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Pillow Skiing – The Ultimate Collection of Pillow Skiing Videos

Marko Pyhajarvi — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:49:25 +0000

In case you are not familiar with the term pillow skiing, here’s a quick introduction. Pillows form when rocks step down the mountain like a staircase, and when these rocks are covered by a ton of snow. Skiing these snow covered rocks is called “pillow skiing”, and it’s absolutely one of the best things you can with skis.

If you are going to ski pillows make sure there is snow enough. Otherwise you’ll just break your skis and bones. Before skiing pick your line wisely. Pillows can be surprising, so choose a line with wide and clean run-out. Make sure there are places in the pillow line where you can check your speed because most probably you will go faster than you expected. Planning really helps to avoid crashing big time.

Despite of good planning long pillow lines can provide surprises, so you need to look ahead to avoid obstacles. Avoid skiing pillow lines that has trees and rocks in the run-out. Finland, where Homeboys come from, is NOT located in the list. That sucks.

Where are the best places for pillow skiing? Probably in British Colombia, Japan, Kashmir, Norway… All those countries and resorts that receive huge amounts of snow every year.

Watch below probably the best pillow skiing videos in the Internet.

Rock on!

Thanks guys over at UnOfficialSquaw for finding these two above!

You know more pillow skiing videos? Drop a comment below with a link to your video.

Andreas Fransson looking for powder in Bolivia

Marko Pyhajarvi — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:16:48 +0000

Swedish freeskier Andreas Fransson went looking for powder snow in Bolivia. Andreas climbed Bolivia’s highest mountain Sajama to find… well, not exactly powder, but a nice experience anyway. Check the video below.

Nevado Sajama is an extinct stratovolcano and the highest peak in Bolivia. The mountain is located in the Oruro Department, Sajama Province, Curahuara de Carangas Municipality, Sajama Canton. It is situated in the Sajama National Park in the southwest area of the country some 16–24 km (10-15 miles) from the border with Chile. The date of the most recent eruption of Sajama is uncertain.

An interesting detail related to Sajama is the treeline of Polylepis tarapacana which is as high as 5200m above sea level, one of the highest altitudes trees can be found growing anywhere in the world.

Another interesting detail is that in August 2001, two teams of Sajama villagers and Bolivian mountain guides played a soccer match on top of Mount Sajama in an effort to show that altitude itself is not a limitation to physical strain. Not much frenzied activity, I assume…

The first attempt to climb the mountain was done by Joseph Prem in 1927. He attempted the northwest ridge but was stopped short at 6,200 m. After several more attempts, Prem along with Wilfrid Kuehm reached the top in August 1939 by a more difficult southeast ridge.

Check also the blogs of Andreas and Bjarne.