Blog
SBO Ski Guiding Course – Spending Time With Mountain Yodas
This last two weeks I’ve been in Aussois, Valfrejus, Bonneval as well as around the mountains of La Grave for guide courses related to ski guiding.
We started of the first four days in and around the small ski area of Aussois in Savoie to spend a few days with Alain Duclos, one of the authorities of snow and avalanche science in the mountain world. Alain took us for a ride in to his life long experience of, and passion for, avalanches and showed us bits and pieces of the knowledge he has gathered leading up to his decision to leave guiding. You can simply never be completely safe in avalanche terrain, and if you are going to seek the rewards of powder skiing then bliss and risk will both be your companions.
We also got accompanied one day by Manuel Genswein, one of the brains behind the modern avalanche transceiver. After years and years of training in companion rescue it was great to get one day with someone who came up with all the different techniques and the technology behind it.
After these four initial days we went to La Grave for a “rest day” where we, of course, went up for another great powder day before the last five days of actual ski guiding. Top ski guides like Stefan Palm, Pierre Rizzardo, Per Ås and Robin Molinatti was showing and refining our guide techniques during lift access skiing below La Meje, ski touring around the Ecrins as well as in the class room.
It’s great to get the opportunity to learn from some of the best guys in the business – both what to do as well as what to stay away from. Life is a path of learning, unlearning and relearning, and I feel grateful to have the chance to do all these things with some of the Yodas of mountain guiding.
-
- The whole gang
-
- Digging snow profiles
-
- Alain Ducloz, maestro de snow
-
- Studying an avalanche crown
-
- This is our classroom
-
- Morgan Salén skiing powder
-
- Mr transceiver, Manuel Genswein
-
- Search theory
-
- Tobias Granath during “rest day”
-
- And again
-
- Morgan Salén
-
- Robin Molinatti from ENSA teaching steep ski guiding
-
- Morgan’s happy with the snow
-
- False Freaux during the ski course
-
- Rope work
-
- Pierre Rizzardo
Creative Mountain Works
This past week, friend and photographer Daniel Rönnbäck came by Chamonix for four great days of hard but fun work on Aiguille du Midi and Helbronner. We had perfect and varied conditions for taking pictures, ranging between high pressure for mountaineering action, a snow storm for bad weather photos, the deepest day of the season for powder dittos and some mixed inversions for showing the beauty and greatness of the mountains.
Daniel is coming from my hometown, Luleå, in the north of Sweden and is probably one of the most talented young action photographers out there, walking in the footsteps of the likes of Mattias Fredriksson and Tero Repo.
Check out Daniel’s work on the web at www.danielronnback.com as well as some of the photos that didn’t make the “cut” from the last week below.
Welcome To My New Blog
I have got a lot of questions lately about my absence from blogging. The truth is that I have been really busy in the mountains, but also that we have been working on this new page together with the boys at Hjärtat Åre. I think they have done a really good job and from now on this will be where I post everything concerning adventures and reflections on life.
As I’m trying to be active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram I doubt I will do updates daily as I used to do, but I’m still aiming to share the instant thoughts from the edge as they pop up in my inner dialogue and the happenings and details from our everyday adventures, hopefully a couple of times a week.
If you are interested in what I do, go over and follow me on the social media sites, and like that I’ll keep you informed when things are moving over here.
Also, check out the videos we have produced in the last few years, my old inner reflections on life and our last year’s mountain adventures in the menu above.
I’m also in the midst of my mountain guide education and I’m planning to slowly move back to guiding and coaching high-end skiers and mountaineers a few weeks or months every year. So if you feel like you know how to ski and/or have experience from climbing and if you are looking for a guide for the years to come, please give me a shout.
As the site is new, and we haven’t been able to check and double check every detail of it, please let me know if you find any bugs or things in need of fixing! Thanks!
Once again: Thanks Teodor, Örjan and Jonas at Hjärtat Åre for this site. I will recommend your high end work to anyone in need of a website!
I hope you are all having the time of your lives, and that I’ll see you on a mountain somewhere in the not too distant future!
Best
Andreas
Preparing for a long ski in the arctic dusk at Låktatjåkka Mountain Station, Sweden. Photo: Fredrik Schenholm
Remembering Felix Hentz
We still miss you buddy!
I was walking that narrow street in an Italian mountain village and the snowflakes were slowly twirling down towards the ground. It was like they already knew the gossips of the dead and were dancing a last waltz in tribute.
I picked up my phone and I could foresee death in the pause before I heard the voice on the other end.
Felix Hentz was a great friend and a role model for what that word has come to mean for me. I owe him so much from our years of interaction, but I guess I have to pay that debt to others as incentives for future greatness.
One year ago you were still here and this world was still an unwritten book for us both. Now I’m the lonely writer here and you are playing tricks in dimensions I know very little of.
Joy, peace and happiness were your tributes, and I think you showed lots of that in the video below that you made during your last full winter. Even though I’m the actor, I feel you through the making and it’s quiet symbolic that you are absent and still the creator of tributes. For me, that indicates that you, in some ways, are still around!
The story for the short edit is that in January 2011 we hadn’t had snow for many weeks and it was spring weather in Chamonix. Everyone was complaining over how bad the snow conditions were and with our little edit we wanted to show that there’s always good snow, if you only know where to search.
‘Tempting Fear’
Now it’s finally here, our award winning ski, philosophy and adventure film – ‘Tempting Fear’. Big thanks to Bjarne Salén, Mike Douglas, Switchback Entertainment, Endlessflow as well as Salomon Freeski for the making of this movie and for exposing my words and deeds that are creating this story.
Don’t watch this film as any other ski or extreme sport film! See it when you can dive in to the story, when you have the time and when you are in a quiet surrounding. Then maybe the words can reach out to you as they are meant.
I hope you will enjoy it!
Reaching My Limit – Patagonian Ski Adventure Episode 2 – Skiing The Whillans Ramp
My highlight of the past ski year was definitely making turns down the Whillans ramp on Aguja Poincenot in Argentinian Patagonia.
Before that trip I used to think that I could ski anything that is white on a mountain. When I got to the ramp I got partly amazed, partly intimidated on how the snow was sticking to these ultra steep slopes that I almost felt uncomfortable climbing up. I mean, 60 degrees ice climbing is a peace of cake, but when it’s on powder snow with rock slabs underneath, then it’s getting interesting. So while climbing up this snow ramp on the other side of the world I realized that: this is it – this is the perfect line to ski where all my knowledge from a life in the mountains comes together. This is the steepest and most exposed line I had the chance to ski, and I’m happy leaving it at that and grateful finding something like this in a lifetime. Now it’s time to extend my experience in other directions.
A great big thanks to my friend, filmmaker Bjarne Salén at Endlessflow for another well done episode. More interesting stuff will be coming soon!
Reaching My Limit Eisode 2 from Bjarne Salén on Vimeo.
Reaching My Limit – Patagonian Ski Adventure Episode 1
Here it is, the first episode from our Patagonia adventure this autumn! Fresh Argentinian powder, narrow couloirs and lessons learned in the mountains. Great company, filming and editing by Bjarne Salén at Endlessflow.
