Last days in Kashmir and India(-;

The time runs out and we're close to leave back home. The last das where amazing. We had another Heli day in the endless faces of the Himalya mountains. The runs Lena and me had were just like a dream and we found ouselves breathless at the bottom. After this amazing Heli Skiing day, we had another nice hald day trip through the paper trees and the rural village Thrang down the valley. With those fantastic impressions, we left to Srinagar to spend one romantic day on a houseboat. The sundown was fabulous and the homemade dinner rounded this perfect day up.

After leaving this peaceful and beautiful area of Kashmir, we spent another 2 days in Delhi, a never sleeping and very turbulent city. We strolled through the markets of spices, fabrics, handicrafts and flowers and tried all the well tasting food. Aaand for sure, we were real tourists and visited the Red Fort, a world cultural heritage of UNESO and India's largest Mosqe, the Jama Masjid. The next day we drove down the 200km to Agra, which took us "just" 5 hours to see one of the "7 new wonder of the world", the amazing Taj Mahal.

My trip to Kashmir and India was definetly one of the best ski trips in my life, I think it was the best. I'll be hard to beat this trip with an even bigger and more exotical adventure, but I'm already thinking about, where to go next...

Heli Skiing in Gulmarg

Little Kids in Thrang.

Young Kashimiri boys.

On the way to our houseboat.

Beautiful old Lady.

Delhi women.

Spices.

Taj Mahal.

25°...barefoot in Delhi.

 

"Monkey Hill" once again(-;

Wow, it’s already our fourth day, can’t believe it, but time goes by fast here in Kashmir. The good part is, it’s still dumping tons of fresh pow, the bad part is, it’s too warm for fluffy snow. Since the upper section of the Gondola was still closed today, we decided to tour up “Monkey Hill” early morning. Thanks to our guide Khan, we had some nice runs through the forest. But the snow became more and more heavy and now we just can hope for colder temperatures. Please, send us some minus degrees!

Touring in the snow!

Lena on her way up!

Picture Break.

Pretty Monkey Hill!

Peak of Monkey Hill!

Snow, snow, snow...in Kashmir.

It’s dumping like hell and we’re excited to catch the first faceshots. Wherever I look, huge snowflakes cover the sky. But unfortunately, it’s really warm and the snow is heavy and wet at the bottom part. Because of the conditions, the gondola to the top station is closed and we don’t know when it does open. So what we did today, was to check out the bottom area from the first station. It’s really flat down there and kinda hard to find good spots. But for today, we got some stuff done and will rest the evening with a few cups of tea, best chill out in Highland Park.

The nostalgic Gulmarg Gondola. 

Feeling fat in the tiny Gulmarg Gondola(-;

Lena&me on the way back in the shuttle.

Picture with some Kashmiris.

What a first day....(-;

When we woke up after our first night, our housekeeper already heated up the wood stove again. Lena and me put on our ski clothes really fast and went outside. The atmosphere was stunning. Bluebird, warm morning sun and the glitter of fresh snow, awesome! After a quick breakfast, we left to start our first mission: HELISKIING! None of us has done it before and we were kinda excited about skiing some nowhere in the Kashmiri Mountains close to Pakistan. It was indescribable, the view, the snow and everything else. I wanted to keep on flying and skiing for 2 more runs, but a bad storm came in and we had to stop and go fly back to the station.

What an experience, what a first day, I want more!!!

So much snow and bluebird! 

Lena&me stoked and excited!

Wohooo...(-;

The Heli Crew.

Kashmiri Monkey.

Arrival in India!

After a long travel with 2 stopovers in London and Delhi, we landed in Srinagar, the capital of the Kashmir region in India. Our shuttle Yussef was already waiting to get us a ride to the small ski town Gulmarg, close to the border of Pakistan. On the way up to the mountains you can still see plenty of military, which are still there because of propaganda reasons. The villages besides the road look really poor, but the people seem to be happy. On the pass up to Gulmarg, we saw the first Kashmiri snow, stoked! Tired and happy, that we finally made it, we checked in our little cute huts of the Highland Park Hotel in Gulmarg. After a really nice Kashmiri made fire in our wood stove, we had a delicious cup of tea and enjoyed the first Indian impressions.

For more news, come back(-;

How to fit all our stuuf on the truck?

A lot of military around!

First great impressions! 

Lena in front of our castle(-;

The best food ever!

Welcome to Highland Park Hotel.

First FIS Slopestyle Worldchampionchips in Park City!

Last week, the first German National Team, including Lena Stoffel, Beni Mayer, Roy Kittler, Sebi Geiger, Flo Geyer and myself travelled to Park City in Utah, to the first FIS slopestyle World Champs ever. I can tell you, that it was quite an experience, a really cold one actually. The wind and the slow snow made the 2 days training on the jumps pretty much impossible. On the Quali Day, Lena and me had to be up the hill, before the sun was rising. It was -25°C and I got already in training a painful frostbite on my nose.

Even if the Quali was better with speed, and I actually had fun, I felt on my second run. That's why I ended up beeing 15. and unfortunalty to finals for me.

Well, it was an experience and next time can just be better....

Nice to be back in warm, 10°C, Germany(-;

Caja

Check out the FIS Worldchamp course in the background.

Me&elk

Lena&me

Opening ceremony!

Weird people in Park City(-;

Snowpark Rally 2011, mission 2: SHOW US COLORS!!!

Kick-off for the second round: after loads of great pictures for the first mission of the BURN SNOWPARK RALLY 2011 in cooperation with VÖLKL were submitted, now the second mission begins. At the coolest online photo competition of the winter, every freeskier and snowboarder is invited to take part. If you work with good ideas and creativity, you can win nice prizes even without having posh camera equipment. Via video messages, the Völkl team riders Chris “CK“ Kroell (AUT) and Caja Schoepf (GER) send you on the second of three missions of the winter. Execute your mission at the snowpark of your choice, shoot a creative pic and upload it to www.snowparkrally.com! Originality and fun are more important than technical photo skills. Get your mission from www.snowparkrally.com now!