Good times in Bavaria.

We just finished our 2 week splitboarding project through Bavaria with an amazing 4 day trip to the Alpspitze in Garmisch. Finally we got fresh snow and found some nice pillows to bounce around.

We actually found an area with the highest pillow density of the season so everyone could just build his own takeoff within 3 meters to the next one.

The hut we were staying at was really nice and cosy within just half an hour walk.

So we did stuff like snowboarding...

...eating...    

...drinking...

...and more eating...

...splitboarding downhill for a change...

 ...playing Iphone...

...or playing Monopoly...

...or making use of our fourstar Plumpsklo built on a 30m cliff.

All in all I was really stoked on how sick the terrain in our own backyard is and started questioning myself why I would actually wanna go travelling for snowboarding all the time when you can have amazing backcountry conditions so nearby.

 Approaching the peak at 7 am with the view to Munich in the back.

 Another good thing about sleeping on remote huts in the mountains is that you get away from the everyday hustle of the city and the mobile phones.

 Therefore you get to spend much more time together as a group and it was amazing to see how well the whole group would blend with actually connecting three generations with another. 

Thanks to Fips & Tobi Strauss for being my best homies and hanging out with me all the time, Niclas Löffler & Paul Jax (www.facebook.com/wemakethemwonder) for being such enthusiastic filmers, Hansi Herbig for taking great pictures every single day, Christoph Thoresen for shooting unique octocopter footage, David Benedek for all the "back in the days stories", Christophe Schmidt for being our "Schmiddi", Xaver Hoffmann for helping out in every situation, Elias Elhardt for all the good atmosphere that comes with him, Luis Eckert for doing all our dirty dishes and still being such a cool guy to hang out with, Martin Wittmann (http://www.check-your-risk.de) & Alexander Bayerl for the good time and quality mountain guiding.
And last but not least thanks to Red Bull for making this project happen!
 It's been a pleasure!

The last days have been really warm in Bavaria and it was pretty much impossible to find any good snow. Nevertheless we decided to go out and just spend some time together and see what we can do with the current conditions.

We ended up finding a nice windlip to shape a fun Quarterpipe.

For the next tour it did not even feel like winter at all anymore and we spent half of the time just walking on a dirtroad instead of acutally splitboarding

on the snow.

 On the mountain we spent our time with having Brotzeit, playing monopoly, doing a bonfire and jumping off small wooden huts...

...or trying to jump random river gaps.

 But on the last night it finally turned a little colder again and the clouds were moving in. Now we are all stoked for our last tour and hope to catch some good powder!

Splitboarding Bavaria

We've spent the last week splitboarding through the Bavarian Alps and sleeping on huts on the search for some good more good snow.

But Splitboarding is not as easy as I thought...

 ...and setting things up needs a lot of power!

But therefore we put a high priority on long relaxing lunch breaks in the sun.

 And not to forget: the Red Bull break after lunch...

 ...before it finally comes to Snowboarding.

 Our filmers Niclas and Paul from wemakethemwonder are capturing everything from any possible angle...

 When it comes to cooking everything is a little more difficult when you're living in a wooden hut without neither electricity nor water. First you have to make fire...

...then you have to collect snow...

...melt the snow...

...before it finally comes to cooking.

Tomorrow morning we are going out again and I am already looking forward to getting back to some cosy hut and just living in the snow.

Last powder in Asahidake and Tokyo madness.

Our last days in Asahidake were actually pretty productive as we got some more snow. While a lot of it got windpacked and just blown away, we could find certain aspects where all this snow gathered and we could hit some pillows into deep Japanese powder.

 It was a good way to end the trip to Hokkaido although we have not had these unique powder runs which everyone has in mind when thinking of Snowboarding in Japan. Therefore we had an amazing time as a group and still collected a lot of cool footage I think.

From Sapporo we took a flight to Tokyo to spend three days in the worlds largest metropolitan area with about 35 Million people living here.

 At the airport we ran into a Japanese TV Production which were asking Fips about our Snowboard trip and what his riding style looks like.

 Shortly after we discovered that our photographer Silvano Zeiter is growing a single unicorn hair on his forehead.

 The first night in Tokyo we spent floating through the city and ended up in a bowling tournament with a lot of beer.

 The view at Breakfast the next morning on the 25th floor in Tokyo is quite ok.

 The city surely is something very different for us Europeans. Huge zebra crossings...

 ...world's second highest tower with a mind blowing view from the 450 meter high platform...

  ...colorful signs and weird noises everywhere...

But actually most important for me it was about the people. They really are different I think. Not only their look but their whole mentality seems to be extremely polite and friendly. And truely honest. I have bevcome a big fan of the Japanese people within the last three weeks.

One afternoon we did a fun tour through all the different snowboard shops in Tokyo which are selling Isenseven DVDs and we took pictures and gave signatures to the shop owners.

 We had an amazing night with our Japanese distributor Goh from Champion's Vision and his two colleagues who took us to a Teppanyaki and sushi place which was ridiculously good:

 No exaggeration but this piece of salmon truely was the best piece of animal I've eaten in my whole life!

 After a long delicious dinner they let us participate in another part of Japanese culture: Karaoke!

 Thanks to the people of Japan and their country for all the great experiences within the last weeks. It is a different world over there but it felt good to be a part of it.