Former Karhu athlete Josh Madsen (now editor of Telemark Skier Magazine) just posted up a trailer for the new ski movie that he put together over the last season. Titled “The Freeheel Life,” the movie showcases great turns, awesome pow and some of Madsen’s take on freeheel culture and travels. You’ll see Karhu athlete JT Robinson getting inverted a couple times in the trailer, along with a full cast of talented rippers. Oh, and kudos to the guy who takes a header at 00:46 into the trailer… if you’re going to throw it, might as well throw it hard!
Archive for the ‘Cinema of Snow’ Category
The Freeheel Life Trailer
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009Monday stoke
Monday, August 10th, 2009The airwaves have been too quiet recently. Blame it on the heat wave that roared through the Pacific Northwest, whose 100+ temps made it hard to think about summer activities, much less winter fun. Thankfully it’s passed now, with moderate mixed weather more reminescent of fall. With the first rainfall in a long time coming today and tomorrow, it’s time for some Monday stoke with one of the summer trailers that just dropped.
Sweetgrass Productions – Signatures
Sweetgrass is coming off last year’s Hand Cut film, and looking good with Signatures. Karhu athletes JT Robinson and Lorenzo Worster traveled to Japan to film with Sweetgrass this winter, and the result looks amazing. Don’t miss out when Signatures comes through your mountain town this fall!
Scufoneda 2009 Video
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009Karhu athlete JT Robinson sent us a video to check out this morning from his trip to Italy for the Scufoneda Polartec Meeting, a telemark festival and ski competition. JT took 2nd place in the comp, but spent a lot of the festival freeriding around with the camera crew from a British sports show that was featuring the event. Watch for his green Team 100s and the checkered jacket ripping around the slopes. Nice big slow-mo turn for the finish of the segment, too!
Kootenay Cold Smoke Festival Video
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009If you’ve never been to the Kootenay Cold Smoke Festival, you’re missing out. Calling powderhounds of every kind, Cold Smoke is a four-day celebration of skiing with a strong focus on the backcountry. From the backcountry gear demos to the rando-race, four days of skills clinics, inbounds events, bountiful Whitewater backcountry (reason enough!), and apres-ski parties, Cold Smoke brings a little something of everything. The good folks behind Cold Smoke just sent over their video wrap-up from 2009’s event, and the dates are set for next year. So if you still haven’t made it out to the Kootenays, marks your calendar for next year’s festival on March 5-7, 2010.
Pedal Powered Skiing
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009Coming off a long weekend with beautiful weather, it’s fun to reflect on taking an adventure at a different pace. Wrapping up the ski season from the East, Brian Mohr sent us a great story on spring biking and skiing in the Green Mountains:
Pedal Powered Skiing
by Brian Mohr
Earlier this spring, with our options for skiing out the back door melting away, we loaded our skis, poles, day packs and boots into our bike trailers. About an hour later, we’d be stashing our bikes in the woods and skinning toward the base of our local Mad River Glen ski area. We’d spend several hours skiing a mix of lift-served and sidecountry terrain, catch up with a few friends, and when the shadows chased us off the mountain, we’d enjoy a bonus off-piste ski descent to our bikes in the woods. Back on the bikes, our soon-to-be-cycling-season legs appreciated the early spring warm up. We’d spot crocuses in the valley blooming along the edge of snow patches, hear our first peepers of the season and watch the sun dip behind the Green Mountain Divide along the final uphill approach to our home. More than anything, it just felt good to spend the afternoon out skiing in the big mountains, without having to drive.
On the bikes, the trip (60-70 minutes) takes approx. 45 minutes longer than it does by car (20 minutes)… no big deal. We once pulled off a 3-day pedal-powered ski trip in the Rockies, biking a little, skiing a lot. Now, with gas prices climbing (finally!), glaciers melting (not cool) and fossil fuel combustion causing all sorts of global problems (oil spills, air/water pollution, war), it’s time for something different…
Imagine… 2 weeks, countless peaks and a great variety of ski descents, pedalling bikes primarily to move to new trailheads and terrain every so often, or to roll into town for some supplies or a lil’ culture. A SKI trip, not a bike trip… starting and ending right here at our home in Vermont. It would be an epic, human-powered skiing adventure.
For now, here are a few images that might inspire you to get out on your own pedal powered skiing adventures…
Think snow!
Brian and Emily
EmberPhoto.com
Moretown, VT
Emily Johnson and Peter Wadsworth cycle through Vermont's Mad River Valley, en route to Mad River Glen.
Monday Stoke from Japan
Monday, March 16th, 2009From Zoe’s dispatches in Europe, we move to Karhu Athlete Lorenzo Worster’s trip to Japan, filming with Sweetgrass Productions. Sweetgrass set up shop in Japan for the winter to film their next project, with athletes rotating through big winter storms. Here’s a little Monday stoke with their February teaser.
Lorenzo has been pumping out the blog entries from his trip as well, and shared this early entry:
The sun finally came out today!! Ian (one of the Sweetgrass film crew) and Ryan Creary were shooting Taro (a Japanese Patagonia snowboarder) and I up above the Goshiki hot springs. We got up higher than we have yet into a little more alpine feeling bowl with no trees and some cool rock features. The top was really iced over but once you got down into the chutes it was more creamy…at least if you didn’t turn too much. Luckily they were short enough to straight line which was a blast. Taro had to leave mid day so it was me and the photogs once again. I hit a cornice to some nice blown in snow about 4 times before getting the shot.
We took lunch around 2:30 and waited to see if we would get a nice pink sunset. We headed back up to Nito only to get shut out by the clouds at the last moment. It was worth the try though. A stop by Seco Mart (7-11) for a well earned delicious japanese ice cream treat and a beer and we are back home hoping for more blue tomorrow.
Photo of the Goshiki Alpine by Lorenzo Worster.
Tahoe Helmetcam
Thursday, March 12th, 2009A couple weeks back, our Pacific rep Justin Singer put together a Karhu regional dealer day with Pacific Crest Snowcats. The timing couldn’t have been better, with Tahoe breaking its dry spell, racking up several feet of snow over the preceding days. I laid in bed wide awake all night thinking of the skiing the next day, wishing the clock forward like a kid on Christmas morning. Wednesday dawned with blue skis and crisp temps, and the excitement was palpable in the air. We were joined by some renowned local retailers, including The Backcountry (Truckee), Alpenglow (Tahoe City), Reno Mountain Sports (Reno), and Wolf Creek Wilderness (Grass Valley), and the group was a strong one.
Pacific Crest Snowcats and Dave Rintala took us back up the Cabin Creek drainage in the cat to play in the area between Sugar Bowl and Squaw, and showcased some great terrain. The shots are quintessential Tahoe terrain… open trees and rock-lined chutes with vistas of the Pacific Crest, nearby Mt Judah, and Castle Peak.
All the new snow called for big powder skis, and I also brought a new toy… a helmet cam from VholdR that we’ve been playing with this season. Here’s what the day looked like from my perspective, with a few photos after:
Tahoe Powder Day – Pacific Crest Snowcats from Graham Gephart on Vimeo. Video powered by VholdR.
High Pressure Pow
Monday, February 23rd, 2009One week out until a bunch of our office heads up to BC for a week of hut touring and shooting photos. VMT guide and Karhu athlete Evan Stevens sent us this update to start off the week, with more snow starting to fly just in time:
Well, the high and dry has set in up north in British Columbia, which means it has been dumping down south. I don’t mind so much, because it means its time to get back into the alpine and ski the BIG lines in more stable snow. When things set up right, you can really tuck your way up into the mountains inhospitable nooks and crannies, and do some amazing skiing.
Here is a video from last week of me and a bunch of skiers from the Reno area…enjoy!
100K of Skinning
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008Vermonter Peter Wadsworth sent us an email the other day with a link to a great video slideshow of his season. Peter set a goal of skiing 100,000 vertical feet in the backcountry to push himself this season, and came away from it with a lot of adventures and an awesome record of them. Congrats on hitting your goal, Peter, and thanks for inspiring the rest of us.
(Video courtesy of Peter Wadsworth)
Thinking back on this season I realize that making this seemingly superficial goal got me much more than an arbitrary number. I skied in a way, in places, and at times that I may not have otherwise, and because of this the experience was neither superficial nor arbitrary. Nearly half of the days that I headed out I went to a place I had never been before, as opposed to lapping the same old hill under the lifts. More than half of the days weren’t “days” at all, but were dawn or dusk patrols that accompanied a full day at the office – some including skiing in the dark to earn my vert. Because of the inherent risks with this I also sought out ski partners that I might otherwise have gone without, and developed friendships with some great skiers that I learned a lot from. Now the question is: what is my goal for next season?
-Peter
Friday Video
Friday, April 4th, 2008After epic powder descents just last weekend, Mother Nature brought a long spell of warm sun to the mountains and got us thinking about traveling light. The shoulder season of winter into spring is often the perfect season for XCD exploration. The right aspects keep soft snow tucked into trees, while longer daylight and warmer temperatures make it easy to cover a lot of ground and see new sights. The possibilities challenge us to ski lighter, be quicker with the footwork, and to smile at the kind of turns – dancing through a short slope of trees, lapping quick corn laps on a sunny mountainside – that we often neglect in the middle of winter.
I recently stumbled across a couple XCD ski videos online. One trying XCD gear for the first time, another who seems to have a bit of experience – both bound together by great big smiles and the sounds.
(YouTube video from orangerider1)
(YouTube video from distantfellow1)