It has now been over 3 years since our Matilda passed in the suites of an avalanche accident in Chile on the 17th of July 2016. The MM Rapaport Hargin Foundation was founded shortly after the accident and has since aimed to push some of the questions Matilda cared most about . During the upcoming season 2019/2020 the foundation will organize a number of events to lift female skiers and increase focus on how to stay safe in the mountains. The MM Rapaport Hargin Foundation works to inspire and support skiers and entrepreneurs in the skiing industry to pursue their dreams and goals. The organization strives to improve equality both within and outside the world of skiing and to increase focus on safety. During this coming season, the foundation is organizing various events to highlight these issues and topics. To make this possible, we have gathered some of the world’s most prominent skiers, mountain safety experts and suppliers of snow safety gear. The events during season 19/20 are the following: Pop Your Airbag 5th of November at Alpingaraget in Stockholm For the third year in a row we are hosting the successful “Pop Your Airbag” event at Sweden’s No.1 ski shop Alpingaraget. Visitors will get the opportunity to test their own avalanche backpacks, update their transceivers and mingle with experts and suppliers in the industry of mountain safety. Alpingaraget is also offering extra good prizes on selected safety products! Everyone is welcome and the registration is done through the link below. popyourairbag.confetti.events Shades of Winter FilmFest 21st of November at Biograf Sture in Stockholm For the second time, Shades of Winter and professional freeskier Sandra Lahnsteiner are coming to Stockholm for this mini-ski festival and we are co-hosting. This year the festival will take place at a bigger cinema to fit even more guests! Sandra own words about the evening: “The #shadesofwinter FilmFest is revealing the power of strong and inspiring female athletes and their work in front of and behind the cameras. This is a great opportunity to get into the right mood for your own adventure and the upcoming winter season, meet the professional athletes and connect with like-minded souls in the community.” Some of the athletes who will be on site to present their films are Nadine Wallner, Lorraine Huber, Hedvig Wessel, Janina Kuzma, Evelina Nilsson and Sandra Lahnsteiner. The tickets were released on the 8th of October at: https://ticketorganizer.at/event/1449-preview?lang=en&preview=1&t=201910071210&fbclid=IwAR2rmSqWBIWP5CW2Xk58ePdU3ssOXZBYJlUjEpkzD9uKF3mfjHGi0uL2_nk NK Safety Weeks the 22nd of November – 7th of December in Stockholm Newly opened NK Sport in Stockholm city is one of Europe’s most modern and most technical sport shops. NK Sport, with support from the MM Rapaport Hargin Foundation, will for two weeks highlight products that are necessary equipment for safe skiing on the mountain. Avalanche backpacks, transceiver, shovel and probe are examples of those products. The campaign weeks are starting off with an “after work” on the 22nd of November in the NK Sport store where the guests will have a chance to try […]

Avalanche training in the middle of the city? Yes, that´s what you just read! Following up on our previous event, the successful Pop your airbag at Alpingaraget in Stockholm where we highlighted the focus of having the right equipment, learning how to use it and the importance of how to update you gear, we created a compressed avalanche training in the middle of the beautiful city of Stockholm. The training took place at the 20-something-seconds-long slope called Hammarbybacken , that also hosts the annual world cup event in dual slalom. We invited 12 women, fairly unexperienced in this area, to participate in this compromised-city event-avalanche training to increase their knowledge about avalanche safety. We did this as we want to inspire more women to educate themselves in this area to create a safer environment in situations on the mountain and of course also inspire to ski more! We asked ourselves if it´s possible to create and accomplish an event such as this in this type of terrain. The answer we got to was, YES, why not? Let´s try it. On March 5th at we met up with the 12 participants and experienced mountain guide Andreas Bengtsson from Mountain Guide Travel in Hammarbybacken and started off the evening with a theory session inside. We got to learn the basics of avalanche terrain, what the mountain can tell us by just looking at it, how to avoid situations where you can end up getting caught by an avalanche and what type of gear to wear while going out on the mountain Participant Linnéa Jonsson explains “I learned how to think in order not to end up in a situation where an avalanche can be triggered. What type of equipment to bring. That it is important that you go with people who you trust that also have good knowledge in the subject.” Back to where we started, The MM Rapaport Hargin Foundation want to increase safety on the mountain and we wanted to host an avalanche course where you can get both a theoretical part and also practice with your equipment. We believe that this part should be done by all freeride skiers every year, a standard procedure before, during and after the season. So, was Hammarbybacken in Stockholm big enough? Did we for example need 50 centimetres of powder to bury our transceiver? Participant and member of the MM Rapaport Hargin Foundation Helena Rapaport explains “The best thing about the education was that it was easily accessible and yet so good and educational! It was my first avalanche training and I learned lots of stuff. Very smooth that on an everyday evening at “home ground” get to learn the basic knowledge of how avalanches and low range work”. Linnea agrees “Very good that the event was held in Stockholm and not in, for example, the Alps / Åre, as it shows how simple and accessible it can actually be to educate yourself in the subject, that you do not have to go […]

A couple of months ago our friend and famous free skier Sandra Lahnsteiner approached us with the idea to “power” the Shades of Winter FilmFest in Stockholm, a celebration of female skiers and their work in front of, and behind the camera. A ski film festival featuring female skiers to sum it up. In true spirit of Matilda of course the foundation accepted the invitation as we saw this as a great opportunity to inspire people out there before the ski season start, meet the professional freeride skiers, and connect with like-minded souls in the Stockholm ski community. On November 27th at fantastic Bio Capitol in Stockholm 100 visitors had the opportunity to Meet Austrian free skier and founder of Shades of Winter Sandra Lahnsteiner, two times Freeride World Champion Nadine Wallner, Norway’s up-and-coming free skier Hedvig Wessel and the Swedish rookies Evelina Nilsson, Kajsa Larsson, Johanna Stålnacke and more as they presented their films and shared the behind the scenes stories of their projects. Featured films & athletes under the evening: Shades of Winter COUPLES feat. Julia Mancuso (USA), Janina Kuzma (NZL), Sandra Lahnsteiner (AUT) TARANAKI feat. Janina Kuzma (NZL), Evelina Nilsson (SWE), Anna Segal (AUS) Shades of Winter CONNECTS feat. Hannah Barnes (GBR), Sandra Lahnsteiner (AUT) KM:DAYS feat. Kajsa Larsson & Malou Petersson (SWE) HEDVIG’S WAY EP3 feat. Hedvig Wessel (NOR) NOW OR NEVER feat. Nadine Wallner (AUT) BLACK FRIAR feat. Johanna Stålnacke (SWE), Christina Lustenberger (CAN) Thank you to all participants, athletes, Bio Capitol, sponsors and of course Sandra Lahnsteiner for making this possible!  See you next year 

On November 20th we had the opportunity to repeat the successful event from last year, Pop Your Airbag at Alpingaraget.  An event where we highlighted the focus of having the right equipment, how to use it and the importance of how to keep update your gear! We think it’s important to give skiers and snowboarders out there the opportunity to get to know and then try their avalanche packs, since its common that you buy the backpack, but you never get to chance to train with it. We are happy to provide this service to the crowd in case of a real situation out on the mountain. One of our founders, Mattias Hargin explain: “I´m happy about the outcome of this year’s event. It feels like we learnt from last year and improved all activities under the event. It´s so fun to see all the participants and  in the end I think we popped over 120 backpacks and updated around 30-40 transceivers. That´s great numbers!” From the foundation we would like to thank the crew at Alpingaraget that made this fantastic night possible! We would also like to thank all the partners involved such as Mammut, ABS, Scott, Black Diamond, RECCO, Peak Perfomance, Salomon and POC. Hope to see you again next year!