mitch blog

You know when it didnt snow for a long time and you see the rocks and the grass on the dry mountains it gets hard to belive or even hard to imagine that there could ever be enough snow again to ride. And than it starts to snow and with the first snowflakes and the first centimeters on the ground the imagination and the feeling are coming back, and what did seem so far away is all of a sudden here. One good storm can change everything! And the happy kids are playing again…

Powder snow is the essence of snowboarding. We are dropping into late november and there are no clouds on the horizon of the alps yet. By chance i got a hold of this two inspiring clips that capture the essence of powder with something like 40 years in between. enjoy, i am still positive that winter will hit to us in december…

To the end of the last season we were driving up my dads campervan filled with snow and surf eqipement to the north of norway. After a weak season in the alps we wanted to hike and ride some lines, meet up with some local friends and than also meet up with the austrian skiers and friends Stefan Häusl and Björn Heregger to film for the third project of our hike series -  hike3.

My initial motivation for the hike series, HIKE, HIKE2ride and now the latest production hike3 was to find out  and also to proof to an audience what kind of freeriding would be possible in our home backcountry and also without the support of helicopters or snow machines.
After realizing the first two movies  in the austrian alps and because of a  ‘lowtide’ snowseason  in our  home mountains this time our search for snow brought us up to the northern part of norway.
The mountains up there are insane, some of them stick right out of the ocean and are about 2000m high. it can be quiet a mission to reach the lines you want to ride so beside some experience and knowledge it is good to bring everything you need for exploring. As days get longer and longer so far north until it doesn’t get dark at all anymore we once had our last run at 10pm before getting up at sunrise at 3am again to hike up for our next mission. The most difficult challenge for us was the weather which was always changing and made it impossible to plan action ahead.
I would say we got it all from bad weather frustration to powder in the woods to magic moments in an unreal beautiful mountain environment….

This year, for the first time, we did put our project in a producers hand, Stefan Tauber from illuminatifilm who than brought our longtime friend and cameraman harry putz along to join us in the norwegian mountains.Thanks to both of them for the great work!
Also thanks to Jarkko Henttonen and Aadne Olsrud for supporting us with their local konwledge and providing a base to stay up there in Tamok Dalen.

here a link to the whole hike series, all trailers plus the first two films on vimeo, not the hike3 movie yet of course:-) : http://vimeo.com/channels/hike

click here for all posts on the HIKE SERIES and scroll through the last 3 years of this freeride project…

For many years i am coming back  to visit my friends in puerto escondido and every year i am hoping for a big swell to realize my dream of towing into big walls. When the swell than was suddenly on the radar and we were watching the crazy towin footage of that  same monster swell already hitting tahiti  i was really getting nervous. I have had some tow sessions with my friend chris over the last years but nothing like that predicted swell! For me not being into it for a year made me questioning myself if i was ready for that.
Once out there and letting go of the rope all the questions i had were far away and it did feel so damn good…like snowboarding a steep powder face, only the face is consistantly changing its shape and character when on your way down the line…
here a little clip i did put together and some impressions from our two day tow session at the playa zicatela, puerto escondido:

swell is arriving with 21 seconds period and 12 foot

the show is on at the beach

waiting for the set to pass

game on! chris on the early shift

down the line chris is disappearing

chris in the house! square beach break at zicatela

next to go: Stan the man! he got the sequence! 1st nice view of the peak

Stan the sequence 2nd

`when i pulled into this i said to myself today is a good day to die!´ Stan the man still alive

my turn! Chris driving the ski i am taking a righthander

dropping into a left

my last possible exit on this one

snow is gone, time to enjoy the summer mountains. i really like to pedal my  heavy bike up the mountain as long as there is some nice run down waiting for me. riding my fully downhill I almost get in the same flow feeling as if i was riding my snowbaord…all pictures taken by ulrich hoschek

sometimes you got to carry your bike to get to the sweet spots...