We met big mountain rider Jarkko Henttonen in Chamonix back in 1996. He had already by then gained a reputation as THE snowboarder that rode big mountains, steep lines and huge, fast turns. Something that wasn’t so popular in the early nineties (remember the days of 145cm boards, flatland tricks, “jib-bonking” and XXXL flannel shirts?). Jarkko was also among the first Finns that really got into Chamonix and its lifestyle - before the 1990’s the main hangout for Finnish “ski bums” was St. Anton in Austria, a place with nice skiing, deep powder and endless parties (but not that much mountaineering culture in a Chamonix sense of the word).

Before we get into the subject, one side note: we just had a VERY bad day here in Finland. Another school shooting/massacre happened today. I am not going to write more on that subject though (Google and you will find all the news) - just condolences to all the families, relatives and friends. Something like this is really hard to understand.

On a more positive note, sad events like that make you appreciate the good, often small and simple things of life even more. So, we try to be positive (it is hard on a day like this for sure!) here and continue on our schedule: we are posting our first-ever interview. Meet Jarkko Henttonen, the most experienced and successful big mountain snowboarder in Finland.

Jarkko Henttonen interview - Introduction

I could go on with the riding achievements and lines of Jarkko Henttonen, but I’ll let Jarkko tell more about that himself. I just want to share my best riding/skiing memory with Jarkko here. Funnily, I wasn’t actually even involved. It was spring 2001 and I was on a road trip from LaGrave to Chamonix, visiting some friends. I went skiing with some of my skier friends while couple of (relatively inexperienced) snowboarder friends went riding with Jarkko Henttonen. One guy was having a birthday and Jarkko wanted to offer some “guiding” as a present. It was couple of days from the previous storm and there was some leftover pow to be ridden but probably nothing too exiting for a seasoner. Still, after the day when I asked about how the day was, Jarkko answered: “Clearly the best day of the season because the guys and girls were so stoked and having so much fun“. In my opinion that says it all.  (And oh yeah, I guess he has some nice competition results too, like 2nd place in the infamous Verbier Xtreme competition in 2001).

Big mountain rider Jarkko Henttonen today

1. What’s up? What have you been up to lately? I heard you have climbed quite a lot, tell us a bit about your recent projects.

I´m doing well, thanks for asking. This summer was quite fun. In June I was in France, climbing a bit, and it was good to spend some time higher up. Due to a few injuries I´ve kinda been laying low past couple of years, but now I´m getting back into shape little by little. After that I´ve mostly stayed here in southern Finland, climbing and training and basically just hanging out. In August I joined my friend Johannes Kärkkäinen on his mission to open up a new aid-climbing route on the north face of Stora Blåmannen in northern Norway. It was a really good trip, even if a bit scary at times.

I´ve also been trying to get into skydiving, but haven´t really found too much time for it, so I´ve only managed to make two jumps this summer. Falling from the sky is a funny feeling, and I really hope I´ll get to do more of it, but we´ll see.

As for work I haven´t really done too much. I´ve instructed a few rock climbing courses, I helped out my friends who work for World Rally Championships event in Jyväskylä, I´ve been helping out in Camu, a climbing store here in Helsinki, I´ve been doing some work for Slammer, which is nro 1 Finnish snowboard mag and of course there´s been some work for HDP Films, a production company that me and my friends own,  and so forth, but I don´t have a regular job, which is exactly the way I want it.

This summer I did the alpine course, but even if I had trained a fair bit I was still not in good enough shape, and I also got ill during the course, I got some kind of infection to my windpipe, so I could not finish it. Anyways, I was quite stoked that I was able to do fairly long days without too bad pain in my foot. I mean two and a half years ago I was barely able to walk for a few hundred meters, a year ago I still had really hard times walking for more than 4 hours and 8 hour day rock climbing totally did me in for a few days. This summer I could already walk for quite a few hours, like 8 or even 10, and climbing has actually felt almost good, meaning not that much pain. So, now I´m doing my best, training as much as I can, trying to get into shape so I can continue the education after another two years.

Well, yes… I was a ski bum for quite a while, and still consider myself as such…

I first went to Chamonix in September 1991, I think, and kept going back and forth between Chamonix and Finland for 9 years. Usually I spent about 4 months there, from the beginning of the year till end of April or so. It depended a bit. Some years I went up north, northern Norway already in the beginning of April, though. After those years I sort of got over it in a way. I mean, I always loved Chamonix, but I did not like the way things went on the hill. With all this hype around freeriding there was a lot more people getting into riding off-piste and this had a certain effect on the behavior of people that I did not quite like. People started taking too many risks, I think, with snow. Actually, the first time I remember thinking that the place is getting crowded was already in 95. I was going to do an afternoon run on the Couloir des Cosmiques and when I got there, there was like 10 or 15 dudes in line, waiting for their turn to rap in. While I was walking past the line and dropping in and riding past the rappel rope I was thinking of finding another place with less people.

So, I ended up going to LaGrave for two winters. Now LaGrave has not exactly been a secret anymore for a very long time either, and it is fairly crowded too, especially considering the capacity of the lift, but at least people there followed certain safety rules that I have always respected as well. In 2002 I went back to Chamonix for a season again. After that I have not spent a full season anywhere, but I´ve done a lot of shorter trips. In 2005 I broke my heel and haven´t been able to do much, but now I´m getting back on my feet and hopefully this winter be some sort of comeback to snow for me.

I love snowboarding as much as anything, and it has been really hard not being able to do it. It was super bad, right after my accident, when I was told that it is highly likely that I cannot keep doing the stuff that I´ve done most of my adult life. I´ve definitely had a lot of good days up on the hill, as well as bad ones, but I sort of has this mentality that, well, good or bad, it´s all good. Ha ha!

Best things are all the good friends that I´ve made!

Jarkko competing in Verbier Extreme a few years ago - gnarly, huh?

Right on! There were so many super nice people in Chamonix back then (like probably today too, we just don’t happen to hang out there as much anymore…)

Taking it seriously - Jarkko Henttonen becomes a big mountain rider

4. You had also some longer expedition type of trips - any best memories type stories or such…single best moments etc.?

I´ve been to Denali, which is also known as Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in north America, twice, and want to go back and will go back. I would have wanted to do more big mountain expeditions but apart from these two, the trips that I planned did not work out for various reasons.

I´d say that the first Denali trip was something that stands out for me in a way, as one of the coolest things I´ve done. I managed to climb to the top and ride down, and back then it was a really big thing for me.

The line I did is called Messner Couloir, after Reinhold Messner, who is one of the greatest climbers of all time. It was first skied down by Sylvan Saudan, who is a super legendary extreme skier, the guy who more or less invented the whole sport. Actually the couloir was called Saudan couloir earlier, but it was re-named. So, the route has some history behind it in a way.

I don´t know how many times it has been skied after monsieur Saudan, but it has not been snowboarded that often. I´m not sure but I think the first person to snowboard it was Stephen Koch, an American big mountain rider. Then there was some japanese dude, who fell down it with his board strapped to his feet, and was hurt pretty bad, but I think he lived. Then it was my turn. It was in 1997. I went there with my buddy Jukka Räsänen, who is a skier, and three other guys, who were just climbing the mountain. Me and Jukka spend 11 days on the mountain and we rode three different runs, one of which was Messner. Jukka did not make it to the summit, but he had a good time laying first tracks on Messner in knee deep pow.

Messner is pretty impressive run, it is about a mile high and consistently about 40 degrees steep with short steeper pitches, I think it´s max about 48 or something, so it is not that steep but a pretty good incline anyways. The top part is this thing that is couple of hundred meters wide and maybe about 1000 meters high, then it narrows down to maybe about 20-30 meters. The narrow part is steepest. After the narrower bit it opens up to this wide open glacial snowfield, which is less steep, around 35 to 40 or so.

I took me something like 12 hours to walk from our camp at 14 000 ft to to the summit, which is about 6000 ft higher. It was quite hard work to get up there, as it was cold and as the air at that altitude is not that thick anymore. I was actually really really tired, and even if I didn´t really think of giving up more than maybe twice, the last couple of hundred yards to the top were super tough, and I was really hoping that it would end.

Ride down was easier of course. It took me like 20 minutes to get to from the summit into the couloir, I had to walk a bit over this flat part, but once I dropped in, it was just pure fun riding down. As the snow was quite good I rode quite fast, I think it took me less than ten minutes to do the whole thing. Higher up, before the narrow part I was taking it a bit easier, but once it opened up so did I, and I rode the bottom section, which is like 400-500 meters in vertical with 7 big turns, just screaming down, hundred k´s an hour.

I slept 18 hours straight after that, and then we went home.

The big thing about the whole deal for me that I was able to ride the line the way I like to ride, which is fast and fluid but in control. It is not that difficult to ride like that if you go up with a lift, but after 12 hours of hard hiking it is not easy anymore. Usually after hard hike it´s more like a turn and a rest, a turn and a rest, but I was able to really charge it hard, and was quite proud of it, as I don´t think too many people have done something like that.

As I said since three years ago I haven´t ridden too much. For a while I was actually contemplating the possibility that I may not be able to ride ever again. I can tell you it was not a fun thought. I´m not gonna go detailed about it, but it was depressing and I sort of had to fight it not to let it take over me.

Now, as of late I´ve been getting better little by little, and last winter I was already doing sort of ok, and think I´m going to be like maybe 75% this winter.

As you said, I am father also, I´ve got a 3,5 years old kid, who does limit my comings and goings a bit of course. But it´s the best limit there is. Having a kid is way better than an sport.

Most of the little riding that I´ve been able to do past couple of years I´ve done in northern Norway. There are super nice mountains there, it´s a lot like Alaska, but there is no people. Of course there´s no people in Alaska, either, but AK is much further. From here it´s quite easy to get to Lyngen or Tamok or any other area up there, all one needs to do is to drive a day and there you are, in the middle of nicest mountains anywhere. Everybody knows about Lyngen, a few about Tamok, and some people have even been in those places, but still there are no rap lines on tops of couloirs there. It´s still intact, empty, untouched, immaculate… And there is a lot, and I mean a whole lot, of room for everybody there. And Lyngen, which is the most famous and probably also the best part, is just a tiny part of the whole area, even if it already is way bigger than all of Mount Blanc massif. You know the whole thing is about as big as the Alps, and 99,99% of all the possible super beautiful extreme lines there are still waiting to be done, and the best thing is that they are in condition most of the time, every winter, and not just once in a decade.

An example of riding/skiing in Tamokdalen, Norway, see video below

Very interesting views. It surely is beautiful in the Northern Norway. And, yes, kids are the most important thing in our life too. Skiing is just a hobby, after all! But back to the actual topic.

Future plans - What is coming up with Jarkko Henttonen?

6. Do you have any other plans for the upcoming 2008-2009 season?

This winter I plan on doing a fair bit of riding. I will work for Freeride World Tour. Nicolas Hale-Woods, the organizer of Verbier Xtreme and the whole tour, recruited me, and I´m super stoked on working for him. I get to work in quite a few cool freeride events, visit many resorts that I have not been to before, and hopefully I´ll manage to do a few runs while I´m there, too. Later in spring I plan on going to north again, I´ve got some lines I´d want to do there. And I plan on going back to Denali as well.

I actually started skiing in 1973 already, and only got into snowboarding in 1987, so I´ve skied longer than snowboarded. Of course snowboarding is the king of all snow sports, there is no doubt about that, but skiing is sometimes quite fun, too. When the fat skis first started to come to market I figured I´d give them a try. In 2000 I actually skied more than snowboarded. It took me like almost a half a day to learn how to do it. Too easy. Ha ha. After my accident I haven´t really skied at all, but this winter I intend on getting my skiing legs back, too.

I think it is good that there are all kinds of “new” things coming to market. All these rockers and reverse sidecuts are not really new ideas, they´ve been around for a quite a while, but anyways it´s good that there is now lot of options. Different things work in different conditions. I´d just like to try out a certain kind of super fat and quite short ski, which I think would be a nice toy for tight trees. I like riding in trees more than any other type of terrain, I think treeriding while it is snowing a lot is as good as it gets. Snowboarding in tight trees is challenging enough, but it is, at least for me, much easier than skiing, and I´d want to try to make a ski that would make treeskiing as easy as possible.