That's one small step with the skis, one giant leap for the skier.

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People often ask us, why we are freeriders, why we like skiing off-piste. I don’t know a simple answer. Maybe we like the adventure in finding our own way down? The call of freedom? Shredding freshies? Eventually we got bored on the pistes, and at least when they get really crowed during main season, we just feel safer leaving them behind.

Whatever the reason was, we didn’t just wake one morning as freeriders. The first time we got hooked, was on a trip to Canada, where we learned all about „ski what you see“, backbowls, gladed runs and double blacks. And that our race-carving skis are a poor choice for doing all that… In those weeks we had to jump of cornices (only very small ones, no big airs here!), got lost between trees, wobbled down mogul runs and got stuck a lot in deep pow with even more faceplants instead of faceshots. But we had an awful good time. Yay. And sore asses too.

However for what is so easily done in Canada or the US, in Europe you need quite some education about avalanches an their prevention. Leaving the pistes means leaving the resorts safety. So we did a lot of freeride camps, off-piste workshops and avalanche trainings. We purchased a hole bunch of new equipment like avalanche transceiver, airbag backpacks, shovel, probe and last but not least big mountains skis.

Granted, powder runs like the Albona (@Stuben, Arlberg) on a bluebird day are nearly unbeatable. But by now I like those deep winter days with poor sight and puking like shit even better. Those days when one lift is all you need, when you’re riding thru the trees and only some other geeks like yourself are out there. Those days when all breaks happen to be in the gondola and you only hope, you packed enough energy bars to get you thru the day.

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