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!

This is Charlotte Percle. Charlotte loves skiing and is a very talanted filmer and photographer. When she finished her degree in Fine Art Photography in London she moved to Switzerland to combine her passions. Skiiing and competing in big mountain competitions and photography. When she got injured in a ski accident she dedicated a lot of time to also learn to master the art of film.  Earlier this season Charlotte reached out to us and wondered if we wanted to support her by giving her the chance to participate as the filmer on the Shades of Winter Camp in Gastein this February. She wanted to go there to develop as a filmmaker, work alongside professionals and be part of a team that creates inspiring female ski films. That would be a great platform for her to learn and grow. We were impressed by her determination and wanted to do what we could to help her reach her goals. We gave Charlotte the chance to join the Shades Of Winter crew on the camp i Gastein. The result of that was really good films that is spreading a lot of inspiration and also knowledge. Back from the camp, we took the opportunity to ask Charlotte a few questions about her and her experience from the camp.   What is it that you love about filming/photography and skiing?  Skiing gives my everyday purpose – having goals every season and having these little achievements/failures gives me the sense of working towards something (even though it’s just making turns down a mountain). Filming/photography is similar – I have goals to improve my technique and it’s quite exciting as I am just at the beginning of the journey. The other thing I love about filming is that it forces you to be super aware of what is happening around you because you’re always looking out for a moment or a shot. Memories that I have from good days filming are really vivid. What is you’re long time dream within this field?  I don’t really have a specific big dream, there are lots of obvious big things like, work with Shades of Winter, TGR, Seeking Nirvana, Nimbus Independent, Jimmy Chin, going to Alaska, go heli-skiing, design skis like Eric Pollard. But that list could go on forever and I’m never going to do all those things. So for now I’d love to continue working with inspiring people, tell their stories and improve with each video. I’m really happy with how everything is going so far – I think I’m more about the little steps in the right direction. Did you meet your objectives with the camp?  I thin the camp went really well, we basically got perfect conditions to ski in and the girls on the camp were really stoked – you can’t help but catch the good energy. As far as completing all my goals, I’m pretty happy with all my footage and think that the videos have come out to plan. We’ll just have to wait and see […]