This is just in. Our friend and HBS contributor Jarkko Henttonen called us and gave a great story tip.

Fred Syversen goes big again and crashes hard

The man who did the accidental world record on cliff dropping two season ago, Fred Syversen, has the ability to  make some buzz. Fred  has the reputation to  go all or nothing every time he skis.

Check out this epic cartwheel crash in the video clip  below. This happened during a Missing Link film shoot in northern Norwegian location called Tamokdalen. The line in question and the fall is shown from 1:45 to the very end of the clip.

I though I would break every bone in my body, Fred Syversen admits

Norwegian magazine vg.no tells us a few details in their article about the accident:

The accident happened on friday the 7th of May while skiing a line Fred himself called “hairy”  - a narrow and steep chute including a “three stager” cliff drop. Before the first mandatory air the helicopter filming above sprayed so much snow around that Fred couldn’t see anything. “This is a line where falling is absolutely out of question. Therefore, the helicopter coming so near should never happen! It was a total whiteout. So, I fell anyway and now I am very lucky to have no further damage”, explains Syversen when watching the video of the fall first time.

Again, Fred survived with relatively few injuries – bruised shoulder and hand combined with some scratches on his face.

Fred says that the high speed might have saved him from more serious injuries. At speed the momentum goes more forward than just hard down. However, Fred still admits that he was afraid of breaking every bone in his body (Note: And we believe that!). In the end of the fall, entering the “runout” zone, Fred also had some good luck when avoiding the sharp rocks lurking in both sides of his path.

Fred Syversen looks forward for a quick recovery – another freeride competition in June?

After all Fred doesn’t blame the helicopter pilot for the accident. Everyone who was on the filming team has spoken out about what happened.

“What is happening (in the video) is that I try to stop desperately because of not seeing anything in the snow cloud. Eventually I realize that I just can’t stop and choose to take the downhill option…”

After landing the first drop Fred started a dramatic series  of  cartwheels for several hundred meters until he finally stopped. First Fred was afraid of dislocating his shoulder but a check in hospital excluded this. Fred is still out of skiing for a while to heal the shoulder and hand. But he looks forward to be back in a freeride camp in Stryn, Norway held on the 10th of June.

We hope fast recovery for Fred and wish all the luck in the future too. Seems like being a professional freerider requires quite a lot of it – and a built of a tank in addition!

Ski photo by Aadne Olsrud, other photos are screenshots from the video. Ps. I just chatted with Aadne. He was on the accident site and picked up Fred on his snowmobile after the fall and drove him to the heli. I’ll try to talk with him soon and ask some more questions!

K2 Base Camp, Pakistan – After arriving in Islamabad on 30 May, Fredrik Ericsson and Trey Cook were told of unusually deep snow conditions on the Baltoro glacier. The team changed their plan and decided to approach the peak via the Gondoro-la with an attempt on Laila Peak which would enable them to acclimatize and allow the deep snow to consolidate.

Photo: www.FredrikEricsson.com

Ericsson and Cook travelled from Islamabad to Hushe via Skardu where the trek into Laila Peak base camp began. As reported the team found the deepest snow in the Gondogoro valley in at least 15 years. The team attempted a ski descent of Laila Peak but were turned back 300 meters from the summit by deep, unstable snow. However, Ericsson did enjoy a 1000 vertical meter descent on Laila’s pristine, 45-degree northwest face.
 
Following their attempt to ski Laila Peak, Ericsson and Cook and 18 porters took three days to cross the Gondogoro-la pass, swing through Concordia and arrive at K2 base camp.

Photo: www.FredrikEricsson.com

The team reports that conditions on K2 are favorable and will be heading up the Cesen Route tomorrow to Camp 1 for an early round of acclimatizion and to scope the route.
 
To learn more of the team’s adventure check out their Ski K2 blog at www.FredrikEricsson.com or Facebook site Fredrik Ericsson – Ski Mountaineering.

Here is some more background info about Fred Syversen’s gnarly crash in Tamokdalen, Norway. I called Aadne Olsrud who was working as a guide on the accident site when the crash happened. I ask Aadne a bit about the background of the accident and the scene in Tamokdalen in general.

Basically I wrote down a story told by Aadne – it gives you some more background and also some overview on how a film group and professional riders work together in the mountains.

Aadne Olsrud worked as a back-up guide for the Missing Link film group

The team of eight persons was filming for Missing link. The team consisted of following people: three riders, Fred Syversen, Dennis Risvol and Lars Fidjestøl; the head cameraman was Norwegian Peter Nyquist (quite famous in Norway) and his assistant Finnish Jani Johanssen (Btw. he is a great telemarker too!); and Jarkko Henttonen and Aadne Olsrud worked as guides. Helicopter pilot was a local guy called Mathias.

The mountain they had been sessioning is called Blåbærfjellet (”Blueberry Fell”). The accident happened on the mountain’s northeast face. One day earlier the riders had been warming up with mellower lines, and by the friday the 7th of May, the riders were ready for some harder lines. Aadne worked as a back-up guy for the filming crew, waiting with his snowmobile at the bottom of the mountain, ready to pick up riders and filmers and move them quickly to the new filming zones and/or pick up zones for the helicopter.

The conditions had been great for the whole area in early May: snow was good, the base was deep and the conditions had been stable for a while – perfect spring skiing conditions for Northern Norway.

Fred Syversen had eyed the line in question for days. And on Friday he lent Aadne’s binoculars and checked the line once more intensively and thoroughly for thirty minutes, then deciding, “calculated risk but I am ready for it”.

The accident scene – what happened right after Fred Syversen’s crash?

The line itself is something one would call “hairy”, “gnarly” or something similar in “skier’s jargon”…it is about 40-45 degrees steep, has three back to back mandatory airs, and is in Aadne’s own words “just wide enough for good turns – for a skier like Fred”. What makes it really hard though is the short distance between the cliff drops, by Fred’s own estimate there was enough space for maybe just one or two quick turns before hitting another eight to ten meter (around 30 feet) air.

When Fred crashed Aadne was waiting to carry cameraman Peter to another location on his sled. Aadne didn’t see the fall but hear shouting and saw a small avalanhe coming out of the chute.  Then he saw Fred lying at the bottom of the line and cameraman Peter running to him. Fred seemed to be able to move his hands and legs though. Aadne drove immediately to the waiting heli where they had a radio connection and heard Fred reporting, “I am OK“.

Aadne then tried to drive the sled up the hill to where Fred was lying. But the hill was so steep that he had to stop about 200 meters before Fred’s location. Fred then managed(!) to walk down the steep hill (with deep soft snow) to the waiting snowmobile. Aadne was just thinking to get the man to the helicopter and back to the base camp they had down in the valley. He also called an ambulance. It took only thirty minutes for the ambulance to arrive in the base lodge. (Scandinavian public health care system has its good sides)

The aftermath – analyzing and calculating figures of the Fred Syversen’s crazy tumble

When Aadne saw the video clip of the crash, he did some analyzing from the screen.  He wonders mostly Fred’s cat like ability to hit everything skis first. It is also evident that to take this much of abuse requires the physics of a high level athlete. We both agree that even a normal, relatively fit skier would probably had much more serious injuries. So it is not totally about the luck either!

As for trying to find someone or something to blame, Aadne simply refuses, “it was no ones fault“. In the chute/couloir the snow was probably a bit dryer and deeper than anybody thought causing more snow than expected to wash out in the air from the spindrift. Everything also happened very fast – a skier going at around 60 km / hour and the whole scene lasting only about 20-30 seconds.

There wasn’t just that much time to react once Fred was at speed. He took the calculated risk and this time it didn’t go as well as planned. The most important thing is that Fred is alive and skiing again soon, and that the whole team worked effortlessly together even in the sudden accident situation.

The fall itself is hard to grasp. Based on Aadne’s calculations the fall was about 250 meters of vertical and around 350-400 meters of distance.

PS. If you are interested in Tamokdalen as a skiing/riding or climbing location check out this cool facebook group The Northern Playground

Photos in the post by Aadne Olsrud, used by permission. Thanks Aadne – we look forward to ski with you in the future!

It is May and the ski season 2009-2010 is pretty much over for the HBS team.

There is still some good snow to be had in the northern part of Scandinavia and of course e.g. in Chamonix people are skiing big lines until the early summer. However, we are starting to take it a bit easier with the site and the post frequency will be slower during the summer months. We have also some totally new things coming on for the next season and those require some technical updates, which will be done during the summer months too.

Here is a compilation of  some of the best HBS articles/posts in 2009-2010 in our opinion. There will be a second part – just because there was so much of good content! The second part is coming soon too…Enjoy!

Season overview

For the season 2009-2010 we didn’t actually get a “super hit” like the 2008-2009 article about Fred Syversen’s accidental world record cliff jump. Fred’s unbelievable flight and almost miraculous survive created a lot of buzz and we wanted to hear his personal opinion on all this too. So, Marko discussed with Fred in this interview:

http://homeboyski.com/2009/01/23/fred-syversen-interview-the-skier-who-survived-107-meters-drop/

Fred Syversen in Chamonix, photo by Petri Kovalainen

Talking about the traffic, while we did not get those super high traffic peaks this winter, the everyday visitor figures were on the steady rise. And today we are actually not that far from total one million page uploads. Yes, that’s a small number in the Internet but pretty good for an independent Finnish ski site, what do you think?

October 2009

The good news for the start of the season was that our writer/contributor Ville Eskonen got his picture published in Dutch White Freeride ski magazine.

The actual ski season got a pretty good start too. Lorenzo reported about six days of skiing powder in October, in Tyrol, Austria. Here at our “headquarters” in Helsinki, Finland we were really jealous, not knowing yet that the upcoming season would be exceptionally snowy for us flatlanders too (and I personally couldn’t figure out that the season would give the most ski days in about seven or eight years…)

Another October stand-outs were the following articles:

Petri Kovalainen – My Life Behind the Camera – check out the awesome work of photographer Petri Kovalainen.

Mountain guide Ode Siivonen, photo Petri Kovalainen

“It’s all about the feelings”

Our buddy and contributor Jarkko Henttonen told us about riding the North Face of  l’Aiguille du Midi via Mallory-Porter couloir. Read the article if you are interested on serious big mountain lines and how to prepare yourself for them.

November 2009

In the beginning of the month Lorenzo wrote another great post – a Krippenstein resort review. Plenty of good pics and detailed information about the unique, small ski resort.

Another highlight from November is Marko’s excellent interview of Kimmo “Skipe” Oivo  - Life Matters! (the second part of the Skipe interview was published in December but check it out too, really cool stuff). Skipe is one of the first “ski bums” in Finland, and at the age of 43 he is still going strong!

December 2009 – Seth Morrison Interview

In the early December we got a real jackpot! It is funny how small the world have become. Marko asked his Sethness himself for an online interview. Seth didn’t write us complicated long answers but you gotta respect the man’s work ethic – Seth replied to us in less than 24 hours, and offered some really well thought straight to the point answers – pretty much telling us nerds to shut up and go to ski and train more!  “Go skiing every day, be in shape, and ski on rockered skis.”

Thank you Seth for the interview & story - http://homeboyski.com/2009/12/02/seth-morrison-interview/

Thanks also to Adam Clark, Black Diamond and Oakley for the photos.

Seth Morrison, front flip in Alaska, photo by Adam Clark

In December Juho also started his all season ski trip to the United States and Canada, and reported with a nice review from Lost Trail Powder Mountain in the border of Montana and Idaho. Gotta love those local, small scale resorts where the powder stays untouched for days…

January 2010

In January we managed to score a couple of more interesting interviews.

Marko translated an article from Slovakian site snowmagazin.sk (with the help of the Snowmagazin guys of course because we dont know much Slovakian!) – The Interview of the best slalom skier ever lived, Ingemar Stenmark. If you are old enough to remember the late seventies/early eightties you can’t forget Ingemar, still a classic icon of technique and elegant skiing style.

I did a long interview of Joonas Karhumaa, arguably one of the best telemark skiers of the world. Joonas has proved his skills again this season, placing e.g. second on the FWT Qualifications in Monte Rosa, among some 60 alpine guys!

Personally, I think Joonas interview is one of my best posts so far – pretty much because of the interesting and intelligent interviewee and superb photos by Tero Repo!

In January Juho also continued his trip in Canada:

Touring in Kootenay Pass

Some more touring in Rogers Pass and Whitewater backcountry

- If you are into touring these reports should make you drool and dream about the next season (that is, if your season is already over…)

Ville also started his EPIC Japan trip and gave us something that could be labeled as true skiporn:

Japan – Endless Powder

What you can say…? Another day at the office for Ville I guess?

To be continued with the best posts of February, March and April…

Climbing and backcountry ski shop Camu (Helsinki, Finland) organized a nice late season demo/test in Messilä Ski Resort, located about hundred kilometers north of Helsinki. The resort has been closed for two weeks already but the lifts were rolling for free just for the demo day clients.

I skied all of the tested models for about three or four runs. This won’t give you conclusive review of all the skis but some impressions how the models have changed, different upcoming ski types and shapes and so on. I believe almost all new skis are pretty good from the start. The thing you have to realize is, however, that unlike some five years ago the skis in the so-called “freeride” category are not just rebadged, widebody GS skis.

Today there are a refreshingly wide range of different shapes, widths, flexes and most importantly rocker profiles  - the last feature being probably one of the biggest ski innovations since increased sidecuts and first “fat” skis! So, the key is to demo, search information and especially know (or find out) what you are really looking for.

You can find out more about the tester e.g. here. The conditions were soft spring snow groomers and later on the day wet, deep slush. There was also one little kicker where one could get a bit of air – perfect for classic “tongue in cheek” late spring/season end tricks like cosacks, spreads, daffies…

Movement Super Turbo GTI

Now, let’s start with the biggest and baddest. Earlier I have never been that impressed on Movement skis but now I have to admit that Movement had two of the most interesting models on the whole demo fleet. The first one being the Super Turbo GTI – at an impressive 202cm length.

Movement Super Turbo GTI is a big mountain and powder ski with dimensions of 150-120-135mm (tip-middle-tail) and long tip rocker. It has no tail rocker though, giving the ski a more traditional feel when finishing the turns.

On the feet the first impression of the skis is “holy s**t these are big and heavy” (see the picture below – compared to my friend’s Dynafit Mustagh Aga touring skis!). When you start to get speed these didn’t feel like total tanks though. There is just enough sidecut to even get decent turns on the groomers and the ski isn’t overly stiff. Tip rocker part is also so long that on the firmer stuff the ski feels more like a middle stiff 185cm traditional fat ski. The very tip of the skis flap a bit at speed but it doesn’t seem to has an effect on the performance at all.

Conclusion from the four test runs: manageable but quite boring on the low angle groomed stuff (can’t be surprising to anyone?). I also wouldn’t like to jump turn these beasts or try to flick them around on the tight trees – if you are going to buy these, you better know what to do with them. Big ski for big mountains and good skiers but not overly demanding. Seems like this category of skis has “softened” a bit since the likes of Head Im 103s, first generation Big Daddies and Nordica FF 105s.

Movement Fly Swatter 185cm

This is a freakish looking ski: short(ish), very fat and with abrupt rocker and deep sidecut. People carving these on the slopes looked like they have some kind of little “boats” on their feet. Fly Swatter is kind of exaggerated version of the Armada JJ. 150-125-145mm, 17 meter sidecut radius and very centered binding mounting point. It also has the similar “5-dimensional sidecut” profile than the JJ. Nice graphics too. I forgot to take a picture of these, check out the graphics and some more info on this link.

However, on the slopes this was a very positive surprise. Fun, poppy and lively, carves and surfs well, depending on what you like to do. Very playful, makes you want to try silly little jumps/180s everywhere – see the picture below, the skier looks stiff but the ski works better, heh.

Soft, forgiving round flex probably has some speed limit if you really like to charge. And the effective sidecut is quite short -I guess this ski need some amount of soft snow to come alive.

Positive impression probably come also from the conditions (deep slush, small hill) but as a huge fan of Armada JJ I think I could like this ski almost everywhere as long the conditions are  on the soft side. I would be tempted to mount the binding just 1,5-2cm more back (from the recommended mark) but on the other hand due to lots of tail rocker this might not work at all?

Conclusion is that despite the awkward look, Movement Fly Swatter works very well. For the skiers that like soft, playful skis. Also, I bet good backcountry freestylers would make wonders with these “surf boards” on their feet. Btw. Pretty much everyone around seemed to like these skis.

K2 Hellbent 179cm

Already huge-dimensioned Hellbent has growth some more for the next season. It now has a whooping 132mm waist but otherwise the concept is unchanged.

This was a small disappointment for me. The ski has the typical “K2 feel”, soft(ish) but stable and damp. The downside is that this feel offers not that much liveliness and “pop”.

The Hellbent carved ok and absorbed small ruts and bumps very well. But something lacked in my opinion. Maybe the very wet snow had an effect – I felt that ski this wide began to “glue”/stick to the snow, making it even more out of its element (while 132mm waist ski can carve on the groomed, no one could argue that this width is made for the prepared slopes).

Some guys on the test tent praised how K2 Hellbent behaves on the real powder and I guess the story is totally different there. 132mm waist and “powder rocker” concept can’t be bad on real blowder days. Still, I am beginning to be in the school of thought that skis with waist widths bigger than say 125-130mm work better with “5-dimensional sidecut”/pointy tips.

K2 Obsethed 189cm

I have been the fan of the whole K2 Seth line since the original yellow Seth Pistols. For the next season, K2 ObSethed has growth some more, the dimensions now being 146-117-134mm.  It has the rocker profile 20/40 on the tip and 10/20 in the tail (see the picture below).

Again, Seth’s ski didn’t disappoint. For some reason, despite having the same K2 feel as the Hellbent, the whole concept worked much better to me. Maybe for me the longer but slightly narrower ski just felt better? (So take this with a grain of salt – hard to say anything between different lengths anyway, 179cm vs. 189cm). Some have speculated that now the ObSethed have moved from “all-mountain” category to the pure powder ski status. However, I felt that this is “just a ski” (in a positive way). It felt that I could just click into the bindings and ski anything without thinking too much of it.

Armada ARG 185cm

Armada ARG hasn’t changed for the next season (graphics excluded). This was my first time on the so-called Reverse-Reverse skis, like Praxis Powders (I count ARG’s to this category, even though the ski has a very short section of minimal of sidecut). I know what to expect though – a good friend of mine skis these pretty much all the time, everywhere, even on groomed slopes(!).

Very fun skis, just forget carving! If you try to carve, the skis will split and go to the separate directions. But you learn to avoid that in a few runs. Think old school “windshield viper”, sliding turns. No problem for an old mogul skier like me…

Where the slush was deep enough I could feel the ski start to surf/plane. When that happens, everything become totally effortless. In powder this type of ski lets you do the things unimaginable before. There are other options too but if you look for uncompromised and at the same time fun/playful powder performance, I guess ARGs can’t disappoint.

Jumping felt strange with these – no wonder Armada team skiers seem to use JJs more: on booters and kickers some sidecut is your friend IMHO. I guess for powder cliffs there shouldn’t be any problem (once you have got used to the R/R feel).

Armada JJ (as telemark skis)

This was something I have waited for a long time. The JJs are also unchanged (graphics aside) for the next season. Being the huge fan of the concept I have been thinking that JJ must be a really fun freeheel ski too.

Well, telemark skiing is way more dependent on the bindings than alpine. So, I had some troubles with loose (too long) cables and just couldn’t get the “right” feel in the tele turn. General impression was that the “loose” feeling of the rocker ski is really fun also when dropping the knee but with JJs I also felt the tight sidecut become quite “hooky” on couple of occasions (might be my bad tele technique and/or the problem with the bindings).

I tried to jumps couple of times from the small kicker available – here I can understand why some people don’t like tail rocker on tele skis. I ended up very back seated after the launch from the lip.

Can’t say much based on this experience – fun skis as telemark too but one must have good technique and balance and I guess binding selection is pretty essential factor too.

Btw. Another interesting tele option was available too – Voile Drifter 182cm (See the picture below). The cables were just too long for my boots. People seemed to dig that ski quite a lot and it also seemed to work very well in slushy conditions. Too bad I couldn’t test them this time.

Armada ARV 185cm

Unchanged for the 2010-2011 season. I already reported some impression of that ski last season. The fatter skis worked better for the heavy slush conditions though. Anyway, Armada ARV is a nice piste/park oriented all-mountain ski that still work on the soft snow too. Neutral, not too stiff and predictable – good skis but don’t particularly impress on any special area.

Völkl Gotama 186cm

This was also one ski I have been eager to test for some time already. Völkl Gotama changed quite radically (on the paper at least) for this season but for 2010-2011 there is no new modifications. Measurements are 137-106-122mm and the ski has a very subtle rocker through the whole ski.

The original black Gotama had quite a cult following. After skiing this incarnation I’d say that the new model also lives up its legendary status. But there are just huge amount of other options and “competitors” around these days. The ski felt pretty same as my own 190cm 06/07 (white) Gotamas. When standing on the skis the rocker is so mellow that you don’t even notice it. The tips of the skis are very low, to the degree that you wonder how they work in the soft snow. Reports confirm that there shouldn’t be any problems though.

The ski engages the turn just a tad slower than the 06/07 and 08/09 models and the rocker gives maybe minimal amount less “pop” from turn to turn but after a few runs you shouldn’t notice the difference. Seems like Völkl didn’t want to change the winner concept too much,  just changed it a bit more modern.

I guess the new Gotama offers all the same than the older one but adds  a bit more flotation and “looseness” in the soft snow. If you dig Völkl skis/older Gotamas and look for a solid all-arounder, look no further. The 194cm version should be also good option for the big/strong skiers.

PS. This was our last ski review for this winter. The test day was the 43th ski day for me. The awesome winter of 2009-2010 gave us six months of skiing here in Southern Finland. And despite the small molehills we even enjoyed some very rare real powder snow in January and February.

Please comment if you have any more questions – or additions to the ski  test, or even if you totally disagree with me!