Anniina Karvinen is a Finnish pro freerider who works in co-operation with Homeboy Ski blog. Anniina is currently competing in Freeride World Tour, which has started this weekend in Russia. Follow Anniina’s life during this season by reading Homeboy Ski blog.

I started my riding season in Finnish Lappland in Pyhä ski resort in December 10th. by working with Alaskan Husky dog farm for five weeks. It was really a dream job for me, to get some good experience with big working dogs and long dog safaris in arctic Lappland. We drove the tourists from all over the world (even from Japan and Australia) with Husky sledges and snowmobiles in Finnish wilderness.

Temperature can sometimes go down to -30 Celsius degrees in northern Finland but this Christmas we had only around -10-15 Celsius degrees. It was really comfortable temperature to work eight hours a day outside with the dogs. The owner of the company has 124 dogs in the Husky farm, and every one of them has a specific name, nature, training system and place in the team, when they pull the sledge. I worked in this farm 6 days a week and went riding in the evening in the local ski resort. I got a bit colder in January, and after that it was not that fun to go riding in -28 Celsius degrees with freezing wind.. So those nights I preferred to stay inside with a warm cup of Chocolate.

At the end of my working period in Lappland I did a good trip to Tamok in Norway with my friend Sami. We wanted to ride some faces and good snow before traveling to Russia for the Freeride World Tour qualifier. We had the local guide Aadne Olsrud, who owns some of the mountains in the areas we were skiing. Aadne was an excellent helping guide for “tourists” from Finland and he and his family treated us like we were part of his family during these 3 days we spent in Tamok. He took us riding in a peak called “Sjufället” and we hiked up 800 meters vertical in 2,5 hours. it was my first hike of the season and I was feeling really OK. Untouched snow with snow shoes and really good run down. Thanks Aadne, we really respect you hospitality for us.

I took my other younger dong Luca “riding” with us, and he was loving the powder as much as we did! This day was good practice for the upcoming events and faces. It felt that I still have the skills to ride some fun faces, even it was about 8 months I did it last time. It was time to say good bye to Norway and Lappland and head back to Tartu (Estonia) via Helsinki to do some exams before we would start the freeride world tour. It was pretty hard to open my school books after excellent 5 weeks with friends, dogs and mountains. But no can help, duties first. Histology, anatomy and dog course. Nice exam session in three days and then I was on my way again, some where where I have never before been before…

Travelling to Sochi Russia and entering the Freeride World Tour

Greetings from snowy Sochi, Russia! Just couple of days ago we arrived in Sochi in order to ride the first Freeride World Tour qualifier race. I am travelling with my friends Kaisa Härkönen (also participating the freeride contest) and Jarkko Henttonen, who is judging the tour snowboard classes. We started the trip from Tallinn on Friday morning and drove from Tartu (my studying city) to Riga, which is the capital of Latvia. We save a lot of money this way in plane tickets instead of flying from Helsinki, over 600 euros.

We arrived to Krasnaya Polyana on Saturday evening and had a really good sleep in the snowy village. You could not see much at the night time, but in the morning there was waiting a nice surprise, fresh powder waiting waiting just there to draw some fresh tracks on the Russian forest. It is my very firs time Russia and I am really happy to ride in this exotic Russian place with the worlds best freeriders. The snow conditions in mountains are great, approximate 3 meters snow layer in the best places.

Nissan Russian adventure will take place at the ski resort Krasnaya Polyana in the Western Caucasus. Krasnaya Polyana is the host of the alpine and Nordic ski events of the 2014 Winter Olympics with Sochi as the host City. Sometimes called the “Russian Courchevel” , Krasnaya Polyana is the most sophisticated ski and snowboard resort in Russia, located just 45 minutes from the Black Sea, and well known as one of the President Putin’s favorite holiday resorts. It is very famous for spectacular heliskiing in the Caucasus mountain range.

Riding the first vertical meters in Krasnaya Polyana ski resort

We could enjoy this magnificent ski resort today, even you could not see much of the beautiful surroundings on the snowy day. I just can not wait until it clears up a little bit to see this whole beautiful terrain around us. We went riding with all the riders who had already arrived in the resort before the competition. About 20 rides were enjoying the fresh play grounds of the mountains. I was riding with the snowboard girls and we were really lucky to get two local “guides”, Andrei and Alexandre to take us in the good off piste runs. There were few chair lifts open on the half way to the mountains and you could do nice easy forest lines all day. It was only a bit busy with the crowd, because it was Sunday and the locals were skiing with their families and enjoying the perfect skiing weather with soft landings. These two local skiers, who were born in Sochi took us riding with a little hike and then we could draw some untouched lines through the mellow nice tree lines with many pillow lines and different formations about 800 meters vertical.

As we ended the day one could read riders smiles how good it was. REALLY GOOD. I had my second powder day of the season and it felt excellent. I feel really healthy and strong at the beginning of the season. I have been lucky, not to get injured for many years after I broke my Tibia and Fibula with open fracture 2003 in Verbier. Wet clothes, big smiles and some good Russian meet in sticks with potatoes made the day quite a perfect. I was really stoked of my first day in Russia.

It is pretty challenging to use your body language, specially if you need to ask some really specific stuff, then you have to use you imagination. People really do not speak English here, only way to get answers is to speak Russian or use your smile and forgiving face that you can not speak the locals language. I think this little challenging thing makes traveling in Russia a bit more fun and pushes you to make effort on the things more than just speaking easy English like in other ski resots in Western countries.

The Russian letters are the next challenging thing. I was really pleased that the menus in the ski restaurants were in English too and the names of the hotels. I had asked the name in English of the hotel I was staying, otherwise it had been a little bit too big mission trying to find out where I have to go back after the first riding day.

Happily ever after a good riding day it was good to go to bed about thinking it would snow two more days before it will open up for the competition next week. The rest of the riders are arriving here today and last tomorrow. We will have the rider`s meeting tomorrow night, when we will find out a bit more what will happen next week. Good night Sochi and I wish to Homeboy Ski blog readers very good skiing days all over the world. Keep up your fingers to our Finnish freeride team!

Special thanks to my sponsors: Kari Traa clothing, K2 Snowboards, Suunto, Dakine, and KASK.