessities needed for ski bumming. Or at least that’s what we thought it was for, kind of hard to ask because he only spoke japanese. Still, we managed to explain where we were headed with the three japanese words we know. As if the van wasn’t rad enough, the guy pulled out a bottle of red wine and later a bit of whiskey. That was all good, nothing like a little alcohol do avoid cardiovascular diseases after a day of skiing, but when he started taking sips of the bottles we thought it’d be best to get off. Too bad we couldn’t tell him, so he drove us to the lodge in a jolly mood.

Mustache update!

As you can see the mustache is coming along nicely, going to be epic by the end of the trip (hopefully not so pube-like). Also, as you might’ve noticed, the new adjective to be used excessively in skiing is “hella”. Thanks to Cartman for inspiration.

RANKOSHI-CHO CHISENUPURI

I guess these countless slightly similar updates get boring in the long run, but I like writing them, it’s actually kind of relaxing. And if you feel like this is turning into Nikolais Bloggorama, don’t worry, the other guys will probably do an update or three soon (forecast says 50 cm of snow for Tromsø!).

Today Vegard was tired (guess he hasn’t eaten his vegetables) and decided to take the day off. Since I knew we wouldn’t get any shots (sucks being each others cameraman, we need a real one) today I decided to go with the trønders (one of them is actually from western Norway)  to Rankoshi-Cho Chisenupuri and do some cruising in the trees. The hill is really small, just one double chairlift, and the place stinks. When I say stink I mean stink like someone just let out a nice, juicy, egg smelling fart in a small crowded room. The smell comes from the hot springs that are located at the bottom of hill. They’re pretty scenic and would make for some epic shots (there’s a really good spot for building a booter right behind them), so we’ll probably go back.

Trønder Patrol posing in front of the hot springs

The place is owned by the japanese army, which explains how they were still open with just ten people on the hill. We didn’t complain though, fresh snow every run was ok+. The terrain was way sicker than Niseko to, we just cruised around and boosted off natural hits the whole day. Trønder patrol plus Nikolai turned into backflip and frontlip patrol.

A tree flip is when you do a sick ass backflip of a shroom and land in a tree

Petter (trønder #2) brought his camera and snapped away.

Per, the trønder marine, ripping trees like he rips rødfis (blanks) back home

Unfortunately the lift closed due to the wind at 3 pm. We weren’t too bummed seeing as we had skied freshies all day, and chilled in the creepy spa (eerily similar to the hotel in the shining) beside the hill until Tanner (chill dude, works at the lodge) picked us up and drove us to the not quite so smelly hot springs close to annupuri. The massage chairs at that place really are the definition of awesome, they’re almost better than getting a real massage, even from a hot thai masseuse.

Back at the lodge Clayton and the boys had finished the landing for the table which will be part of the sickest backyard setup, probably even better than Håtveits. They’re building it for the Burton team, who will arrive the 13th, but we’ll get to session it. Gonna be sick. There’s also going to be a bunch of parties when the burton guys come, so looking forward to that!

Hot springs, Sun and Windlips/Screencap post

Downtown Hirafu

The airline finally managed to ship our skibags to the lodge, which was awesome not just because our skis were in there, we got our tripod as well! January second the lifts at Niseko weren’t running because there was an insane blizzard. It was windy as hell and just snowing too hard, felt like being back in Kroken again. However, Clayton, who always seem to know where the good snow, lines, bars, shops or kicker spots are, said it’d be less windy at Rusutsu so we headed over there again. He wasn’t right this time though, it was windy as hell there to. Freakin crazy, on the first chair up the mountain there was one snowmobile stuck in the snow, two skis and a pole seemingly dropped of the chairlift and some Japanese dude freaking out because of his leg or something. Conditions weren’t ideal. However it wasn’t as super windy in the trees and there was crazy snow, so we filmed a bit of pow cruising.

Screencap from Rusutsu filming, Vegard doing his thing

Yesterday was actually our first sunny day here, which would have been sick for filming if for some reason the snow hadn’t turned to shit. On top of that Vegard had to go to Hirafu to fix his boots, which broke for the billionth time (damn full tilts), so I just cruised around with some guys from the lodge all day. We hit a really cool drop though. If you watch Reasons (Poor Boyz Productions), 9 minutes in Benchetler does a 3, that’s the one. And I did a 3 as well, so I was pretty stoked.

The best part of the day by far, was going to the hot springs. Tagged along with the trønders. The springs are sort of the same as the ones they have in Iceland except that these are J-pan style. No one there spoke english, so it took us ten minutes to figure out where the changing room was and there was a lot of confusion as to which one we should use seeing as they had a big “no men allowed” sign on the door. The springs were awesome, no roof and  snow around the edges for that back to nature feel, and a couple of beers each to top it off. Got some good lifestyle/erotica shots.

Screencap 2. HOT springs, if you know what I mean! or not so much..

Today we built a step down on a windlip and got some semi-banger shots, so we’re going to go back tomorrow for more. We’re getting better at the filming part of things. Been pretty demoralizing not getting any good shots, but today changed that! Super stoked to go back tomorrow, and we’re talking about filming the drop from Reasons to. We’ll probably put together a little edit after we get a few more shots. Tomorrow or the day after, so as we always say stay tuned!

Screencap 3, Vegard slashing up the landing

Also realised that the word “super” is way overused in skiing right now. We’ll announce the new adjective to be used in every sentence in the next update! I’ve also started growing a pretty sick mustache, stay tuned for updates on that as well.