The Peak Performance Freeski Camp 2009 in Disentis was a great success. 16 skifanatics from all over Europe had come together for one of the best freeskiing events of the year organized and coached by pro skier Seb Garhammer. With guidance from our local guide Paul Degonda we had a spectacular week in the little skiresort of Disentis with lots of great runs, spectacular tours, great scenary and awesome vibes from everyone who was there. The week started out with fresh snow and cold wheather and we got some great powderruns all over the mountain. As the week followed, spring turned into the Alps. The second half of the week we skied perfect firnsnow in the mornings and slushsnow in the afternoon. There was practically no one on the mountain skiing except us and it felt like we had rented the whole place for ourselves. When the first people turned up on the weekend, Paul our guide made sure we got to the places where no one else was skiing. The group got to train on their skiing skills in all kinds of conditions, improving their mountainskills and avalanche knowledge as well as learning and improving their jumpigskills on both kickers and cliffs. We enjoyed the afterski in the sun down in the Nagijaala Bar and had great delighful dinners in the Hotel Montana in the evenings. In all everyone had a great time and we are all looking forward for next years Peak – Garhammer happening with great excitement!

My new snowmachine a Yamaha Nytro 1000kbk is the shiznit,! We are still waiting for the heli to come in so we have been sledding some the last couple of days. We hit a nearby spot called sunshine mountain where we skied laps in perfect snow in a superavesome terrain. It’s really nice to get some skiing in before hitting the gnarly stuff up high. The wheather is still really stabile and we have had bluebird for three days in a row now. Unfortunatilly Marks and Stephans sleds have had some engineproblems the last couple of days. This meant we couldn’t get to the really good sledskiing stuff. But I have been having a blast just sledding and skiing fresh pow. My ampmeter is about to reach top and I really feel I’m ready to hit the gnarlines real soon.

Sleds are great as long as they work.

The swiss boys Bimba and Stefan just arrived and they will be the ones that I will be splitting the heli with. Both of them are really strong snowboarders out of Engelberg. The sky was still blue and the heli had finally reached Haines. I was ready to go. Unfortunatilly our cameraman Mark went to Whitehourse to get his sled fixed. He had counted on bad wheather, but as I mentioned earlier you can never count on the wheather reports in Haines. It turned out we missed two perfect bluebird days while Mark and Stephen where in Whitehorse . The MSP crew – Abma, Petit and Hjorleifsson where up flying and they apparently got some really nice stuff. Good for them! Well anyhow we kept on sledding on the nearby mountain and that was still awesome. Still it was pretty anoying knowing the conditions where perfect and we couldn’t go up with the heli. To quote Seth Morisson ”its not blue bird every day you know ”.

Finally up in the bird.

So after missing out on 5 bluebird days of shooting, we finally where ready to go up with the heli. Mark was back and everything was all set. We went up at 5.30 pm cause we wanted to get the morning light. Once we where up in the air we started searching for a good zone to get started in. Appaerantly alot of stuff was pretty boney/rocky this year due to some warm storms earlier on. The snow wasn´t sticking as good as usual. I still think everything looked great though. We found a zone that looked perfect for a warm up run. I skied a nice looking ridge with some great light on it ending up with a drop in the end. The feeling was great and the snow felt really stabile. Bimba and Stefan got two nice lines to.

A stolen heli for a couple of beers

Once we got down, our guide Tim informed us that the MSP dudes had just borrowed our heli for a short while. They wanted to shoot their other heli in the air. No budgetproblems there I guess. We didn’t mind since we thought it would just be a short wile. We had a look on another line in the same bowl that looked really nice and got ready for the pick up… 2 and a ½ hours later we where still waiting for the heli. We could see the light slowly move out of our lines. MSP had fu__ed us over, bastards! We got the pickup, found another zone and then the clouds moved in on us killing the light. The day was over. We met the MSP dudes on the cafe at 33mile just by the heliport. They luckily where really apologetic and Steve Winter promised us a couple of rounds in the bar later on to make up for loss of the heli. I’ve got a soft spot for beers so it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. In the end there where no hard feelings and I was still stoked getting one line in on the first day in the bird.
Finally it looks like we have a storm coming in, which is good since the more serious lines need another dump or two.

Text and photo: seb garhammer

First ride on the new sled.

Snowplow madness.

On top of the run

Nice trees

Swiss Stefan ready to get in to the bird

The warm up run. Photo www.oskarenander.com

The runs we never got to do because of the missing heli

The trip over.

Leaving my two kids and girlfriend in Åre is always a hard thing and is hardly something that I ever get used to. I started out at 6 a clock in the morning leaving Åre/Östersund headig for Haines with 4 transfer flights on the way. Landing in Juneau the capital of Alaska at 10 pm after a 18 hours travel I got a motel just by the airport to get a few hours of sleep before leaving to Haines thye next morning. I got up early and got to the Juneau airport and boarded a small propeller aircraft. The flight into Haines takes about 40 minutes and is probably one of the most beutiful routes you can fly with a plane. White yawdropping mountains sourrounding me left and righ and the ocean right under me all the way to the little fishingtown of Haines. Oskar Enander picked me up with a big smile and we went into town to fix some damaged sleds before driving up to the backhouse of the Funny Farm Lodge where we will stay fo the next five weeks. The vibes are definitelly good arriving in Haines and im really amped and ready to get up on the mountain as soon as possible. The snow looks amazing and the whather looks realy stabile today. We will see what happends tomorrow. In Haines you there is one thing you can be sure of, that is that you can never be sure of the wheater.

Check out the update in a couple of days.

Resan över.

Att lämna mina två barn och flickvän i Åre är aldrig roligt och det är nåt som man aldrig verkar vänja sig vid. Jag lämande Åre 6 på morgonen för att flyga ifrån Östersund till Haines med 4 mellanlandningar på vägen. När jag landar i Juneau huvudstaden av Alaska vid 10 på kvällen efter en 18 timmars resa checkar jag in på ett motel för att få några timmars sömn innan jag flyger vidare till Haines. När jag vaknar följande morgon och ser ut igenom fönstret får jag av en vacker syn, blå himmel och fantastiska berg på varsin sida av staden. Jag tar en taxi till flygplatsen och föraren en grovt skäggig man maler på med tung amerikanska om hur mycket snö som har kommit under senaste tiden. Jag boardar det lilla propellerflygplanet och vi lyfter iväg mot Haines. Flyget till Haines tar ca 40 minuter och är antagligen en av de mest spektakulära flygturerna man kan göra om det är fint väder vill säga.  Vi flyger in längst en lång fjord omringad av de vackraste bergen man kan föreställa sig. Vi landar mjukt och fint vid den lilla fiskarstaden Haines. Oskar Enander kommer och hämtar mig med ett stort leende i en pickuptruck och ett par skotrar på flaket. Vi svänger förbi stan och tar en kaffe innan vi åker vidare mot vårt hus som vi har hyrt en bit längre upp på vägen. Snöförhållandena verkar vara perfekta och himmeln är så blå som den kan bli. Vibbarna efter att ha kommit fram till Haines känns störtsköna och peppet på att få komma upp och åka är stort. Vi får se hur saker och ting ser ut imorgon, för en sak kan man vara säker på i Haines och det är att vädret alltid är osäkert.

Följ uppdateringen av resan inom några dagar.

The trip over.

Leaving my two kids and girlfriend in Åre is always a hard thing and is hardly something that I ever get used to. I started out at 6 a clock in the morning leaving Åre/Östersund headig for Haines with 4 transfer flights on the way. Landing in Juneau the capital of Alaska at 10 pm after a 18 hours travel I got a motel just by the airport to get a few hours of sleep before leaving to Haines thye next morning.  I got up early and got to the  Juneau airport and boarded a small propeller aircraft. The flight into Haines takes about 40 minutes and is probably one of the most beutiful routes you can fly with a plane. White yawdropping mountains sourrounding me left and righ and the ocean right under me all the way to the little fishingtown of Haines. Oskar Enander picked me up with a big smile and we went into town to fix some damaged sleds before driving up to the backhouse of  the Funny Farm Lodge where we will stay fo the next five weeks. The vibes are definitelly good arriving in Haines and im really amped and ready to get up on the mountain as soon as possible. The snow looks amazing and the whather looks realy stabile today. We will see what happends tomorrow. In Haines you there is one thing you can be sure of, that is that you can never be sure of the wheater.

Check out the update in a couple of days.