#3
2011 OCTOBER
Contents
Content picture : Chasta at Skyline, Utah, 2011 april. Frontcover picture : Pascal, Sargent Glacier, Alask
Utah Colorado Facebook
#3
Montfroid - Ride Up Alaska - 2012 Snowkitemasters
October
ka, 2010 may. White Kite magazine # 3 - 2011 october - All photos, texts, designs : Pascal Boulgakoff
We had our 2nd snowfall here in the french Alps early october 10th. So we went to this spot near Le Col de la Croix de Fer once again. On the road we were stopped by the shepherds who started to drive their flock of sheeps with a truck. Amazing moment we had, looking at the situation. Well, on the snowkiting spot, the snowpack was a lot better, 30cm of fresh snow. We went up snowkiting pretty easy from the bottom with strong north wind blowing hell from heavy cloudy sky. I brought only my 13 Frenzy so it was oversized at the top. That was a cool session anyway
with my friends Jeff (photo), Romain, Nico, Julien, Benoît, and a few other coming after seeing on issue #2 of White Kite magazine the first report about this spot we had on september 20th, I hope you also had a look at the movie about it. I’ve edited a video from this session as well, so click the TV button to reach it. Now, all this cool snow has melting two days after, so we have to wait for the next snowfall, which is due for late october as said by the weather forecast at the radio. Let’ wait and see :-) I’ll keep you up to date when we get there for our 3rd session.
2011 October 10th
Montfroid FRANCE
Friend Jeff here at the top of the spot called Vallon de Mo
ontfroid, cruising on the fresh powder snow, using the Ozone Acess 6m with strong gusty north wind.
Johann kitelooping at La Pyramide, Lautaret Pass. Look at the kite direction. A lot more hard core on the top right pict.
Ride Up Mountains on Facebook Groups
The snowkiters from RideUP achieved a new 2011 video. They will spread it up to the mountain video festivals around the wold. Starring Johann Civel (photos), Wareck Arnaud, Valère Bouchaud, Rémi Dinneur, Seb Boccos, the crew is mainly showing how they can go uphill with the Ozone foil kites, following very steepy slopes, sometimes packing the wing in the rucksack once reaching the summit and then going down freeriding the same way back or may be along some new line they find from the top of the ridge. Amazing video parts they are producing together, all are able to kite these difficult areas, filming each other, and editing as an efficient
&
workgroup. I went with Johann and Wareck last spring in april to the famous backcountry spot Les Trois Evêchés from the Lautaret Pass. We climbed the unusual route through Les Crêtes de Chaillol, then had a flying session above the snowhills near the summits. A real cool spring session, our last 2011-winter one actually. After skiing back a lot to the cars, we had to hike down through the fields now covered with the so cute spring flowers as the snow was melting fast. Johann wasn’t in the mood for hiking and had a real impressive flight you’ll see in the movie I edited recently. Click on the TV button to look at it. Congrats to the RIDE UP crew.
http://rideupmountains.com
The USA series
Chasta drawing his own track along this secret spot in Skyline. The lines on the right are from snowmobile runs
As you perhaps already know, we went last winter in february to the Rocky mountains with Chasta. We spent the most part of the time in Utah, at Brian and Heather Schenck place from Windzup in Mt Pleasant right at the bottom of the impressive snowkiting spot Skyline. We went then for a couple of days to the Colorao state, passing Silvertown and having our basecamp in Durango, at the perfect house of snowkiterForrest Jones. Our friend from France, Pascal Joubert, now living in Wyoming, joined us for this trip and we were so happy to go snowkiting together. Three high times we had : powder sessions at Skyline, high elevation snowkiting routes in the Colorado mountains, then the 7th US OPEN in Skyline again. Three so great moments, unforgettable for sure. I made many and many pictures, photos, videos, from these days in the USA. We drove as well through the Moab Desert with the orange rocks, so lucky we were to pass right during a shiny sunset. All the photos are available on the OZONE media gallery for worldwide magazines, so I have to wait a little bit before showing them as a report on White
Kite Magazine. That wouldn’t be fair to show them before the international mags publish the report. But, don’t worry, these pages are coming soon, may be for the november issue #4 of WKM I recon. I will start to edit a huge video list which will be called «The USA Series» with many short movies showing our best runs with our Ozone Frenzy on the «greatest snow on earth» as it is written on the UTAH car numbers. I will be happy, finaly, to show all these tricks and powder runs I kept secret untill this beginning of winter here in the old Europe. My laptop crashed when I was traveling USA so I couldn’t show so much the pictures and NEWS. Everybody was wondering what the hell bloody old Boulgy was doing during all these monthes, producing nothing about this wonderful trip. Now it’s time for the movies and reports to come out. I’m proud to add them all on the boulgakow. com website. Please, wait a few days more and all will be sorted out. I hope you’ll be happy to see what our snowkiting sport allows us to do on snow with a piece of spi and few strings. Stay tuned.
You probably saw the 2010 Alaska report on magazines or websites. I went there on april and I had to wait for Chasta who had his plane ight cancelled for two weeks because of the volcano in Iceland, as you do remember I guess. Well, during these two weeks the weather was really cloudy and rainy as usual in Alaska, so I had only one session for these 15 days... But, what a session !!! For sure the greatest I ever had. We took a little plane in Anchorage with my friend Steve Carr, and the bush-pilot was Mr Jim Chaplin, who as well goes snowkiting.
Other friends from Best Kiteboarding company where joining us, Oliver Palmers, Jake Buzianis, Obadiah Jenkins and Thomas Kiter from Alaska Kite Adventures. During this journey in Alaska, I didn’t get enough time to really manage ďŹ lming for a great movie. I just could try sometimes to push the video button on my camera and so I get a few clips, not super good, not strong at all. Nowadays, I would be glad to make a video anyway and this page is to annouce it, coming out soon, so stay tuned on White Kite News channel at Vimeo.com. Thank you folks.
Bjorn Kaupang Nor
Estelle Lambelet FR
The famous Snowkite Masters event will take place once again at the Lautaret Pass, near the western top of the Serre-Chevalier Valley from 2012 january 7th to the 11th. Since the beginning all is mainly about freestyle snowkiting. The Snowkitemasters international titles come every year to the best kiters : boy, girl, skiers, snowboarders. After a full week of freestyle tasks depending of the weather and snow conditions. For the last few years, the French
Snowkiting Federation sets up as well the Freestyle championships which are a real success. On the last 2011 issue, the twin fathers of the SKM, Régis Labaune & Wareck Arnaud decided to launch a Race around the Lautaret Pass and that was a super cool day with all the kiters not super good freestylers who could finaly compete against the best international stars. We’ll speak here later about this event as three monthes remain before the great days. For sure
Wareck and Régis will have some fresh news to communicate about the scheddule or the VIP coming to the event. You can as well get all the last details, people messages, images, and everything new on the facebook page : click the blue SKM logo at the right bottom of the page. If you didn’t join the FB page yet, do it right now. And don’t miss this huge meeting for your winter hollidays in order to start the best way a real cool new snowkiting year.
2012 Snowkitemasters
Alexandre Robin FR
Jean-Franรงois Lilas FR
The latest White Kite videos, the photos from a session in the morning, the infos about everything going on about snowkiting round the world, the words from other kiters, some fresh NEWS leading to the winter products, well everything about our sport, working as a shouting box for our community, where you can share your point of view, this place is the FACEBOOK group page WHITE KITE NEWS. Don’t hesitate to join us. Click the blue FB button at the bottom right of this page and ďŹ nd the group. Welcome !!!
Vintage So wonderful snowkiting trips we did around the world for the past seven years. So many pictures left in the hard-disks. You know our way of life : going with a kite in the mountains, no more overpriced skipass, no crowded slopes, we ride with freedom everywhere we want, alone or with some good friends, going slow or really fast on the great powder snow without any avalanche risk, cruising, having freestyle tricks, flying safe, depending of the terrain and the wind conditions, as said in the advert «Inspired by nature and driven by the elements». White
Kite magazine will make one of these moments alive once again with a double page picture. Here, we can see Chasta on the Etna volcano slopes on 2009 january. Sicilia, Italia. Can you imagine the feeling we got on such days with so wide area to explore. Many thanks to Stefano Gigli from Ozone Italia who organized the Etna journey. A lot more countries will be remebered on the further Vintage pages here at White Kite for the next issues. And as always says Chasta : «The snowkiting history is only starting up».
The
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2011 april 17th Friend Francis Richard Les Trois EvĂŞchĂŠs Lautaret Pass France
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OK, this is the last double-page. I hope you enjoyed this october issu
ue # 3. Next one will come out late november. Share this issue on your facebook page. See you soon Dudes :-)