Oh the absurd and beautiful places splitboarding takes me!
This was the hanging moment when I realized that I passed the 6000m for the first time ever - and without nausea!
Hypoxia is horrible, but these mountains make you wanting more of it 🧐
Gracias el wey maximo @alfredo.perea.mx for the photo and holding me on the rope!
The movie CHRONOCEPTION is out now and making its way through film festivals. What a rollercoaster. ✨
This journey has taken me from experiencing the intense and epic (and quite sufferfesty) expedition in a remote, magical and unskied mountain region, to now sharing that adventure with a wide audience through this equally magical movie.
This is a longtime dream that came true, after many years bumming across mountain ranges both near and far, with this obsessive snowboard and splitboard passion. All of this alongside research and writing jobs, and completing higher education. Not easy, but so worth it.
The most rewarding part is when, after the screening, I bump into a young girl who tells me she could relate to the movie and left feeling inspired.✨
This photo was taken by my idol the guide @jeanyvesfredriksen during that funky descent of Night Butterfly (5056m), a steep and beautiful mountain in South-East Kyrgyzstan. Thats when I sealed the deal about how much I thrive in complex and steep terrain. And that's where I'm headed now. 🌀
Thank you @guillaume_broust for creating this beautiful film, and thank you crazy team for all that work (and walking and carrying): @helias_millerioux@aurel_lardy@thomasdelfino@la.frech@jeremy_bernard_photography
And thanks to @pictureorganicclothing and all the people behind it for having my back, and to the wonder-team manager @nonmaprt 💖
The film will be screened at various mountain film festivals throughout this autumn and winter, stay tuned for updates!
#chronoception
Why does nobody wear helmets for skiing or snowboarding in Japan?
Because rocks don't exist and landings are made of vegan kitten fur in the land of the rising sun. 😺
I will miss you this season favorite snack-land.
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photo by @z_paley somewhere on fluffyisland Hokkaido. 🇯🇵
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#method #mochi #miam
#enjoyer #weareallenjoyers #snowboarding #k2coolbean #japow #girlswhojump #girlswhomethod #pussypower #snacks #mochi #mochi #moremochi
these little moments on questionably decent snow, in a minefield of hidden sharks. a bit absurd, surely selfish, completely useless, and very much necessary in order to see and feel a little clearer in this foggy world.
this was a shared woohoooo with the wild kid @doraktz in the beginning of the season 🌀
🇮🇹 powlenta suprise week - 🙏🏼 @tiphanie_perrotin for having the beautiful idea, rallying the crew and tetris-ing the whole thing, @laureenmahieu behind the lens 🎥, Iyoma and @theo_guittet for throwing this southern powder in the air and of course @lagreppiaartesina for all the cappuccinos!
Grazie mille @artesina_mondoleski and especially king @enri_s for making all last minute things to fall into the right place 🙏🏼
⚠️ little TW: accident & longlong caption
I never thought I’d put this out here, but some quiet little voices kept insisting. Today, 5 years ago, was my 2nd birth. Or rather: the day the mountain almost swallowed me forever.
It was danger level 3 after a windy period. I was with my old friend David — no freerider who never skis above 30°, a lover of walking in our beautiful Alps. The little skilift resort where we started was empty, except one solo splitboarder we offered to join us.
On a plateau, we remotely triggered an avalanche that couldn’t reach us. While we watched, this slide remotely triggered another one, on what looked like low-angle section. That one was very big and about 2 meters thick. The whole mountain had started moving slowly towards us, just like in a bad dream.
David was carried away, he stayed on the surface but then was stuck with snow in the mouth. While running with my skins on, the last tongue of the slide also hit me, slammed me to the ground, my splitboard acting like anchors. Heavy snow slowly covered my body. I couldn’t move anymore — only my right arm and my head. I saw the end coming.
But then it all stopped, just before the snow reached my head.
The snow monster went silent and luckily our new companion could free himself from the slide. He ran to get David out. Then they shoveled my trapped body out of the heavy, concrete-like snow.
It was hard to understand what had happened. I took courses, talked to experts, and learned how crazy lucky we had been — and how avalanche forecasting is no exact science. Wind had loaded more snow than it appeared on top of a tricky weak layer (the kind we have again in the Alps right now!). Our tiny movement had been enough make a whole side of the mountain collapse, even on a zone we believed to be low angle.
I learned that nothing is ever truly safe out there. We just try our best to observe and make decisions — knowing we’ll never fully understand everything. For me this applies far beyond the mountains.
In the end it makes me sad how little space our culture allows for vulnerability and stories about wrong decisions. Mistakes are human and superheroes don’t exist – it's called luck.🤍
Recap of last week's @safetyshreddays organised by @victordaviet in beautiful @saintefoyofficiel 🇫🇷 💥
Lots of learning and refreshers shared with old and new friends — and the icing on the cake was being graced with the long-expected snowfall for everyone’s enjoyment.
A bunch of of super skilled professionals shared tricks and wisdom (see pic 13 👀) on how to stay alive and potentially save your friends in the mountains. One key takeaway from mountain hazard guru @tonylamiche is a linguistic clue: we speak about "safety" equipment and measures, but “safety” is often not the right term and can be misleading. We rather think of rescue and prevention: We train to rescue for when 💩 hits the fan and to think smart in order to avoid it happening in the first place. We know that the mountains are often not a safe place, so let's be prepared!
Merci merci merci merci Victor and the whole staff for these intense, very useful and beautiful days! 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
📸 by les boss @arthurvaillant & @thibault_montoni
& @jo.anna.stk@laurence_barrau
"The path is the destination" they say. I say "let's go figure out if anything is ridable."
Wide views & shortness of breath on the Bolivian altiplano, captured by @estejuanga while shooting for our next little film 🥘💨
The breathing is short at this altitude, 6000m above sea level. It's absurd that in these places of death, where the body struggles the most, we feel the most alive.
The world is full of contradictions and dissonances, and sometimes they feel overwhelming or hopeless. It's hard work to look at the dissonances within ourselves. The only way to live with them, for me, is to face them – to look at them as thoroughly as possible. Just hanging up there, staying in awe with the beauty of this absurd world while feeling how small and insignificant we are.
The short film about this – where we delve into our dissociative minds and societies, and into the thin heights of the Bolivian Andes where opposites meet and co-habit – will come out in 2026. Stay tuned 🙃
And if you'd like to read a little bit about these thoughts, check out the article in the latest @goldenridemagazine 🤍
📍Huayna Potosi, together with @alfredo.perea.mx
and filmed by @estejuanga
