Ben Ferguson, shown here soaring in Alaska, makes his directorial debut with Fleeting Time. To learn more, see page 24.
In extreme conditions it’s all about knowing how to adapt. Seize opportunities and lead the way. Trade FX and crypto through one award-winning app. oanda.com/rbny
Leveraged trading in foreign currency contracts or other of-exchange products on margin carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for everyone. We advise you to carefully consider whether trading is appropriate for you in light of your personal circumstances. You may lose more than you invest. We recommend that you seek independent fnancial advice and ensure you fully understand the risks involved before trading. Trading through an online platform carries additional risks.
“One of my favorite parts of the job is making friends all over the world,” says the Salt Lake City–based photographer, whose work fills the freeskiing portfolio in this issue. “I chased action shots for most of my life, and now, a big part of what I do is give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be in a place or be a skier outside.”
Clark has shot for Patagonia, The North Face, Giro, Outside and Ski Journal Page 44
Among the things that draw people to adventure and sports is a desire to test oneself in an arena where actions have consequences. This is surely true for those who love winter adventure; there’s something about challenging yourself in alpine conditions that at once makes you feel quite small and larger than life. Our cover story, on pro snowboarder Ben Ferguson and his two-year effort to make the film Fleeting Time, digs into one athlete’s quest to find self-expression and new limits in the mountains.
“I’ve known Ben Ferguson for a long time and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching him develop into one of the best snowboarders on earth,” says the Portland, Oregonbased journalist, who wrote our cover story on Ferguson’s film, Fleeting Time. “The production was an epic documentation of two seasons with Ben and his handpicked crew of riders. I loved every second of it.” Monterosso was a longtime editor at Snowboarder magazine. Page 24
This issue is full of stories exploring athletes who seek to find meaning on the edge of possibility. There’s a photo essay capturing the beauty and thrills of freeskiing, a profile of twins who always tackle audacious adventures together and a look at trials-riding icon Danny MacAskill’s five-year quest to film an edit in San Francisco. All of these stories should give you armchair thrills, but we hope they also inspire you to test yourself this winter.
January/February
Pro snowboarder Ben Ferguson embarks on the next phase of his career with the film Fleeting Time, his directorial debut.
It took trials-riding master Danny MacAskill five years to complete his latest project in San Francisco. It was worth it.
Adventure photographer Adam Clark shares some of his top images after years of following the best freeskiers in the game. 56
Twins Hugo and Ross Turner are seasoned adventurers who have one rule for expeditions: They do them together.
Europe’s biggest women’s motorcycle event, the Petrolettes Festival, is all about liberating, full-throttle sisterhood.
CABLE NEWS
“I mean, it’s not the hardest trick.” So says the master, Danny MacAskill, who makes everything look easy.
The Petrolettes Festival, held for three days in Germany, unites women bikers from all over the world.
After guitarist and spinal cord injury survivor Eric Howk joined the rock group Portugal. The Man, his bandmates found a way to make the experience accessible for him. Now they want to do the same for their fans.
Words NORA O’DONNELL
Stairs, cobblestones, curbs, grass. As a guitarist who loved touring, Eric Howk traversed these surfaces every day without giving them a second thought. Then, in May 2007, everything changed. Howk was sitting against a wall in a friend’s backyard when it collapsed. He fell more than 12 feet into an unmarked construction hole and was instantly paralyzed below his sternum from a T4 spinal cord injury.
From his bed in the ICU, the first thing Howk asked for was a guitar. Still able to use his hands, he started working on new ways to hold and position the instrument, even as he struggled to sit up without passing out. But his objective was steadfast: “It was my therapy to get back into music,” he says.
By September of that year, Howk was playing onstage, but he yearned to be on the road again. He began playing with any band that would let him come along, and he drove himself to gigs up to 1,000 miles away. “Figuring out how to play a show is one thing,” he says. “Figuring out how to tour was a much longer process. And that’s still something I’m trying to figure out.”
For years, the rock band Portugal. The Man had their eyes on Howk to join the group. Howk grew up in Wasilla, Alaska, with founding members John Baldwin Gourley and Zach Carothers, but Howk was always busy in other bands.
“Growing up with Eric, he was always the best guitarist we knew,” says Gourley, PTM’s frontman. “He was always the dude you’d see in the hallway, just hanging out and playing guitar every day.”
But joining a major touring band as a wheelchair user
presented a myriad of accessibility challenges for Howk. In the years that followed his injury, he avoided flying on planes, but PTM played gigs across the U.S. and traveled abroad. When it came to venues, most didn’t have a working wheelchair lift—and many didn’t even have a ramp. And accessible tour buses? According to the band, only two exist in the U.S.
“In our brain, we were just thinking about logistics, trying to plan everything out with buses, stages, with backstage, with festivals,” says Carothers, PTM’s bassist. “We were overthinking, just lost in our minds.”
As they struggled to come up with a strategy, Gourley told the band they’d simply make it work. “John is a real good person when something demands action,” Carothers adds. “He brought out the Alaskan and was like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ That’s how we do everything in life, so let’s just jump in and learn to swim.”
So, as a band, they swam. And they flew. And they lifted Howk on and off the tour bus—or wherever he needed to be if it was inaccessible. Together they made touring work, taking on each challenge day by day.
“They make it accessible, just by carrying me on and off, you know?” Howk says with emotion in his voice. “There’s this one-size-fits-all approach to accessibility for a lot of things. But having flexibility and adaptability gets things done better. Sometimes it’s smarter. Sometimes it’s harder. But with every situation that we’re in, we approach it as the situation comes. That’s very much the spirit of this band, and I don’t think I could do this with anybody else. I know I couldn’t.”
Since Howk joined PTM in 2015, the band’s profile skyrocketed. In 2017, Portugal. The Man released its eighth studio album, Woodstock. The album produced two No. 1 hits on the alternative charts in the U.S., including the explosive megahit “Feel It Still.” That song nabbed the group a Grammy in 2018, and they took their success on the road. The band toured across the U.S., Europe and Australia with Howk, who gathered data on the accessibility of every venue they visited—the good, the bad, the despicable.
Over the years, PTM started to see some improvements, with local
In
September, PTM performed at the Cord Club, a Wings for Life fundraising event for spinal cord research, held for the first time in L.A.promoters taking note the more times Howk and the band passed through town. Gourley explains, “At the very least, what’s going to happen is, [the promoters will say] ‘I’ve got to build that ramp. I got to build that ramp. I’ve got to build that ramp.’ And then eventually the ramp just stays. They start to make those changes more permanent.”
But questions lingered. Would venues maintain accessibility standards after the band left town? And what about accessibility for their fans in the audience?
That last question prompted the band to take more action. “We were sitting on all this information, and it wasn’t really getting used,” says Howk. “It was getting used for our benefit and for the backside of venues. But
understanding that my experience as a concert player and the house’s experience as concertgoers is often wildly different.”
Portugal. The Man wanted disabled fans to get the opportunity to see them live, so for their most recent North American tour in 2022, they launched PTM Night Out, a charitable initiative created to make their concerts ADA accessible. Select winners were given VIP treatment, with transportation to and from the venue, as well as an on-site escort and an exclusive meet-and-greet with the band.
“It’s a discovery and research project more than anything,” Howk says. “I don’t think that accessibility in ticketing for a lot of companies is working the best way. We know that it’s not one-size-
“We’re seeing realtime repairs,” says PTM guitarist Eric Howk, who, with his band, is pushing venues to make them more ADA accessible.
fits-all, so it’s about having conversations. It’s easy to get hyperfocused on mobility access, but that’s just a tiny part of it.”
Howk says solutions emerge from asking people what they need and not by shoving them into a designated area. It’s about asking concertgoers where they want to be, depending on their needs.
After a successful pilot program—and with a new album on the horizon—the band hopes to take PTM Night Out on tour around the world, pushing venues to do better. “We’re seeing actual concrete getting mixed in wheelbarrows, like real-time repairs in venues where they’re listening,” Howk says. “We’re doing audits and doing the work.”
Pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis has the physical prowess to break world records, but the secrets to his success are more mindful.
At 23, Swedish American Armand “Mondo” Duplantis is at the top of his game. Last July, he broke his own world record in the pole vault at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, adding that hardware to his gold medal from the Tokyo Olympics. Recently, he spoke with sports psychologist Mia Stellberg about the mental tactics used by elite athletes and how they can apply to people beyond sports. The following is an edited excerpt from their conversation.
mia stellberg: You recently broke your own world record. Can you take us back to that moment?
mondo duplantis: It’s hard to explain because it all happens so quickly—it takes a little while to comprehend what has just happened. It’s easier to reflect on later because in the moment, everything is just so crazy and euphoric. There are these few moments in my career that I’ve had thus far—the world record, Olympic gold—where things don’t necessarily feel real. You’re on such an adrenaline high; it’s almost like you’re having this out-ofbody experience.
What is your optimal headspace prior to one of these world-record performances?
It’s important to understand the things that you can’t control and just go out there
and do whatever you can do under whatever circumstances the day gives you. I know that not every day I’m going to break the world record. I might not even win every day, but I’m going to make sure to leave everything out there on the track.
Is there anything you want to improve on the mental side?
When I was younger, I was a poor loser. That was good in some ways—I was never satisfied, and if I lost that was just unacceptable. I was really motivated, but I think I didn’t handle it like a pro in a healthy way. I can cope with losing a lot better now. I understand more now that there are other things in life that matter. I couldn’t really understand
that two years ago; I felt like pole vault is the only thing that matters. Now if I have a bad practice, I’m going to be bummed about it, but I can set myself to the side for a bit. And I’m able to be a decent friend or boyfriend nowadays. There are still things to work on—I can get better because I think I still dwell on things a little too much.
That sounds like resilience, how to bounce back from certain disappointments. And improving your resilience impacts your dynamic with your discipline. It’s a fine balance because you must have both. You’re not going to find people who are great losers that also have the resilience. But I try to balance it out.
In March 2022, Duplantis broke his own world record at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade. Four months later, he broke his record again with a jump of 6.21 meters.
How do you cope with all the expectations that people have toward you? What would be your advice for people that are struggling with that?
It’s still a work in progress, but I trust my own abilities when I’m out on the track. It’s more a problem when I’m at home and have time to think about everything in my head. That’s when I get the most nervous or have the most selfdoubt. The best thing I have done in the past few years is I started playing golf. I haven’t had a hobby in a long time because I was so focused on pole vaulting. I needed to find a way to clear my head for a few hours or maybe a whole day.
How does your mental strength benefit your life outside of sports?
I think sports teaches you a lot of good lessons. It teaches you how important preparation is. So no matter whether it’s school or a meeting or anything, just prepare for it. There are certain situations where winging it is good when you don’t overthink and let things flow naturally. But there is this balance that you have to find where you need to prepare for things, and you have to train your body and mind to do the things that you want it to do. And when that happens, you let it all flow out.
How would you suggest others go about building their mental strength?
I think it’s really important to set goals. It sounds simple, but people just don’t do it. You don’t have to have these goals where you’re the best in the world at something. Or be famous. But if you’re going to do something and you want to do it at a high level or the highest level that you can do it, then you have to know what you want to do and set goals. They could be little goals, little check marks to make sure that you’re in the places that you want to be. But I think it is very important that before you do something you need to know what you want to get out of it.
Last July, Duplantis’s winning streak continued at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
“I would like to be the best pole vaulter to ever live,” he says.
A new flm shows a group of athletes tackling Iceland’s beautiful, brutal landscape together— and confronting some more harrowing challenges upon returning home.
Iceland in winter is a striking, otherworldly landscape. Green waves of aurora borealis light the night sky, and snow forms a white blanket over black volcanic rock. For legendary endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch, pro-cyclist-turnedfilmmaker Angus “Gus” Morton and photographer Chris Burkard, it was too perfect a canvas to resist.
“Iceland in winter equals freedom,” says Burkard, 36. “Places that were off-limits are now covered in snow; you can go anywhere you want.”
thing was staying warm,” recalls Burkard. “We had a million layers on when we were riding.”
One of the trip’s literal high points—a midnight traverse of the 4,898-foot-tall Mýrdalsjökull Glacier—was also a low when Burkard’s bike got a flat tire and emergency maintenance was required. “We took turns, one of us warming our hands, another working with the tools, and the other pumping up a tire,” he says. “It was savage.”
In April 2021, the trio did just that, setting out to cycle across the island from north to south, a brutal, self-supported journey of more than 300 miles. Their exploits can be seen in a new documentary, I Am Here
The trip took eight days on fat bikes with 4.5-inch tires, snow studs for riding over compacted ice and no suspension. Each carrying about 65 pounds—water, food and survival gear—the riders faced whiteout storms, vertigo and extreme cold. “The hardest
Four hours later, Morton noticed a burning sensation in his hands: the onset of frostbite. Disaster was averted again, but a greater challenge awaited Morton post-journey. Burkard and Rusch returned home without problems, but COVID protocols dictated that Morton, an Australian citizen, couldn’t enter the U.S., and he was forced to spend two weeks in Mexico. “In Iceland, we realized Gus had been dealing with substance abuse and had just got sober,” says Burkard. “Unfortunately, stuck in Mexico, he relapsed.”
At first, Morton was embarrassed to ask for help. He’d just completed a huge adventure and now addiction was getting the better of him?
“A lot of adventure athletes are addicts,” Burkard says. “They seek extremes. There’s a very fine line between choosing something constructive and something destructive.”
But Morton eventually reached out to people who were able to support him.
“You have these pinnacle experiences and you pull each other through,” says Burkard. “You realize you aren’t as strong as you thought you were, because you need your friends. In Iceland and afterward, we all learned the importance of asking for help.”
I Am Here will be released later this year. For more details, follow @chrisburkard on Instagram.
The lofoten collection
Innovative features, bold colors, signature design.
Our mission is to create the greatest outdoor products. Crafted with quality, function, design, and sustainability through four generations since 1929.
As a concert photographer, Luis Alejandro Arriaga Osorio has shot the likes of the Jonas Brothers and Billie Eilish, but his other specialty—action sports imagery—requires him to view the world through a whole different lens. Take this shot of skater Diego Alvarez—a finalist in Red Bull Illume’s “Creative by Skylum” category. “This building is peculiar because of its shape, but all you have to do is turn your head to give it a new dimension,” says Osorio. “It became a colossal bowl with the architecture in between. In my mind I visualized it immediately.”
Instagram: @luisarriagaph; redbullillume.com
Maryland-born lensman Andrew Dixon had a clear aim with this shot of BMX ace Joshny Babu, which won him a semifinal spot in the “Emerging by Black Diamond” category of global photography contest Red Bull Illume. “My goal with this image was to merge the two things I love most: shooting action and products,” Dixon says. “I wanted to completely overengineer this image, which required a total of 10 strobes hoisted around the rider. It took tons of attempts because of the sheer amount of light that was being thrown at him, but at the end of the day we walked away with an awesome image.” adixonphoto.com; redbullillume.com
Tackle the cold in comfort and style with the Glacier Surge. PrimaLoft Gold insulation keeps your feet warm while preventing moisture. Premium materials and an aggressive rubber outsole will have you fighting back as the weather turns.
An AC75 foiling monohull lifts out of the waters of the Mediterranean during a test run in October. This is BoatZero—the training yacht of Alinghi Red Bull Racing, a challenger for the 37th America’s Cup in 2024. The world’s longest continuously running sporting event (founded in 1851) and the pinnacle in yacht racing, the America’s Cup draws the best sailors and pushes the envelope in sail engineering. It’s also expensive—it can cost more than $100 million to take part—but Alinghi knows the deal, having won in 2003 and 2007. Now the Swiss team is soaring back into the fray with a partner renowned for delivering in another bleeding-edge sport—F1— and sailing under the banner of yacht club Société Nautique de Genève. It hasn’t been an easy ride—the boat capsized on its maiden sail just weeks earlier— but helmsman Arnaud Psarofaghis is confident they’ve got what it takes. “Since that training session the team has progressed at every level,” he says.
Photography: Samo Vidic/redbullcontentpool.com
The innovative Icelander on being inspired by mushrooms—and forging her own unique path through the music industry.
Björk is explaining that, contrary to reports, she didn’t eat chocolate pudding every day during the pandemic. “I was trying to say I enjoyed [being at home] so much that it was like eating chocolate pudding every day,” she says. “I think this is my clumsy way of speaking English. I meant I just enjoyed it so much, it was like melting into chocolate or something.”
The 56-year-old Icelander is speaking from her home in Reykjavík, a place that inspired her latest release, Fossora—her own twist on a Latin word, meaning “she who digs”— which Björk describes as her “mushroom album.” It was made after the long period spent at home during the pandemic, when, she says, it felt like we were all putting down roots.
Fossora is as innovative and daring as you’d expect from an artist who has made a career of being uncompromisingly inventive. And this gives her music its own deep roots— Björk says she’s just doing what she’s done since the age of 14.
the red bulletin: Your music is as inventive as ever. For example, the track “TröllaGabba”—was it inspired by your idea of a troll party?
björk: Well, I know I listen to it when I’m a troll. I think we’re all a troll sometimes—we sometimes feel like a delicate
cat or bird or something, and sometimes a troll. And when we feel like a troll, we want to just jump up and down with our fist in the air and get some cathartic release. It’s important to dance regularly, all the way to your old age, as part of your lifestyle.
When it comes to music, you’re always searching for the unknown. Why is that important?
I get very excited when I hear something [new]. Nature has made us in a way that we change every seven years—we have a totally new set of cells, we’re different people. And I think it’s important to push our emotional and psychological growth all the way until we’re 85—or however long we live— to be aware of it and open, and to throw away enough garbage in our lives that we can keep growing. Scientists who have studied the brain notice that if you listen to a new song you’ve never heard before, your brain makes a new territory for it. If you only listen to your old favorite songs, the music part of your brain doesn’t grow.
Which makes electronic music the perfect playground for you, as there are no limits . . .
I think all music has no limits— it’s about your imagination and your mindset. I think you can do any genre in a stagnant way, and you can do every genre in an
imaginative way. So maybe that’s not about the genre so much as whatever you put into the song you are making is there, but if you don’t put it there, it’s not there.
As an established music artist, can you create without restrictions?
To be honest, I’ve always done that, since I was a teenager. I was in punk bands, and we were on an indie label in Iceland—it wasn’t about making money. If somebody needed a poster, I would make a poster; if somebody needed an album cover, somebody made an album cover. I come from this DIY background, since I was 14 years old, where you don’t have to sell your soul to the corporations to be a musician. This kind of mythology of the corporate record company coming on a white horse to sign you and [save you], but then if they drop you, you are a loser . it’s a fiction. It’s a totally fabricated drama that has nothing to do with music. I feel very blessed that I was 14 and surrounded by people who were older than me, so the philosophy from the beginning was: It’s better to have total creative control and sell three copies than to compromise.
And you’ve stuck to that? Yes, nothing has really changed —I’m still doing the same thing I did as a teenager. If you always own your work and you are your own creative control and you own your masters, you can do what you want for the rest of your life. If a lot of people like it, that’s a bonus, but I’ve always been very aware that one day it could all go away. I would still keep making music. Mine is a business model that will probably last a lifetime. And even when only two people are listening to me when I’m 85 or whatever, it will still be a good business model.
Björk’s album Fossora is out now; bjork.com.
“ALL MUSIC HAS NO LIMITS— IT’S ABOUT YOUR MINDSET.”
Rapper Lupe Fiasco shares the soundtrack to his lifelong martial arts journey.
Rapper Lupe Fiasco (real name Wasalu Muhammad Jaco) got his big break in 2006 with a show-stealing verse on Kanye West’s “Touch the Sky.” Eight albums and a Grammy win later, the 40-year-old from Chicago is still spitting rhymes— and flexing his skills in martial arts. “It’s something I’ve been immersed in since birth,” says Fiasco, who began his studies in the dojos of his late karateinstructor father. “A lot of what I do either references or reflects it, and I still practice today, almost daily.” Here he selects four tracks with maximum impact on his life. Lupe Fiasco’s album Drill Music in Zion is out now; lupefasco.com.
Scan this code to hear our Playlist podcast with Lupe Fiasco on Spotify
“THE GLOW” (1985)
“When I was a kid, I would always watch this ’80s Black martial arts film called The Last Dragon. I first heard [this song from the soundtrack] when I was about 3 years old, and it’s been imprinted on me ever since. I’d watch the movie, hear the song and see them doing a fight scene, then the next day I would be in the dojo, acting out that same scene.”
“My dad would play this track [from the Rocky IV soundtrack] endlessly at home and in the dojo. We’d design entire martial arts demonstrations to it, from breaking boards to self-defense presentations. It’s really long and there are no lyrics, but it has such power. Sometimes it’ll bring me to tears because it’s so directly connected to my childhood and my martial arts experience.”
“I first heard this song in martial arts movies in the early ’90s, but I could never find it anywhere—this was before the internet and Google. But a couple years ago I went down a YouTube rabbit hole and eventually found it. I play it religiously, and even though I can’t understand the lyrics it’s definitely one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard.”
“Capoeira originated in Africa and migrated over to Brazil during the slave trade. It looks like a dance, but it contains very lethal martial arts techniques. It’s always set to music, and the most iconic instrument used is a single-stringed bow called the berimbau; it’s very distinctive. This bossa nova track has some berimbau on it, and I use it to relax once practice is over.”
Pro snowboarder Ben Ferguson embarks on the next phase of his career with Fleeting Time, a new film that’s one of the most talked-about snowboarding movies of the year.
Words TOM MONTEROSSO Photography AARON BLATT
Agrandfather clock stands nestled below a valley of looming peaks caked in powder. Tick-tock, tick-tock. Glacial crevasses dive down into the depths of the abyss—a world below the surface that means time has officially run out. Dark. Terrifying. Unknown. A surgeon inserts an arthroscope into someone’s knee, cleaning out cartilage and debris from years of abuse in pursuit of podiums and glory. The clock keeps ticking ominously. Tick-tock, tick-tock. In crash after crash, snowboarders slam into the ground, their limbs flailing in the air. A rider detonates a plume of powder, exiting at terminal velocity. An avalanche releases, carrying a rider off a cliff in a waterfall of snow. “Oh my god,” says an anonymous voice over the walkie-talkie.
A guitar riff cuts the tension as the action starts. Snowboarders are flying through the mountains, moving at lightning speed, sending off massive drops, pinning down near-vertical spines, stomping gigantic tricks and riding out into the valley below as helicopters circle overhead to bring them right back to the top. And then the clock is set ablaze. Orange flames rise into a gray afternoon sky as the title plate hits: “Fleeting Time.” Tick-tock, tick-tock.
These are the opening visuals of pro snowboarder Ben Ferguson’s directorial debut, Fleeting Time. From the start, the film pulls viewers in with a montage of Ferguson’s two-year journey to document a snowboard production for the ages. The clock ablaze in a glacial valley symbolizes how time is short and inescapable. It’s also a nod to the climate crisis—an existential emergency requiring global action to reverse decades of damage before time runs out.
“At its simplest form, the clock’s always ticking,” the 27-year-old says of the name of his film. “Time is fleeting. We had two years. You use it wisely. If you use it poorly, you waste a bunch of time—and money, too. And then [on a] darker note, you think about the environmental crisis we’re going through right now. I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to be able to do the things that I’ve been lucky enough to do, so take advantage of those times.”
Ferguson came up as a snowboarding prodigy, skyrocketing his way into the elite junior competitive ranks. In his formative years, that was the formula for success: Regional contest wins would lead to national recognition, which could ultimately lead—if one had what it takes—to global superstardom.
But Ferguson’s calling has always been in the mountains. He grew up in Bend, Oregon, riding Mount Bachelor, a veritable playground of natural terrain, littered with wind lips, side hits and perfect slopes for riding powder. And while the competitive route brought him international acclaim, Ferguson walked away from it after placing fourth at the 2018 Winter Olympics. It wasn’t that he didn’t like contests. Rather, he realized the time was right to evolve, and his true passion was calling him from outside the ropeline.
“That was the next step [for me],” Ferguson explains, “figuring out how to
Over the course of two years, Ferguson and his crew shot in locations all over the world, including this spot in Jackson, Wyoming.
be a backcountry snowboarder and how to film video parts. If I continued doing halfpipe contests, that would’ve just limited the time [I had] available to deepen my craft, to take that next step. If I did two more years of contest riding, that’s two more years that I didn’t use to figure out what zones to go to, or how to snowmobile.”
In Episode 1 of About Time, a new Red Bull TV series about the making of
the film, Travis Rice—one of Ferguson’s childhood idols and the most influential backcountry snowboarder alive—recalls his invitation to a then-19-year-old Ferguson to come out to Jackson, Wyoming, and join the shoot for his own snowboarding epic, The Fourth Phase (2016): “I remember calling him up and he was just going into X Games. I was like, ‘Dude, do X and then get your ass to Jackson, ASAP, right after the contest.’ ”
Ferguson drove through the night to film with Rice and learn from the master, but the younger rider quickly impressed the crew. “I remember Ben dropping in and cracking a beautiful method,” Rice says, “and that kinda set the precedent for the next three weeks. That month was the first time that we got to spend ample time in the backcountry together and he showed up. Some of the clips he got are still completely A-plus-worthy.”
In 2019, Ferguson partnered up with longtime friends and fellow pro riders Sage Kotsenburg and Red Gerard to make Joy, a film following the trio’s exploits throughout the winter. Upon the film’s release, Ferguson was heralded as the next big thing in backcountry riding and was moving quickly toward the pinnacle of his second career in professional snowboarding.
With the success of Joy came another opportunity for Ferguson to film, this time with directorial duties and the chance to be the project’s anchor. Fleeting Time became an ambitious project with multiple locations around the world and a schedule to shoot over two consecutive winters. “It’s a big project,” Ferguson says. “There was a lot of pressure to perform, to make this thing good from the get-go.”
The pressure mounted during the first year of filming, when Ferguson injured his knee while riding in Jackson Hole. Injuries are part of the job in professional snowboarding, but rather than feel dejected, Ferguson felt driven to overcome this obstacle and finish Fleeting Time. After going under the knife during the summer, he emerged on the other side ready to film for the second year. In the end, the injury was just a minor setback on a long and arduous journey.
“I was willing to put the work in and that’s all I focused on,” Ferguson says. “But it was nerve-racking. I knew I had this two-year project [that I was] in the middle of and I had to continue to bust ass for the next year. It really [drove] me into getting healthy and getting ready for the winter.”
When making a snowboard film, the crew is vital for a successful project, and part of Ferguson’s progression from being a featured rider in a film to directing his own project was handselecting a roster of athletes who he trusted in a backcountry setting. The cast of Fleeting Time includes X Games and Olympic medalists as well as backcountry royalty, and this intermingling of genres highlights Ferguson’s time spent in both worlds. Film icons such as Austin Smith, Mikkel Bang and Travis Rice are paired with competitive superstars like Red Gerard, Mark McMorris and Hailey Langland—a true representation of the spectrum of riders. “It all just naturally
Legendary snowboarder Travis Rice is one of Ferguson’s childhood idols. He joined the Fleeting Time crew in Jackson.
”When you have T. Rice out, you’re going to look to him for what he thinks you should do.“
happened,” Ferguson says of assembling his talented crew. “Nothing felt forced. It just fell into place, and everybody got along really well.”
Langland emerges as one of the stars of the film. Fresh off a flight from the Beijing Games in February 2022, she powered up to British Columbia to join the crew in Whistler and found herself standing atop a massive jump on a bluebird day in the high alpine of the Coast Mountains. What happened next is one of the most talked-about tricks of the last few winters—and a standout clip in Fleeting Time.
“It was just a surreal feeling,” Langland describes of that moment. “I was so nervous, but as soon as I took off and I grabbed my board, I was like, ‘I’m going to land this.’ It took everything in me to stand it up and ride away, and I could hear everyone cheering. Now, being able to sit back and reminisce on that moment, I’m super proud of myself and so thankful for the group that I was with. They were so hyped for me, and they all came down, gave me big hugs. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done on my snowboard.”
Langland’s memorable trick sequence became “the front seven heard ’round the world” and landed her on the cover of Slush magazine.
“Hailey is such an amazing rider,” Ferguson says. “I think she’s on her way to being a badass in the mountains. She’s getting better at snowmobiling, too, and looking at terrain, and it’s just her time.”
After two years filming in Idaho, Wyoming, California, Oregon, British Columbia and Japan, the crew ended their time in Valdez, Alaska—the epicenter of big-mountain freestyle snowboarding, with near-vertical 4,000-foot runs and real-life consequences should something go sideways. This is where things really came full circle for Ferguson: Just a few winters prior, he had been driving through the night to meet up with one of his biggest influences, Travis Rice, but now here he was, spearheading his own film in Alaska, with Rice coming along for the journey.
“It was awesome,” Ferguson says of the opportunity to direct his idol. “He’s so experienced. Even though it was our project, when you have T. Rice out, you’re going to look to him for what he thinks you should do. He’s arguably the best snowboarder in the world. He’s doing stuff and you’re like, ‘I’ve got to up my game.’ He’s pushing it on the riding side, but he’s also a guide out there.”
During a long weather window in Alaska, the crew logged all the final footage and wrapped up their two-year journey to make an iconic snowboarding picture. From celebrating on podiums and battling injuries to embracing the backcountry and directing his first bigmountain film, Fleeting Time is the culmination of everything Ferguson has worked for his entire career—and he’s only 27. But from here on out, one thing is clear: He plans on chasing snow, spraying powder and sharing that joy with the world.
“I wanted to make a movie that gets people excited to go snowboard,” Ferguson says. “You want to make a movie that people are going to watch before they go out and shred.”
Fleeting Time is currently available to rent on all major platforms and returns to Red Bull TV on February 10. For more about the making of the film, check out About Time on Red Bull TV.
“I wanted to make a movie that gets people excited to snowboard,” says Ferguson, shot here near Lake Tahoe.
When trials-riding master Danny MacAskill started filming an ambitious edit dedicated to the city of San Francisco, little did he know it would take five years to get it in the bag. But, says the Scot, the blood, sweat and tears were worth it.
Words MARK NOBLE Photography DAVE MACKISON“I mean, it’s not the hardest trick,” MacAskill says, though others may disagree. “It’s a big, thick, chunky chain, but with a slight twist in it . . . and OK, it was rocky down on the side. But obviously it looks quite beautiful. We had a tight time limit, and there were lots of tourists around in the morning, so we went down first thing to try to ride it. It was definitely a little bit frustrating, but it was also very cool to be riding the Fort Point chain in such an iconic part of San Francisco.”
In this age of instant gratification, what kind of person takes on a challenge and refuses to accept failure—even after two dozen unsuccessful attempts, or a hundred, or perhaps even double, triple that? What about completing hundreds of those challenges?
Trials-riding legend Danny MacAskill, who turned 37 in December, has been perfecting the impossible for more than a decade. When he released his “Inspired Bicycles” video, filmed on the streets of Edinburgh in 2009, MacAskill created one of the first bike videos ever to go viral. Since then, he has released multiple landmark videos and short films, racking up millions of views as he takes his tires to places no one else could.
MacAskill’s riding looks casual, born of natural talent alone, but in reality it takes steely determination and a laser focus to overcome what are almost unachievable feats: riding up and down a tank gun; balancing on a windmill blade a couple of hundred meters up; sliding your wheels lengthwise down a fallen tree (this took well in excess of 350 tries to nail). These videos are testament to MacAskill’s apparently endless ability to evolve his riding.
“I always want to try to do something to the best of my ability,” he says. “I realized quite early on that, rather than trying to just one-up yourself, [I wanted each] film to have a different feel. In my thinking, it’s like, ‘How do I create something that’s different?’ ”
His latest film project, Danny MacAskill: Postcard from San Francisco, was initially different for the wrong reasons. Filming began way back in 2017 but was cut short when one of the city’s iconic skate spots bit back, hard. “The second day of filming, we went to this famous San Francisco spot called 3rd and Army. I found the line at the very end, where I planned to do something ambitious. I tried one attempt and slipped and broke my kneecap.”
Five years later, MacAskill—fully healed and displaying characteristic resilience—felt it was important to finish what he’d started despite the challenges. San Francisco has mythological status when it comes to BMX and skateboard spots; its geography and terrain make it unlike anywhere else in the world. The city is unforgiving, brutal and unconventional. And you can’t simply roll up and expect to film where you like at any time—you need a to-do list, a planned strategy and legal permits that come with time limitations.
“I’ve spent a lot of time scouting in San Francisco, so outside of the U.K. it’s the city I know best in the world—a beautiful, really interesting place,” says MacAskill. “With your mind completely open to everything around, you see potential in every edge, so you just make a huge list. And then we tried to get permissions to ride, which ended up being a pretty hard part of this project.”
After 40 or so locations were selected all around the city—from the well-known skate spot China Banks above Kearny Street to the infamous former prison on Alcatraz Island—MacAskill’s team applied for permits. Some of these were turned down, while others allowed access only for a limited amount of time at strange times of day. As these spots were spread across a wide geographical area, this meant MacAskill couldn’t easily switch locations, as he normally would, if one trick wasn’t working; instead he’d just have to knuckle down and get it nailed.
Often with an audience of curious onlookers.
“It’s been a long time,” says MacAskill. “When you’re trying to do stuff you’ve never done before— or stuff that sometimes nobody has ever done—you can easily spend two or more days on what ends up being 10 seconds on film. I’ve usually got a good idea of what I can do, and it may take me hundreds of tries to get it, but 98 percent of the time the clip gets landed. But on this project I didn’t necessarily take into account what it’d be like filming on a permit, where you’ve got just four hours to learn the trick.”
Despite all the rejections, disparate locations and thousands of unsuccessful attempts, the resulting film
is a jaw-dropping watch. MacAskill seems to effortlessly glide, jump and flip his way around surprising parts of a city that has long inspired his riding—with just a few hints at the pain that went into getting the final cut at long last. So does he feel he’s done what he set out to do? It seems that for MacAskill there’s no such thing as finished business. “You think about some of the setups you wanted to ride, that would be cool to find,” he says. “Rather than think about what I’ve achieved so far, I always think about the ones that got away.” You can watch Danny MacAskill: Postcard from San Francisco at redbull.com
“This is a shot looking down at the city—a bit of a classic view,” says MacAskill. “San Francisco is just a really interesting place to be, to ride, to look around.”
“The idea was to kind of hop over the rail and then into this bridge support beam [see above], which must be about a foot wide,” says MacAskill. “I tried for a couple of days to kind of get myself up and over it, but the rail itself is about an inch off my maximum bunny-hopping height. It’s not easy, I can tell you, and I had a really short run-up. One time, I got so close that the stress level was quite high. I mean, it was really funny—my arms by the end of it were actually trembling, like my brain had gone into some different mode. It was weird trying to get the instinctual part of my brain to kind of get on with it. I mean, it looks cool, but it was hard trying to get my brain to chill out a bit while hopping up on that 25-foot-high rail, especially when you couldn’t see the landing until you were up there.”
“I had a bit of a time there. Originally I had planned to 360 off a certain point on the Alcatraz steps, but I thought, ‘Well, it’d be quite good to front-flip on— that would be a cool thing to get to do in that iconic yard.’ The step I was going off was just over 6 or 7 feet—right on the limit of how low you can front-flip to flat, especially having to clear out that kind of distance—and I ended up blowing up a couple of rear wheels. I had to go back two days later to get it done. I broke another wheel, then eventually landed it.”
“This one is in the rec yard at Alcatraz, which was a very cool place to be able to film. This was like a nice, relatively straightforward bit of riding: a hop up to the rail and then down, kind of going into the yard itself. I think there was quite a famous clip at the very bottom of the banking with [skateboarder] Mark Gonzales. It’s interesting old concrete, but at the same time it’s got this history and it’s kind of a mad place. It was very cool to get to ride on it.”
“With your mind completely open to everything around, you see potential in every edge.”
“[Before returning to S.F.] I had four months in this warehouse in Inverness where I was able to build replicas of some of the spots that I was hoping to clear [in S.F.], to practice on. It didn’t exactly instill confidence in my ability [to do this one]—it took me 300 tries to get across. It’s not actually the balance that’s the main issue, it’s how the tennis net moves on the cable. It twists, which then pulls my tires off the side. But in the end I managed to do it ahead of schedule. If I hadn’t been practicing in the warehouse, there’s no way I’d have been able to do it in that time frame.”
“That’s down on China Beach, a really cool part of the city. The drop off that little pillar at the very top actually ended up being really disgusting, especially when we built this landing that was almost too far, so I’m trying to drop, you know, 6 and a half feet to land on this thin wall. If I dropped my front wheel, I was looking at basically going over the bars into the back of the landing we’d built, 17 feet down to the beach, and then landing in a pile of driftwood. So it wouldn’t be fun. I’d actually thought it would be quite easy and within my limits, but in reality it ended up being a pretty hard day. I had a bit of a mental battle with that one.”
“I’d say this has to be one of the most visited tourist spots in the whole of San Francisco. I mean, the idea of the film ended up being to visit some of the most scenic parts of San Francisco and give it a rough theme of this postcard from the city, to tie it together. The main thing was just trying to do the coolest riding I could find.”
“So this was one of the lines I was most excited about, just in terms of how iconic China Banks is, and how it features in so many skate films. Originally I had a cool line that went out the opposite side of the banks—you know, basically jump off the side of the wall, go over that lantern and then jump off the wall and land on a ledge. However, during those five years [between the first and second shoots] they put some kind of extra ledge on the ledge I was going to jump on. So I changed my plans and went in the opposite direction, but it was still very cool, just getting to ride it. I’ve heard rumors that it’s gonna be knocked down and the whole square is getting changed, so it’s cool to get to do something on it before a spot like that disappears forever.”
“It’s a funny place, Alcatraz. I think people get different emotions from the place. I put myself in the prisoners’ shoes a few times, going into cells and whatnot. It’s got that vibe, but then on the other hand it’s an iconic tourist attraction, so it’s weird—there are two sides to it. I’ve spent a lot of time on islands in Scotland that are kind of similar to Alcatraz, with World War I and II defenses, so it felt a little bit like home in some ways—all that concrete and the smell of seagull shit. It just has this vibe that’s like, OK, this is kind of my scene out here.”
Valle Nevado, Chile, 2013
For 15 years, Clark chased what he calls Endless Winter, visiting the Southern Hemisphere to ski when summer came at home. This shot captures powdery bliss with old friend Carston Oliver at Valle Nevado, a ski resort in the heart of the Andes.
Growing up in Salt Lake City, Adam Clark fell in love with skiing and the great outdoors as a small child. On a fateful trip to Alaska when he was in high school, a couple of hobbyist photographers gifted him his frst camera, and soon after, he began snapping pictures of his friends skiing near his home. It wasn’t long before his work started getting published, and he realized he could make a living being a photographer and a ski bum who few all over the world chasing snow.
These days, the 43-yearold is a little more settled, but no matter where he fnds himself, his work focuses on capturing the same love of the outdoors he’s had since childhood. “I really try to give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be in a place or be a skier or be outside,” Clark says.
Follow @acpictures
“That’s one of the top five sunsets of my life,” Clark says, recalling the atmosphere as Norwegian pro skier Stian Hagen and Canada’s Christina Lustenberger looked down on the fjords of Norway. “I’d love to go back.”
Wasatch Mountains, Utah, 2019
“Sometimes the snow does the work for me,” Clark says of this shot of skier Pep Fujas enveloped in a plume of powder. “That’s classic Utah—so much fun.”
British Columbia, Canada, 2017
“One of my favorite parts of the job is the international aspect of all of it and making friends all over the world,” says Clark, who captured Norway’s Stian Hagen on a cat-skiing trip at Retallack Lodge in the Selkirk Mountains.
Haines, Alaska, 2009
To capture big-mountain skiers Dana Flahr and Seth Morrison, Clark shot out of a helicopter with the door removed. “We called this one ‘Face Pringles,’ ” Clark jokes, referring to the slope’s texture and its striking resemblance to a potato chip.
Nevados de Chillan, Chile, 2014 “In South America, storms come with a lot of wind and the powder can be fickle. We probably spent an entire afternoon getting that shot,” Clark says of this image of Canadian skier Austin Ross.
“Powder is fickle. It doesn’t last long before the wind sweeps it away.”
British Columbia, Canada, 2017
Italian freeskier and Red Bull athlete Markus Eder tackles a tree-lined run at Retallack Lodge. “To stand at the top of that line and witness Markus doing his thing was a huge rush,” says Clark. “Getting to work with talent like him is a highlight of my job.”
Cooke City, Montana, 2021
“I chased action shots for most of my life, and now, a big part of what I do is give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be in a place or be a skier outside,” says Clark, who shot 2020 Freeride World Tour champion Isaac Freeland at sunset.
“What I do is give someone a feeling of what it’s like to be a skier outside.“
Cooke City, Montana, 2021
On some days, there’s no specific plan, Clark explains, recalling this shot of American skier Sawyer Thomas. “We just hiked around until we found fun features and had a good time.”
“Sometimes it’s just about having fun on a cloudy and cold day.“
Wasatch Mountains, Utah, 2019
“I love living at home,” Clark says of Utah. Here he captures Marcus Caston, a fellow Utahn, at the end of the day. After snapping this pic, Clark skied 4,000 feet back to his car. “I didn’t take any photos and just had an amazing run.”
Twins Hugo and Ross Turner are seasoned adventurers with everyman appeal and a can-do attitude that sees them take on challenges on land, sea and in the air. There’s only one rule for all their varied expeditions: They do them together.
Words MARK BAILEY
Night watch: In the eerie darkness of the southeast Atlantic, Ross and Hugo Turner scan the horizon for looming ships that could pose a threat to their 40-foot yacht.
arkness has fallen over the Bay of Biscay in the northeast Atlantic. Hugo and Ross Turner—identical twins, best mates and adventurers—are nervously scanning the eerie black water, their anxious expressions illuminated by the red glow of their boat’s night light. The brothers are on the lookout for vast shipping vessels that could collide with their vulnerable 40-foot hydrogen-powered yacht. Suddenly a blip on their CPA (Closest Point of Approach) system alerts them to a ship heading their way. It’s a beast: 160 feet wide, 1,100 feet long, 218,000 tons and traveling at 18 knots (20 mph). It’s like having a 108-story skyscraper hurtling toward you. Without enough wind power or time to tack away or steer around it, the only option is to ask the other ship to alter its course. Ross makes the call, requesting that the huge vessel steer 5 degrees to its port. Tension-filled moments follow—can it maneuver off-course in time? It works. Catastrophe is averted. But it’s going to be a long night. This is exactly the kind of stressful scenario the 34-year-old “adventure twins” from England have become accustomed to. Hugo and Ross have been exploring poles, mountains and oceans together for years. They’re now in the Atlantic for the 2022 stage of their global, multiyear hunt for the mysterious Poles of Inaccessibility (POIs). Part Indiana Jones adventure, part GPS-driven Pokémon GO quest, their mission is to reach nine POIs—the remote, often hazardous points on landmasses, ice caps or oceans
that are farthest in all directions from surrounding coastlines. Between 2016 and 2019, the twins bagged the Australian, South American, North American and Iberian POIs using paramotors, bikes and electric motorbikes. Now they’re on their Quintet Earth powers Blue Pole Project, hunting the midAtlantic POI, which lurks 1,263 miles from any continental coastline.
The twins pair each POI adventure with a unique scientific or environmental goal. So, after securing a secondhand boat from a sailing charity, they swapped the diesel engine for an electric motor and added a sustainable hydrogen fuel cell generator. This means they can test the real-world potential of a 100 percent emission-free yacht (even standard yachts have diesel engines, to get out of port or to escape low wind). But it also means they’re reliant on wind power and don’t have a diesel engine to power them away from danger—such as giant ships heading straight for them.
The lethal shipping channels of the Atlantic are a distant worry when The Red Bulletin first meets the Turners on a June afternoon at a marina on England’s south coast, just days before they set sail. Surrounded by sparkling yachts and screeching seagulls—and dressed similarly in denim shorts and scruffy T-shirts—they look more like backpackers than grizzled mariners. But the Turners are not like other adventurers. For a start, there are two of them.
“We went on Google and typed ‘extreme points in the world.’ All these POIs came up. Then we thought, ‘What about doing them all?’ ”
Hazardous and hard to reach, the Poles of Inaccessibility (POIs) are located at the most distant point from any surrounding coastlines. The Turner twins are hunting at least nine of these remote POIs in the pursuit of scientific discovery and life-changing adventures.
Ice Pole (TBC)
Hugo and Ross are planning a 1,500-mile kite-skiing expedition to the center of the perilous Greenland ice cap to monitor ice melt for the European Space Agency.
The twins cycled 1,500 miles in four weeks from Santa Monica, through the 124°F heat of the Mojave Desert and the Rockies, to the North American POI in Badlands National Park, South Dakota.
The brothers hope to sail to the legendary Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean. Located 1,670 miles from the nearest coastline, it’s the most isolated spot on Earth.
The twins cycled 1,500 miles through jungles, salt flats and the Andes Mountains from Arica, Chile, to the South American POI near Cuiabá, Brazil. They each shed 40 pounds in 34 days.
Hugo and Ross aimed to sail to the mid-Atlantic POI on an eco-friendly yacht. They traveled more than 1,600 miles emission-free, but due to low winds they had to sail back early. They hope to try again.
The twins drove Zero electric motorbikes 1,570 miles from the London Transport Museum to the Iberian POI in Toledo, Spain. The trip took seven days and required 59 hours of charging
The twins hope to utilize hydrogen fuel to travel the 2,175 miles across China to the Eurasian POI in Xinjiang. But given the region’s human rights abuses, it’s proving a difficult project to navigate.
“We’re a two-pronged package,” says Hugo. “If you fall down a crevasse, the other one will save you. We have fun together. And we never argue, because it’s like arguing with yourself. We’re genetically identical. We even have the same crazy blond-gray hairs above our ears and the same weird things on our body.”
That slip into the singular—“our body”—says much about the twins’ unique bond. “Hugs” and “Rossy,” as they call each other, are so similar their parents sewed “H” and “R” onto their school jumpers to help other kids identify them. Inseparable to this day, the 6-feet-2-inch-tall brothers both live in London, in different flats but still close by. “We enjoy similar films—anything real life or with people doing amazing things,” says Ross. “But I’m more competitive. [Ross slyly nudges his skis ahead of Hugo’s on polar journeys.] And Hugs has a beer or two more than me.”
The siblings’ similarities give them powerful camaraderie, and their differences equip them with double the strengths and ideas. “Ross is bad at high altitude, whereas I am bad in extreme heat, but if you work together your chances increase,” says Hugo. “The big difference is, Ross loves making stuff out of crap. He gets creative with problems, whereas my approach is more . . thought out.”
Island Pole (TBC)
Next, Hugo and Ross aim to hike and bike 370 miles into central Madagascar and back, to study the effects of deforestation and habitat destruction.
Some adventurers can be humorless and flinty. But the twins are playful. By way of a greeting, they share a video of last night’s “amazing, incredible” thunderstorm and are soon debating where best to place the bucket when nature calls at sea. On this trip, they’ll be joined by sailor Lisa Kingston and content creator Patrick Condy (plus, briefly, the ocean photographer George Karbus), so privacy will be nonexistent.
“We’re always messing around, because we have literally no idea what we’re doing,” says Hugo. “But we learn it all. There’s a theme to our trips: We get an idea that sounds fun, get the funding and then work out how to do it. We really break the mold. But with adventure there’s no rule book.”
The twins are experienced sailors and respected fellows of the Royal Geographical Society. They attract sponsors like Breitling and Land Rover. And they both have degrees in industrial design and technology; they graduated from Loughborough University in 2011. They just like to have fun, too. “There’s a fine line between badass and dumbass,” says Ross. “We want to be on the right side of that.”
Armed with Parajet paramotors, and after 60 hours of training, the twins completed a daunting 18-day, 1,000-mile journey from Adelaide to the Australian POI in the sunbaked Outback.
The twins certainly have serious goals: As well as promoting sustainable hydrogen power, this Atlantic mission—sponsored by Quintet Earth, an investment fund specializing in sustainable projects—aims to log plastic pollution for the International Marine Litter Research Unit at Plymouth University. “The Poles of
“We plan, think things through and adapt. The strongest tree is the most flexible.”
Inaccessibility have a unique allure,” says Ross. “But our expeditions have discovery at their heart. We want to learn about science, the environment, technology and the human body.”
While most adventurers specialize in one field, such as mountaineering, the twins boldly hop from bikes to boats, or from poles to oceans. And this willingness to feel slightly out of their depth is what makes them so refreshing. “We’re not offshore sailors or mountaineers; we’re a bit of everything,” admits Hugo. “And that makes it amazing fun. It allows us to go into any environment with a new narrative. It’s about questioning life, being curious and discovering something new.”
With the planned six-week expedition only days away, the twins are getting nervous. But they have never lost the ability to laugh at themselves, and this may be the secret to their mental resilience. Research
Identical aims: The twins’ environmental concerns—about issues such as pollution, climate change and deforestation—go hand in hand with their adventuring; (below) paramotoring to the mid-Outback Australian POI in 2016.
by Andy Lane, a professor of sports psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, suggests that humor can be a potent tool in hard times, diverting attention away from stress and sparking positive thoughts.
“We do get upset, but sometimes when we’ve been up shit creek without a paddle we’ve just laughed at ourselves,” says Hugo. “Experience and knowledge tell us what to do. But if it’s not life threatening, we can giggle. This is our job, so you do need balance. If you have a massive jolly and mess up, you look silly, but if you’re not enjoying it, what’s the point?”
The Turners’ genre-busting style of adventure comes from a blend of childhood dreams, teenage tragedy and adult ambition. Born on October 22, 1988, in the city of Devon in South West England, the twins were encouraged by their parents—Nick, who worked in the paint industry, and Jo, a wedding planner—to enjoy outdoor fun in Devon and in nearby Dartmoor National Park. As kids, they built rafts, climbed trees and made sledges. Now they sail 40-foot boats, climb snowclad mountains and drag sledges across polar ice caps. “All those experiences we had as kids now shape our adult lives as adventurers,” says Hugo. “We’re so proud of that. We can handle the hard times because we’re doing what we love.”
They think about this a lot. “I saw a video on YouTube about the regrets of people who’ve lived to 100,” reflects Ross, “and most of them say, ‘Do what you want to do!’ Nobody is going to give it to you, because nobody knows what you want.”
The Turners’ resilience also stems from a neartragic experience in their past. At the age of 17, Hugo dived into the sea, hit a sandbank and broke his neck. Doctors said he was millimeters away from becoming a tetraplegic. He endured six months of surgery and 18 months of rehab. But he recovered his mobility. “We do this adventure stuff because it was so nearly taken away,” says Hugo. It’s also why they support spinal injury research charities such as Wings for Life.
Determined to live their lives to the max, the twins completed the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Rowing Challenge—with their friends Adam Wolley and Greg Symondson—four years later, after leaving university. The nearly 2,700-mile row was a mind-shredding ordeal: A solitary inch on their map of the Atlantic represented about 350 miles and took a week to row. But Hugo’s recovery had given them unshakable resolve. After 42 days, they secured two world records as the youngest four-man crew to row the Atlantic and the first twins to row an ocean.
However, the brothers learned far more from their first failure, which came on a 341-mile trek across the polar ice cap of Greenland in 2014. Dragging 220pound sledges, they skirted crevasses and dashed past teetering 20-foot ice formations. But when Hugo injured his knee, they needed a helicopter evacuation. “It was so depressing,” says Hugo. “But a year later we succeeded in climbing Mount Elbrus [at 18,510 feet, the highest peak in Europe] precisely because of that failure. We learned to use fear—of failure and danger— as fuel. Failure gives you the drive to succeed.”
Greenland also taught the twins that if they wanted to do hazardous missions, they needed to have some worthy goals. “Until then, our trips were personal, macho things,” admits Ross. “We wanted to go back to exploration, and explorers of the past pursued knowledge.”
This was the trigger for the huge POI project, which could take 10 years to complete. “We went on Google and typed ‘extreme points in the world’ and all these POIs came up,” says Hugo. “We read about how hard it was to get there. And then we thought, ‘What about doing them all? Let’s document these POIs while discovering new things.’ ”
At the marina prior to departure, the brothers are still discovering new things, googling information and thumbing through engine manuals. They’re also busy scraping off the boat’s standard antifouling paint, which is toxic, so it can be replaced with Finsulate eco-friendly fibers to keep corrosive algae and barnacles at bay. The pair are tired, dirty and a little apprehensive. “I get worried and frightened quite easily,” admits Hugo. “In tough times, we think, ‘Why do we do this?’ ”
But they’ve had plenty of practice pushing past that. On their 2,700-mile row across the Atlantic, the Turners were battered by 40-foot rogue waves at night. “You’d hear this roar, then it would crash over us in the dark,” recalls Hugo. “It was the most scared we’ve ever been.” When the twins flew paramotors —which Ross dubs “giant fans with parachutes”— to the mid-Outback Australian POI in 2016, 25 mph thermal gusts threatened to slam them to earth. “We normalize the uncomfortable,” explains Ross. “The world outside this bad moment is still there. So plan, think and stay in control.”
Such incidents are a world away from their usual routine of pub visits, gym workouts and bike rides. But they’re always plotting new adventures. Ross’s girlfriend, Rosie Tapner, a TV presenter for equestrian events, and Hugo’s girlfriend, Amy Poë, a teacher, both support their madcap ambitions. But the brothers do sometimes crave a more normal life. Their older sister, Toddy, an interior designer, and older brother, Crispin, a marketing expert, are reminders that not everyone wants to kite-ski across polar terrain. “He [Crispin] is by the book, whereas we do random stuff,” laughs Ross. “But after an 18-hour day ripping the boat apart, we do think, ‘Shouldn’t we just get a semi-enjoyable 9-to-5?’ ”
“There’s a fine line between badass and dumbass. We want to be on the right side of that.”
As identical twins (created when a single fertilized egg splits in two), Hugo and Ross Turner have identical DNA but different attributes—like glucose levels and gut microbiomes—due to nature, nurture, diet and exercise. Experts at King’s College London’s Department of Twin Research conduct experiments to see how their identical bodies react to different stimuli.
In a 10-week experiment in 2021, Hugo performed weight training (such as bench presses) while Ross did bodyweight drills (such as push-ups). Hugo packed on 6 percent more muscle, compared to Ross’s 2 percent gain, but the latter still enjoyed major strength
improvements. “My deadlift went from 90 to 120 kg without lifting a single weight,” says Ross. His VO2 max (a measure of cardio fitness) also improved by 8 percent compared to Hugo’s 2 percent growth, possibly because bodyweight workouts can be knocked out at a higher, lungboosting tempo.
On a 2014 expedition to Greenland’s polar ice cap, Ross wore the type of clothing used by Sir Ernest Shackleton on his 1914-17 TransAntarctic expedition, such as wool sweaters, a gabardine (woven cotton) jacket, tweed pants and leather boots, while Hugo was in synthetic modern fabrics. “The modern kit was lighter and had a wider temperature range, but the natural materials offered warmth, mobility and breathability, which proves manufacturers should still be using them,” says Hugo.
A 12-week experiment in 2020 saw Ross gain 9.9 pounds of muscle and 6.2 pounds of fat on a meat-eating diet, while Hugo went vegan and gained 2.6 pounds of muscle but lost 4 pounds of fat. Hugo had more energy and lower cholesterol, but his libido and gut microbiome—the beneficial bacteria in the stomach—dipped. “A higher number of microbiomes makes you less susceptible to disease, so vegan isn’t necessarily better,” says Ross. “Eat the rainbow and aim for a healthy balance.”
That was the question gnawing at the twins’ minds when they found that 218,000-ton shipping vessel careering toward them in the Atlantic. “It was terrifying,” admits Ross, back on dry land again seven weeks later, looking as bearded and sun-scorched as a castaway. It’s mid-August and the pair are at home in London, reflecting on an eventful expedition. “When you get [these vessels] closing in on you, you have to make quick decisions. And these boats don’t turn quickly. It beggars belief how big the propellers must have been.”
But the twins have learned how to master their fear. “The secret is to panic slowly,” says Hugo. “Once you’re panicking, you’re not in control. So we plan, think things through and adapt. The strongest tree is the most flexible.”
The pair share some of the trip’s epic highs: the dazzling vault of stars at night; the dolphins leaping around the boat; and the magical moment in the Bay of Biscay when they slid from green coastal waters into the vivid tropical blue of the ocean. They also reveal the quirky reality of life at sea—including eating out of dog bowls. “They’re really practical and you can put loads of food in there,” laughs Hugo. The toilet bucket kept them entertained, too. “We were all still getting to know each other, so imagine speed dating and then somebody just goes for a crap in front of you,” laughs Ross. “It’s a bit odd.”
But there were also darker moments: the 30-knot winds that smashed their sail; the broken ballast that destabilized their boat; and the day a low wind combined with a thick fog off the coast of Spain to leave them marooned. “We couldn’t see more than 50 meters,” explains Hugo. “And the boat was dangerously adrift.” Eventually a French boat towed them into port. “When the boat came close, we yelled and managed to literally bump into them.”
However, as the weeks went by, this lack of wind proved fatal for the expedition. After sailing 750 miles, they were forced to sail 750 miles home. “We didn’t get to the Blue Pole,” says Ross, “but we did the plastic survey—depressingly, we saw lots of fishing debris. We dropped a drifter buoy [to monitor water temperature, salinity and biogeochemical changes] and we sailed 1,500 miles 100 percent emission-free. By traveling so far without fossil fuels, we’ve pushed the boundaries of sustainable travel. And this project was always bigger than the POI.”
Hugo is equally proud of this groundbreaking achievement. “People don’t realize that all boats use an engine to get out of port or escape low winds. With a diesel engine, you get 200 to 300 miles. But our engine had a 10-to-15-mile range. We didn’t go to prove that sailing works—we’ve been sailing for thousands of years—but rather to show what
tomorrow’s technology will be. With green travel, we’re in the ‘MiniDisc moment.’ When we went from CDs to MiniDisc, they were expensive and not great. Then MP3 and MP4 changed everything. I think hydrogen power will come extremely quickly.”
The Turners hope to try again in years to come. But next they’re plotting a 375-mile hike-and-bike to the Madagascan POI in 2023, which will monitor deforestation and habitat destruction. Their focus on environmental issues helps them to endure all the stress and setbacks. On the brothers’ 2017 ride through jungles and mountains to the South American POI, they monitored deforestation and pollution. And their 2019 Iberian POI mission, which saw them ride electric motorbikes across Europe, revealed the long-distance potential for eco-friendly transport.
“We’ve now seen environmental problems firsthand and it’s terrifying,” says Hugo. “At the South American POI, we expected scenes from The Jungle Book, but it was just field after field without a single tree. And there were plastic bags, bottles and nappies everywhere, even in the Atacama Desert. This environmental research gives us extra motivation.”
The brothers have always combined their adventures with scientific discovery; as “guinea pigs” for King’s College London’s Department of Twin Research (see opposite page), the genetically identical pair have their responses to different stimuli— clothing, exercise, diets—tested by scientists. But they were keen to expand their focus to the wider world.
“We wanted expeditions with longevity and purpose,” says Hugo. The duo hope their POI adventures will inspire others to think differently. “We’re saying, ‘Let’s discover something new, make a change or explore how to fit green tech into our lives,’ ” says Ross. “Someone might just think, ‘If the boys can ride electric motorbikes across Europe, I can take my city bike into the country this weekend.’ ”
But despite their noble goals, the Turners remain wide-eyed tourists at heart. “On all our POIs, we’ve taken soil or water from the coast and the center point in 50-milliliter jars,” says Ross. They have wonderful memories, from freewheeling down the mountains of South America to rowing through the ethereal, phosphorescent-tinged waves of the Atlantic. “There’s always one moment when we think, ‘After all the crap, this made the trip worthwhile,’ ” reflects Hugo. “I remember flying near Ayers Rock in Australia with the sun setting, and I was crying in midair, thinking, ‘This is that moment.’ ”
These are memories the twins wouldn’t possess if they weren’t prepared to break the explorer mold and pursue their dreams. “Our lives can be stressful,” says Ross. “But we’re steering our own ship, and there’s something really rewarding about that.”
“Experience and knowledge tell us what to do. But if it’s not life threatening, we can giggle.”
When German motorhead Irene Kotnik founded the biker community Petrolettes, she just wanted a space to be with her friends. Now the Petrolettes Festival is Europe’s biggest women’s motorcycle event, uniting bikers from around the world for three days of liberating, full-throttle sisterhood.
Words LOIS PRYCE
n a makeshift stage overlooking Germany’s oldest street-racing circuit, Irene Kotnik whips up the crowd, declaring her mission in trademark rousing style: “Unity! Empowerment! Sisterhood!” Petite, blonde and most often seen tearing around on her custom Triumph chopper in ftted black denim overalls, Kotnik is the founder of Petrolettes, a global motorcycle community for women. And today she’s front and center at the Petrolettes Festival, Europe’s largest women-only motorcycle event.
Although Kotnik is frequently forced to justify this strictly women-only rule to disgruntled—or simply curious—men, she rejects the “militant feminist” tag. “It’s not a political stance,” she insists. “The idea was just to create a space for me and my friends. I didn’t think about
the implications. I just wanted to meet women with the same passion, so I set up this playground—by the community, for the community.”
She has clearly identifed a gap in the market. What started in 2016 as a gathering of 250 riders for an illicit street race on the outskirts of Berlin is now an annual festival held in different locations across Germany, attracting hundreds of women motorcyclists from every continent and drawing big-name sponsors. Kotnik had frst dabbled in motorcycling eight years earlier, when she passed her test for the purpose of accompanying her father on his lifelong dream of riding America’s famous Route 66. “But the other bikers we met were all old men with beer bellies on huge cruisers,” she says. “It didn’t appeal to me as a scene at all.”
It was in 2013 that, by chance, Kotnik found herself at Wheels and Waves—an ultrachic festival in Biarritz, close to the Spanish border in southwest France, where vintage motos meet surf and skate culture. She was hooked. “I knew I had to go back to Berlin, buy a small, naked bike and customize it myself.”
But she had no riding buddies back home, or certainly no female ones, and the mainstream motorcycling events, with their macho atmosphere and Lycra-clad
models—“like we’re still in the 1970s!”— left her cold. So she took to social media and started seeking out women on two wheels. Petrolettes was born.
This being 21st-century moto culture, Petrolettes is an app, too, connecting more than 12,000 riders in 43 countries who use the platform to share tips and fnd riding buddies. Kotnik came up with the idea during the pandemic. “The festival wasn’t viable during lockdown,” she explains, “but people were still keen to get together for a socially distanced ride-out. But there was so much admin and so many emails, just organizing everything and everyone, that I realized an app could do it all for me!”
The idea had been bubbling away for a while, inspired by a solo ride she made down the West Coast of the U.S. in 2015. “I used Facebook to fnd female riders to stay with along the way, and I thought to myself, ‘Hmmm, would I show up and sleep on a random guy’s couch?’ There should be one central platform for women riders to connect and help each other.”
The couch-surfng aspect of the app is its most-used feature, and there’s an interactive map with a dot for every Petrolette across the world. Each member lists their offerings on their profle: bed, bike, workshop. It’s the essence of Kotnik’s community ethos in practice. And it works. In the run-up to this year’s festival, a British Petrolette is making plans to stop over at a German member’s place on the way home, while an American rider has arranged to stay with a Parisian member as she continues her European tour after the event.
Friday afternoon sees riders rolling in, accompanied by a number of photographers from L.A. and New York, and the star of the show, Iranian pro track racer Behnaz Shafei. This group has been assembled in Berlin for the 190-mile ride to the festival by Cathe Pfaging, co-founder of all-female motorcycle club the Curves and the city’s DIY community bike garage, Craftwerk. Arriving on her Harley from the opposite direction is Alischa Jewko from southern Germany, who used the app to fnd fellow Petrolettes in her area after splitting up with her boyfriend. “We used to ride together in a local bike club,” she says, “but when we broke up it was clear that he would be staying in the club, not me. Some of the club members don’t even ride, so it’s obviously more about being a guy than the motorcycling.”
Every generation is represented, and every style of moto culture on display.
At the Petrolettes Festival, it’s all about the motorcycling—but crucially it’s not only about the motorcycling. It goes deeper than that. Sure, there are highoctane thrills to be found in the sprint trials, and your traditional biker fare in the shape of a pop-up tattoo parlor, and riff-heavy guitar bands (all-female, of course). But there is also a yoga tent and a masseuse offering sessions to aching and grateful riders, many of whom have ridden hundreds of miles, from as far afeld as Portugal, Italy, Poland, the U.K. and the Netherlands.
As Friday night rolls around, the bikes continue to roar in, some arriving solo, some in pairs, others in packs. The parking area flls with an array of machines, from vintage ’70s trail bikes
and custom scramblers to colossal, shiny new BMW tourers, stripped-down café racers and badass Harleys. Unfazed by the unseasonably low temperatures and rain, riders pitch their tents and unpack their panniers. As the women congregate around the stage for Kotnik’s opening speech, it’s evident that there’s no cookiecutter Petrolette “type.” Every generation is represented and every style of moto culture on display, from chic Parisian retro glamour to full facial tattoos and rat-bike grunge. The message is clear: All women are welcome, or, as Kotnik is keen to point out, “all womxn,” which includes female-identifying, nonbinary, intersex and trans.
It’s this spirit of inclusivity that drew Canada-born, Berlin-based musician and
entrepreneur Yvonne Ducksworth to the group when she attended the frst Petrolettes Festival in 2016. “I’ve been riding motorcycles all my life,” she explains, “but as a woman of color in Germany, I’m super wary about attending biker events. I’m always wondering if there are [German right-wing political party] AfD guys around, and I’m aware
of how people are looking at me. But when I came to the frst Petrolettes Festival, honestly, I almost burst into tears! Normally I’m a really chatty, outgoing person, but I just stood there quietly, overwhelmed, taking it all in. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘At last, I’ve found my crew.’ ”
Ducksworth has been a part of the Petrolettes’ inner cabal ever since. On Saturday afternoon, she’s busy (wo)manhandling a 2,000-watt speaker down to the start line of the racetrack for the sprint trials, blasting out AC/DC all the way. This year’s festival takes place at the Schleizer Dreieck track, a legendary street circuit of the former GDR, which came into being almost by accident when, in 1922, a German racing
In Iran, Shafiei had to disguise herself as a man and ride at night.
Good to go: Rider Yoko Rae prepares to race at the Petrolettes Festival.
driver and engineer noticed that three roads close to the sleepy town of Schleiz made a perfect test circuit. It soon became one of world’s fnest “natural” courses, but after World War II and the division of Germany into East and West it was limited to hosting competitions between other communist countries. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, its races opened up to the rest of the world again. But in the health-and-safetyconscious 2000s, the track was deemed too dangerous. So in 2003 the course was redesigned to allow safer, if less thrilling, races to take place. Now the German TT and other high-profle competitions are back, ripping it up through the town every summer.
It’s ftting, then, that the sprint trials are the main highlight of this year’s Petrolettes Festival. And while the new track may be smooth and shiny, its infrastructure and buildings have avoided a clinical 21st-century makeover, retaining a dilapidated Soviet vibe—all peeling paint, chain-link fences and weather-beaten bleachers.
Beneath a glowering, slate-gray sky, with Bon Scott’s rasping vocals belting out over the roar of a hundred twitchy throttles, there’s a lo-f, analog excitement in the air. Kotnik takes the mic for a fnal fevered rallying cry, the fag is raised— and they’re off. The riders race in pairs against each other, accelerating into the 100-meter sprint like gas-powered greyhounds released from the traps. It’s a good-natured free-for-all, with all makes and models of bikes competing together, and Kotnik announces the winners with the obligatory champagne podium shower.
For those not testing their limits on the track, daytime options include guided ride-outs in the local area, as well as practical workshops on other aspects of motorcycling, including mechanics, balance, adventure photography and offroad skills. These sessions have a favor you’re unlikely to fnd at a typical biker rally. Most notably, they include open and honest discussions about fear, which, Kotnik points out, are unlikely to be heard among a gathering of male riders. Here, however, it’s an integral aspect of motorcycling to be accepted and overcome. In the feld beside the racetrack, Dakar Rally veteran Tina Meier is coaching an off-road skills course and tackling the problem headon. She uses concepts from her other
job—as a yoga teacher—to instill the mind-body confdence required to conquer the dirt.
“Downhill is downward dog, uphill is cobra,” Meier says, demonstrating the different riding positions. Then she gets the group to take part in an ingenious challenge: riding across the rough ground while taking their left hand off the handlebars to catch hold of a ball on a string. This action, she says, takes the focus away from looking at the terrain ahead and sends a subliminal message to the brain that your body can essentially perform both movements at once. “Riding off-road is like entering a fow state,” Meier explains. “You can’t learn it by following wordy instructions.”
This association between motorcycling and a Zen state is a theme that crops up in conversations throughout the weekend.
Sohar, a rider from Rome who’s also a yoga teacher, has been motorcycling for just a year but has already covered 6,000 miles on her Honda NC750S.
“For me, riding is like yoga, because it confronts me with my fears and insecurities but also my need for independence and adventure, and my love of velocity. And, like yoga, the internal processes are individual, but connecting with the Petrolettes means sharing and learning that we all face similar problems. That can be pretty empowering.”
Another hot topic of conversation around the cluster of merchandise stands is the pitiful offering of mainstream women’s motorcycle gear. It’s the usual complaints: Nothing fts hips and tits, and anything specifcally designed for women is pink. Céline Froissart, a rider from Paris, took the matter into her own hands after a particularly galling experience in a French motorcycle store. “I was looking for riding jeans,” she says, “but they were all low-waisted. So I asked the guy in the shop if they had any high-waisted styles, and his response was that women needed low-waisted jeans because they ride pillion and have to show off their thong.”
AC/DC belts out over the roar of a hundred twitchy throttles.
This conversation provided the impetus for the creation of 2MileSix, Froissart’s clothing line for women riders. “I had no experience of making clothes,” she laughs. “I could just about make a straight line with a sewing machine.”
Nevertheless, she quit her job in aerospace communications and set about designing a range of high-spec jeans, jackets and T-shirts that are as stylish as one would expect from a two-wheeled Parisienne. “They’re manufactured in France, and—” she adds, pointing to an elegant, tailored jacket in burgundy leather, “they are made for boobs.”
Helping out in the 2MileSix stall is Froissart’s equally glamorous friend Marie, from Rennes, who recalls her own brushes with French motorcycling men:
“They say things like, ‘Why are you riding on a Sunday? Shouldn’t you be doing the laundry?’ That kind of thing.” She shakes her head, incredulous. “But things are changing. Many more French women are riding motorcycles now. Men are usually supportive once they realize you’re serious.”
And they are serious. In France, women make up 50 percent of new riders, and 2022 marked the country’s frst-ever female-only motorbike event, Femmes et Moto. Froissart says these new recruits come from two distinct age groups: the 18-to-20-year-old thrillseekers, and an older faction—women in their 40s and 50s who, as she puts it, “have done everything society expects them to and now want to do something
for themselves.” Marie agrees, crediting the #MeToo movement for a shift in French society: “These women won’t accept the old crap anymore.”
It’s not only France that’s seeing this trend. In the U.K., online automotive sales company AutoTrader reported that 48 percent of female users looking for bikes on its website last year were brandnew riders, most of them in their 20s and 30s. And it’s been the same story in the U.S. for some time—the Motorcycle Industry Council, a trade organization for American bike manufacturers and distributors, reported a rise of 52 percent in female riders between 2003 and 2008. There was even a survey conducted by Harley-Davidson that discovered— surprise, surprise—that American
women who ride motorcycles are happier than those who don’t.
This rings true at the Petrolettes Festival; the atmosphere is unfailingly good-natured, and generations of riders mingle to share tips and technical knowhow to a satisfyingly nerdy level. Ineke and Margriet, two friends who have traveled from the Netherlands, share a
love of bike building. Ineke is primarily a dirt rider and has lived and breathed motorcycles ever since she got hold of a moped chopper at the age of 16. Now, at 62, she’s a respected bike builder, the founder of the Dutch all-female off-road group EnduroCats and a lineswoman for the Netherlands section of the Trans Euro Trail, a 31,000-mile off-road route across 34 countries. In other words, she’s Euro-motorcycling royalty. Under Ineke’s tutelage, Margriet, 32, has recently completed her frst build, converting a Yamaha XJ900 from what she describes as “an old gentleman’s bike” into a pared-down scrambler, and has been bitten by the bug. They work at Ineke’s garage, or “woman-cave,” as she describes it with a grin. “There’s no sofa
All women are welcome, or, as Kotnik points out, “all womxn.”
or TV or beer fridge,” Ineke says. “I go in and get to work.”
On Saturday night, Kotnik takes the stage to interview three guests about a project close to her heart—Ride with Purpose, organized by the Petrolettes Circle, the group’s nonproft association, which supports and promotes women in motorsports. For the Petrolettes founder, using motorcycling to improve the lives of women globally is a key part of the mission. As Kotnik tells the audience with her usual vigor, riding a motorbike is the epitome of liberation and should be available to women the world over. Her guests are Alison Grün, a spirited Frenchwoman who runs FreeW, a motorcycle tour company that trains and employs local women guides in countries including Nepal and Iran; Judith PieperKöhler, who works with Two Wheels for Life, a charity providing motorbikes to deliver healthcare to rural communities in Africa; and Behnaz Shafei, the Iranian racer who’s training hundreds of women
and girls in Iran, despite it being illegal for women to ride motorcycles in public. Appreciative of a lull in the action, the audience gathers to hear Shafei relate the frst time she saw a woman riding a motorcycle, during a visit to an Iranian village when she was 15. “I knew immediately this was my future,” she says, via a translator. But, growing up in post-revolutionary Iran, this was no easy quest. Shafei was forced to disguise herself as a man and only ride at night, often fending off the heavy hand of the Gašt-e Eršād—Iran’s “morality police,” who monitor women’s public behavior
and appearance. Her passion has taken her around the world, training at racetracks in the U.S., touring Europe and appearing on TV across the globe, spreading her message to her hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. But her achievements have come at a personal cost. Although her mother has always supported her motorcycling ambitions, Shafei recounts how she was ostracized by the rest of her family.
As night falls, the rain subsides and there’s an eruption of energy as Swiss power-pop duo Ikan Hyu take to the stage, followed by the seductive sounds of Austrian/British post-punk four-piece Friedberg. The dance foor is a mud bath, but the Petrolettes aren’t bothered by a bit of dirt, and when the music is over, the crowd remains, transfxed by the fnal spectacle of the night, freak-show performers Princess Tweedle Needle and her tattooed, pierced, contorting cohorts, Evilyn Frantic and Zora Van der Blast.
Many Petrolettes are still reliving the performance the next morning as they gather for a breakfast of vegan schnitzel and muesli amid the mud and post-party detritus. Talk turns to Shafei’s story and a heightened appreciation for being able to ride and dress freely. But Shafei is not alone in struggling for acceptance of her two-wheeled desires; other women of varying ages and nationalities share their own stories of hiding their motorcycling activities from their families. Pfaging, co-founder of Berlin trailblazers the Curves, nods knowingly: “We have several members who only told their parents they’d learned to ride once they got their license—to avoid arguments.”
As soggy tents are packed away, oil levels are topped up and engines are revved for the long ride home, Kotnik is already looking to the future. “The ‘Electrolettes,’ ” she says with a grin. “Seriously, times are changing—I’ve already registered the name.”
Judging by the immense effort and goodwill of all involved, Kotnik’s vision of a female-built, grassroots organization is thriving, but it’s also clear that her call for unity, empowerment and sisterhood remains as necessary as ever. The empty racetrack glistens in the last of the rain as the Petrolettes don their helmets and roar away, spreading Kotnik’s mission across Europe and beyond—into the real world, where a woman riding a motorcycle remains a subversive act. petrolettes.com
Improving women’s lives is a key part of the mission.
Earn your turns without sleeping in the snow. Dial up your next backcountry skiing adventure by cozying up inside one of these four idyllic cabins.
Words HEATHER BALOGH ROCHFORT
Perched just below 12,000 feet, on the sunshine-filled slopes of Lookout Peak, Colorado’s OPUS (Ophir Pass Ultimate Ski) Hut shows backcountry skiers the true meaning of Rocky Mountain high. OPUS takes its cue from popular European hut systems; nothing rustic here. Decked out with five rooms that sleep a total of 20 people, the lodge offers a cozy, fullservice experience.
In addition to a bed with a comforter and pillow (bring your own bag liner), you’ll get a locally sourced breakfast, afternoon soup and dinner cooked and served to you on the main floor by the hut’s caretaker. A modest bar with beer, wine and liquor is available, too (for an added fee). Visitors don’t have to go outside to use the restroom; two indoor composting toilets sit on the main floor, complete with running water from the roof to wash your hands. There’s even hot and
cold filtered water ready to go, so you don’t need to fret about packing in water weight. Added bonus: Aside from the two wood-burning stoves for heat, OPUS is fully powered by the sun. Thanks to the hut’s southern aspect on Lookout Peak, solar panels provide enough energy to run electricity and power in-floor solar thermal heating.
With all these amenities, it’s easy to forget that it’s a backcountry ski hut. Luckily, the jaw-dropping terrain right out the front door is tough to
miss. Beginners love the low-angle snow just below OPUS, while intermediate skiers charge across the open slopes above. For intrepid mountaineers, here’s a tip: Head north to Red Mountain Pass. You won’t regret it. Make It Happen To reach the hut, skiers need to navigate the 3.5-mile skin up 1,800 vertical feet from the parking area at U.S. Highway 550. Rates start at $72 per person per night, meals included. For more information, go to opushut.com.
Constructed in 1932, Zealand Falls Hut is rugged New England at its finest. While the northeast has fewer ski huts than out west, those that do exist on the East Coast embody some of that gritty, old-school ski culture that glitz and glam can’t quite match. Run by the legendary
Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), the Zealand Falls Hut boasts 36 beds split between two coed bunkrooms. No, you won’t get much privacy, but you are likely to make some new skier friends. The hut sits at 2,700 feet in the heart of the White Mountains, but the 6.3-mile skin is relatively mellow with moderate elevation gain. And, unlike OPUS, Zealand Falls is a selfservice-only facility during the winter; this means you’ll need to bring in your own sleeping bag and food to cook with the hut’s stove and cookware. The caretaker is onsite and available evenings and mornings and will light a fire in the main room, but otherwise, expect to be selfsufficient; bunkhouses are not heated and there is no
electricity or running water, so plan ahead and don’t forget a headlamp.
So, what is there? If you’re lucky enough to score a bed during a good snow year, you’ll find tight-and-technical trees near the hut. Otherwise, prepare for a big day of traversing and head past the frozen waterfalls in Zealand Notch toward Whitewall Mountain. There you’ll find plenty of fun for the day. Pro tip: We recommend visiting Zealand Falls in February or March for a better chance at plentiful powder.
Make It Happen From midOctober through May, Zealand Falls switches over to selfservice and can be booked online through outdoors.org/ reservations. Rates start at $30 per person per night.
When you think backcountry skiing in Idaho, there’s a great chance you’ll default to the Sawtooths and their dramatic, gnarly couloirs. But just to the east sits a quieter, lesserknown neighbor: the Pioneer Range. There you’ll find a
skier’s paradise filled with open slopes, low-angle snow, pristine couloirs and crisp lines that look straight out of Alaska. Tucked away on the edge of a summertime alpine meadow in Hyndman Basin sits the Pioneer Yurt, a 24-foot diameter hut run by the Hailey-based guiding company Sun Valley Trekking.
Set up with four sets of double bunk beds, the yurt sleeps between 8 and 16 people. It’s nicely equipped with a full kitchen, wood and propane stoves, solar-powered lanterns and speakers for music and even a small library for quiet moments of respite. Yes, you’ll need to pack in your own food, but it’s darn
comfortable once you’re there. And it gets better: Just steps from the front door sits a wood-fire sauna, big enough to fit at least two or three worn-and-weary skiers after a long day on planks.
As for the skiing? Yes, it’s awesome. The yurt itself isn’t the easiest one on the list to reach—with a 6-mile journey
Discover a backcountry skier’s paradise at the Pioneer Yurt, tucked away in a lesserknown mountain range in Idaho.
that covers upwards of 2,000 feet of elevation gain. But that means you’re promised ski lines for days right out of the front door. Just above the yurt sits low-angle powder bowls on Peanut, Elk Lips and Moose Lips Mountains. For advanced skiers, Hyndman Peak is littered with big, steep lines—and avalanche danger. Be safe.
Make It Happen Reservations can be made through svtrek. com. Rates start at $450/ night for the entire yurt for eight people. An additional $55 per person will be charged for each additional guest. If it’s your first visit, a $380 Hut Rent Orientation is required. Ski guides, porters or snowmobile/cargo tows are also available for an additional fee.
There’s big and there’s Alaska big. Experienced backcountry skiers will relish the technical demands and bomber steeps surrounding the bare-bones Snowbird Hut. As part of the American Alpine Club’s Alaska section, Snowbird sits on the northern edge of its namesake, the Snowbird Glacier. But unlike other huts, this shelter takes a communal approach; it accepts no reservations, has no cost and operates on a first-come, firstserved basis. (The place is maintained through private donations and volunteer labor.) Consequently, skiers can expect to run into other groups at the 324-square-foot hut. Consider it a ski party
with up to 11 of your closest friends. (Snowbird sleeps 12 divided among two double beds, two single beds and an overflow loft that sleeps 6.)
The hut provides a two-burner stove and some pans, but you’ll need to bring everything else.
Pro tip: Don’t forget the kerosene if you want heat.
As far as accessibility, it’s only about 5 miles from the Reed Lakes Trailhead to Snowbird, but don’t let that fool you. With roughly 3,000 feet of vertical gain and moderately difficult routefinding along the trail, you should expect the skinning journey to take anywhere from five to eight hours. And we hope this goes without saying, but avalanche safety knowledge is a requirement. Make It Happen For more information on the hut’s history and what you’ll need on your visit, head to americanalpineclub.org/ snowbird-hut.
Pioneer Yurt, which can sleep up to 16 people, comes with a full kitchen (food not included) and a wood-fire sauna just steps from the front door.Experienced backcountry skiers will relish the bomber steeps surrounding the Snowbird Hut in Alaska.
World champion Natalia Grossman reveals how she trains to conquer climbing’s toughest walls.
Words JEN SEE
Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, Natalia Grossman used to walk with her family past a tall building and wonder what was inside. One day, she found out it was a climbing gym. “Right away, I was like, ‘I want to do that!’ ” she recalls. When she turned 6, Grossman joined the gym. “Seeing the quick progress kept me engaged,” she says. “Every time I could send a climb that was a little harder, that just drew me in.”
Now 21, Grossman is one of the world’s best competitive climbers. In 2021, she won a world championship in bouldering and a silver medal in
lead. In each round of competition, Grossman must solve a route she’s never seen as the clock ticks down.
“I’m proud that I’m not scared of the unknown,” she says. “I have these goals and I’m not scared to work for them.” In 2022, she won the World Cup overall in bouldering after winning five of six events.
Grossman says that she always finds something new in climbing that will challenge her creativity and her physical strength. “I love putting everything into a session,” she says. “It’s satisfying to put in all the work and have it pay off.”
“There aren’t that many sports where you’re learning a new move every time,” says Grossman.
“My training varies with the season. During competition season, from April until September, I travel. When I’m home I train five times a week. For power training, I normally spray wall, which is climbing hard boulders on steep terrain. I also work on skills using competitionstyle boulders. For powerendurance training, I do circuits of 30 to 40 hard moves, where movement with my left or right hand counts as a move. For pure endurance, I’ll do 50 easier moves or go rope climbing on the wall for a longer period of time.”
“For climbing, physical strength is a necessity, especially finger and upper-body strength. So once or twice a week, I’ll do hangboarding, where I hang by my fingers off a wooden board. I can add weight in, too. And I’m always working on my leg strength and power; for that I do squats, hamstring curls, deadlifts and pistol [single-leg] squats. For upper-body strength, I do lots of rows and curls. But when the competition season starts, I focus more on maintaining leg strength, because my upper body is just naturally stronger.”
“I think being flexible is helpful for getting my feet high and keeping my hips close to the wall. I used to do gymnastics, which I think made me very flexible. Now I maintain it by doing 10 or 15 minutes of stretching every morning. I start with frog position and splits. Then I do upper-body stretches to open up my shoulders and chest. When I get to the gym, I’ll do band work to finish my upper-body warmup—movements like bringing the band across my chest or a curling motion. And then I do a bit with my fingers, too.”
“In bouldering competitions, when I turn around, I have four to five minutes to figure out a climb that I’ve never seen before. Before I start, I like to lower my heart rate and get into a calm state. I have to come up with a game plan quickly and I try to stick to it. When I’m waiting behind the wall, I put on loud music so I can’t hear the crowd. Then I’ll just close my eyes and take some deep breaths. When I’m in a final where I’ve seen the climbs before, I’ll close my eyes and visualize myself climbing the boulder.”
“During competition season, I rarely climb outside, but last year during the off-season, I tried to go every weekend. When I climb outside, I’m going just to enjoy the day, hang out with friends and climb hard. It’s easier to get out of my head and have fun. Sometimes with a competition, it’s easy to feel like I had a bad day if I placed poorly. When I’m climbing outside, even if I didn’t send my project, it’s still a good day.”
“During preseason, I lift twice a week”
“When I’m home, I train fve times a week”
“I’m serious about warming up”
“I approach climbs with an open mind”
You’re looking at no ordinary bouldering wall. This is the 720-foot-high Verzasca Dam in Switzerland, the location of James Bond’s breathtaking bungee jump in GoldenEye. Now it’s famous for something else: this first-of-a-kind, head-to-head climbing competition. In October, 16 of the world’s best climbers, including American standout Sasha DiGiulian, Swiss legend Petra Klingler and Spanish Olympic gold medalist Alberto Ginés López, split up into roped pairs and then spent three days speedclimbing and redpointing (meaning they’d never climbed the routes before). We won’t reveal the winners; instead, catch all the drama in the documentary on Red Bull TV. redbull.com
After two years of virtual screenings, the top fest for independent film is back IRL and has a new director: Eugene Hernandez, the cofounder of IndieWire and most recently the executive director of the New York Film Festival. Best Picture winner Coda premiered at Sundance in 2021, so all eyes will be on this year's fest for next year's Oscar contenders.
Thru January 29; sundance.org
As part of Red Bull’s Scramble Series—where racers compete in different environments—this iteration takes place on the frozen ice of East Okoboji Lake in Iowa. The unique short course features frozen corners, bumps and jumps, with amateurs and pros competing in two different classes. Off-road fans are invited to the Winter Games of Okoboji at Parks Marina to watch the action. redbull.com
If you want to see pure joy on a snowboard, then keep your eyes glued on pro rider Zeb Powell.
The 21-year-old North Carolina native, who won Knuckle Huck gold at the X Games in 2020, is known for his jawdropping moves and super-fun video segments. Whether you’re in Aspen or watching at home on ESPN or ABC, Powell is one you shouldn’t miss.
Thru January 29; xgames.com
Timeless style meets innovative tech with this elegantly designed turntable. Only 500 pieces will be available to consumers. It utilizes both a low-noise AC motor and a DC-driven generator to ensure the ultimate in speed stability. High-end touches include a tonearm constructed from a blend of carbon and aluminum and the use of ultra-low-friction Japanese bearings. The classic wooden chassis is available in a black or white finish. Around $1,100; project-audio.com
There’s nothing wrong with practical holiday gifts, but there’s something very right about these objects of desire.
Audiophile reviewers have tripped over themselves to applaud these speakers as one of the best full-sized headphones of all time. At the core of these sonic standouts is a diaphragm that is literally nanometers thick, which allows a near-perfect reproduction of live music. The metal structure is meticulously crafted and polished by hand. They’re hardly slight—weighing in at almost 15 pounds—but they fittingly deliver a heavyweight sound, with remarkable accuracy, natural timbre and unquestionably perfect treble and bass. hifiman.com
This gleaming machine extends the capabilities of a pro-level espresso maker to total rookies, meaning anyone can pull an optimal shot. In roughly 20 seconds, the machine can with exacting precision grind the right amount of beans, heat up water to the desired temperature and extract perfect espresso. The user-friendly interface belies how much coffee fanatics can fine-tune their favorite drinks. $750; breville.com
Whether you’re an espresso fanatic or a total rookie, you can pull a perfect shot with the Barista Express.
A Japanese icon, Suntory has been making supremely high-quality whiskies for more than a century. All of the brand’s Hibiki offerings showcase a harmonious blend of malt and grain whiskies that slowly reveal a complex equilibrium as you savor them. The entry-level Hibiki Japanese Harmony ($99) is a seductively approachable place to start, but this blend—aged for 17 years in oak casks—has a complex aroma (peach, apricot, rose, lemon leaf), a rich palate (toffee, black cherry, vanilla, Japanese oak) and a decadently long finish (sweet and fruity, with a lychee aftertaste). Because higher-end Japanese whiskies are presently in fashion, finding and buying the best can be a bit painful—but heck, you’re worth it. Around $1,000; whisky.suntory.com
Often when choosing a bike helmet, riders have to rank their priorities— safety features, style, aerodynamics, ventilation. This cutting-edge lid isn’t cheap, but it arguably checks all the boxes. The MIPS safety system provides additional protection against the kind of rotational energy that can cause concussions. Available in 10 colors, the helmet has an innovative airflow system, with large vents that simultaneously improve aerodynamic performance and cooling properties. $300; pocsports.com
This German brand is known for its stylish and functional aluminum suitcases (the first one was released in 1937), and now one of the company’s most iconic designs is available with extra flair. The handles, locks and seals on the Twist are finished with eye-catching leather (available with carefully color-matched brown, red or black stains). Sized to fit in overhead bins, the bag has thoughtful touches like TSA-approved locks, an adjustable flex divider and Rimowa’s trademarked multiwheel system. The bag is more durable than its 10-pound weight might suggest; in fact, Rimowa offers a five-year warranty and even repair services at some luxury hotels. $1,625; rimowa.com
is a spicy update to an iconic suitcase.
There are tons of compact and surprisingly good wireless speakers that can crank your favorite tunes, but very few that can do so with legitimate audiophile high fidelity. These tastefully designed bookshelf speakers (about 9 inches high, available in five colors) can do that—meaning they’ll fill a room with a virtuosic presence that belies their dimensions. Whether you want to run your favorite streaming music wirelessly (using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) or connect a gaming console or a wide range of A/V gear, the LSX II is ready for action with shocking simplicity. Control these miniature miracles with the included remote control or use the KEF app. $1,400; us.kef.com
Andreas Kornhofer
Editor-in-Chief
Andreas Rottenschlager
Creative Directors
Erik Turek (manager), Kasimir Reimann
Copy Chiefs
David Pesendorfer, Andreas Wollinger
Art Directors
Marion Bernert Thomann, Miles English, Tara Thompson
Designers
Martina de Carvalho Hutter, Kevin Faustmann-Goll, Cornelia Gleichweit
Photo Editors
Eva Kerschbaum (manager), Marion Batty (deputy), Susie Forman, Tahira Mirza, Rudi Übelhör
Christian Eberle-Abasolo (manager), Lou Boyd, Marie-Maxime Dricot, Melissa Gordon, Lisa Hechenberger, Elena Rodriguez Angelina, Benjamin Wolf
Editor-in-Chief Global Content Tom Guise
Head of Audio Florian Obkircher
Managing Editors
Ulrich Corazza, Marion Lukas Wildmann
Publishing Management
Sara Car-Varming (manager), Ivona Glibusic, Bernhard Schmied, Melissa Stutz, Julian Vater
Head of Media Sales & Partnerships
Lukas Scharmbacher
The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This month’s U.K. edition features 18-year-old Scottish freeski prodigy Kirsty Muir, who placed fifth at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to redbulletin.com.
Disclaimer
If you subscribed to The Red Bulletin magazine in the USA either by mail, online or other method, we may send you offers through direct mail that we feel might be of interest to you and/or share your name and mailing address and certain other information, such as when you first subscribed, with reputable companies that provide marketing offers through direct mail. If you do not want us to send you any offers from third parties through direct mail or share your personal information with other companies so that they can send you direct mail offers about their products and services, please write to us at the street address or subscription email address at right. Please note that even if you opt out of receiving promotional direct mail offers, we may continue to send you service notifications by direct mail that are related to your The Red Bulletin account(s).
Editorial Director Alexander Müller-Macheck Head of Co Publishing Susanne Degn Pfleger
Project Management Co-Publishing, B2B Marketing & Communication
Katrin Sigl (manager), Katrin Dollenz, Michaela Kroboth, Teresa Kronreif, Eva Pech, Valentina Pierer, Stefan Portenkirchner, Jennifer Silberschneider, Sophia Wahl
Creative Services Verena Schörkhuber-Zöhrer (manager), Sara Wonka, Tanja Zimmermann, Julia Bianca Zmek, Edith Zöchling-Marchart
Commercial Management Co-Publishing Alexandra Ita
Editorial Co Publishing Raffael Fritz (manager), Gundi Bittermann, Michael Hufnagl, Irene Olorode, Mariella Reithoffer, Wolfgang Wieser
Executive Creative Director Markus Kietreiber
Senior Manager Creative Elisabeth Kopanz
Art Direction Commercial & Co-Publishing
Peter Knehtl (manager), Luana Baumann-Fonseca, Silvia Druml-Shams, Erwin Edtmayer, Simone Fischer, Andreea Gschwandtner, Lisa Jeschko, Araksya Manukjan, Carina Schaittenberger, Julia Schinzel, Florian Solly, Sophie Weidinger, Stephan Zenz
Direct to Consumer Business Peter Schiffer (head), Marija Althajm, Victoria Schwärzler, Yoldaş Yarar
Retail & Special Projects Manager Klaus Pleninger
Advertising Manuela Brandstätter, Monika Spitaler
Production Veronika Felder (manager), Martin Brandhofer, Walter O. Sádaba, Sabine Wessig
Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailović, Sandra Maiko Krutz, Josef Mühlbacher
Finance Mariia Gerutska (manager), Elisabeth Maier
MIT Martin Bartmann, Christoph Kocsisek, Michael Thaler
IT Service Desk Maximilian Auerbach
Operations Alice Gafitanu, Melanie Grasserbauer, Alexander Peham, Thomas Platzer, Raphaela Pucher
Assistant to General Management Sandra Artacker Project Management Dominik Debriacher
CEOs Red Bull Media House Publishing
Andreas Kornhofer, Stefan Ebner
Editorial office Am Grünen Prater 3, A 1020 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221 0 Web redbulletin.com
Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700
Executive Directors Dkfm. Dietrich Mateschitz, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl, Marcus Weber
THE RED BULLETIN USA, Vol. 12 Issue 4, ISSN 2308-586X is published monthly except combined January/February, April/May, July/ August and October/November issues by Red Bull Media House, North America, 1740 Stewart St., Santa Monica, CA 90404.Periodicals postage paid at Santa Monica, CA, and additional mailing offices.
ATTENTION POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE RED BULLETIN, PO Box 469002, Escondido, CA 92046.
Editor-in-Chief Peter Flax Deputy Editor Nora O’Donnell Art Director Tara Thompson Copy Chief David Caplan
Publishing Management Branden Peters
Advertising Sales
Marissa Bobkowski, marissa.bobkowski@redbull.com Tanya Foster, tanya.foster@redbull.com Todd Peters, todd.peters@redbull.com Dave Szych, dave.szych@redbull.com
Printed by Quad/Graphics, Inc., 668 Gravel Pike, East Greenville, PA 18041, qg.com
Mailing Address PO Box 469002 Escondido, CA 92046 U.S. Office 1740 Stewart St. Santa Monica, CA 90404 Subscribe getredbulletin.com, subscription@us.redbulletin.com. Basic subscription rate is $29.95 per year. Offer available in the U.S. and U.S. possessions only. The Red Bulletin is published 8 times a year. Please allow four to six weeks for delivery of the first issue.
Customer Service 855-492-1650; subscription@us.redbulletin.com
THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722
Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Coordinator
Christine Vitel
Country Project Management Alexis Bulteau
THE RED BULLETIN Germany, ISSN 2079-4258
Editor Maximilian Reich
Proofreaders
Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer Walek, Belinda Mautner, Klaus Peham, Vera Pink
Country Project Management
Lisa Masten
Media Sales & Partnerships
Thomas Hutterer (manager), Michael Baidinger, Maggie Childs, Franz Fellner, Ines Gruber, Wolfgang Kröll, Gabriele Matijevic Beisteiner, Alfred Vrej Minassian, Nicole Okasek Lang, Britta Pucher, Jennifer Sabejew, Johannes Wahrmann Schär, Ellen Wittmann Sochor, Ute Wolker, Christian Wörndle, Sabine Zölß
THE RED BULLETIN
Switzerland, ISSN 2308-5886
Editor Stefania Telesca Proofreaders
Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer Walek, Belinda Mautner, Klaus Peham, Vera Pink Country Project Management
Meike Koch
Media Sales & Brand Partnerships
Christian Bürgi (team leader), christian.buergi@redbull.com Marcel Bannwart, marcel.bannwart@redbull.com
THE RED BULLETIN Austria, ISSN 1995-8838
Editor
Nina Kaltenböck
Proofreaders
Hans Fleißner (manager), Petra Hannert, Monika Hasleder, Billy Kirnbauer Walek, Belinda Mautner, Klaus Peham, Vera Pink Publishing Management
Bernhard Schmied
Media Sales & Partnerships
Thomas Hutterer (manager), Michael Baidinger, Maggie Childs, Franz Fellner, Ines Gruber, Moritz Philipp Haaf, Wolfgang Kröll, Gabriele Matijevic-Beisteiner, Alfred Vrej Minassian, Nicole Okasek-Lang, Britta Pucher, Jennifer Sabejew, Johannes Wahrmann-Schär, Ellen Wittmann-Sochor, Nicole Umsait, Ute Wolker, Christian Wörndle, Sabine Zölß
Jessica Pünchera, jessica.puenchera@redbull.com Michael Wipraechtiger, michael.wipraechtiger@redbull.com Goldbach Publishing Marco Nicoli, marco.nicoli@goldbach.com
THE RED BULLETIN
United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894
Editor Ruth McLeod
Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Publishing Management
Ollie Stretton Media Sales Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@redbull.com
Walking a narrow strip of nylon 2,300 feet above the ground? Pah, that’s the simple part. It took photographer Antoine Mesnage and highliner Hael Soma three days to reach and rig this 200-foot line above the Mer de Glace, an alpine glacier in the Mont Blanc massif. Then it was just a case of don’t look down, nail the shot and soak up the praise—including a semifinal place in Red Bull Illume. Like we said, easy.
Instagram: @antoine.mesnage; redbullillume.com
The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on February 21.
The alarm bell rings. It would be so easy to bail. You could hit snooze, crawl back into the warmth of your bed and slip into another dream. But that fantasy ends as the aspiration of the morning’s reality slowly builds. Your feet touch the cold floor, and the ritual begins. Coffee brews, gear is packed, and you step into the darkness. The cold catches your breath. You slide into the skin track and the world comes alive. We all have rituals that define who we are. At Black Diamond, the Dawn Patrol is ours. To live is to rise.
The alarm bell rings. It would be so easy to bail. You could hit snooze, crawl back into the warmth of your bed and slip into another dream. But that fantasy ends as the aspiration of the morning’s reality slowly builds. Your feet touch the cold floor, and the ritual begins. Coffee brews, gear is packed, and you step into the darkness. The cold catches your breath. You slide into the skin track and the world comes alive. We all have rituals that define who we are. At Black Diamond, the Dawn Patrol is ours. To live is to rise.
Black Diamond Ambassador Turner Petersen
Photo by Adam Clark
Black Diamond Ambassador Turner Petersen Photo by Adam Clark
Black Diamond Athlete Mary McIntyre
Photo by Garrett Grove
Black Diamond Ambassador Turner Petersen
Photo by Adam Clark
Black Diamond Ambassador Turner Petersen
Photo by Adam Clark
The Kia Sportage X-Pro. It’s so good, it just might inspire you to do some good with it. With multi-terrain AWD mode that intuitively adapts to whatever surface you’re driving on, be it sand, snow, mud, and more. It’ll take you wherever you’re called.
2023 Sportage X-Pro Prestige shown with optional features. Some features may vary. No system, no matter how advanced, can compensate for all driver error and/or driving conditions. Always drive safely.
