A couple weeks back I saw Travis Rice at European X Games who told me all about Nick Perata and Mark Sullivan organizing the King of the Hill again after 10 years off. He told me I should show up. A couple days later I contacted Perata and a week later, I was arriving in Valdez in an RV to shred those amazing mountains!

I had heard about that event quite a bit, especially since Axel Pauporte had won the last sword, and I have to admit I was a bit anxious on what to expect as far as terrain goes. I had never participated in a freeride event before and the mountains in Valdez are known for neverending very steep slopes—but really the event was just a very good excuse for me to go shred those amazing mountains.

David and I landed in Anchorage and stocked our RV with tons of organic food, and arrived in Valdez 7 hours later in the evening. And of course we started our trip with getting stuck in the parking lot straight away! And that’s where you see who your friends are! The ones that help out and push! Haha! That was such a classic move! Luckily we got saved by generous locals and Eric Themel pushing the RV with the help of a 4-wheel drive!

The weather is unpredictable in Alaska and for most of it I was expecting long down days, but the next morning I open my eyes to discover bright bluebird! Time to screw some bindings on my board and I was standing on top of that mountain wondering what the snow was going to feel like. I had a blast on my second run, where I took Travis’ line with a bs 360 on a fun hit. The atmosphere of the event was super cool! After shredding our lines everyone was staying all together at the bottom checking out everyone else’s run and cheering! The 3rd run was in the gully to death in sun baked and windpacked crap snow. The kind of run which makes you appreciate good ones. I heard a lot of noise on Travis and Scotty Lago’s runs, but they were dropping in before and I couldn’t see their lines. But looking at their lines, they definitely killed it. The stand-out line I saw that day was Mike Basich dropping that impressive double cliff.

We had a great party after the sword giving—of course Travis was the new King and I was pretty stoked to hear I finished second. Shaun Farmer lost his 6th place tie arm wrestling against Mark Landvik but took revenge freestyle rapping later on that night! The dance party was awesome and I can tell you that Mike Basich’s got moves!

Luckily we had a couple bad weather days to chill before the sun came out again for 4 days in a row heliboarding! We were staying in our RV on the Pass with lots of other fun shredders. That was the whole concept of Tailgate Alaska! A big camping party up in the mountains and it was great! We shared heli time with Martin Cernik and his crew which was pretty sweet. They were 5 big dudes sharing an RV, and it was nice to realize that ours didn’t smell bad at all compared to theirs! Haha! The mountains are sik in Valdez and the people are really cool! Can’t wait to be back next year!

www.tailgatealaska.com

www.annefloremarxer.com

Welcome to the magic of NoBoarding! The best sensation ever!

Trust me it’s 100 times better then snowboarding! I’m so hooked! It feels like surfing on pow—you take full control of your body’s impact on your board through your toes and your heels. It’s such a great adrenaline rush, all the way, all the time!

The GT Memorial is the one event I wouldn’t miss for the world. It’s a NoBoard (www.noboard.ca) race organized in the dead end of the Kootenays to commemorate Greg Todds who died in an avalanche 5 years ago. Greg, Cholo and their crew had decided to get rid of bindings in deep pow and developed a pad which allows you to surf and skate on powder.

Vanessa Andrieux (www.vanessaandrieux.com) and I started the adventure with a bit of trouble because of bad rental car service in Castlegar, where everything closes at 4:30 PM apparently, we got stuck there for the night hoping to get a car early enough to drive all the way in time for the race. The rental car thing didn’t get any better when we realized they didn’t have any 4-wheel drive or any proper mountain cars at all. Once we over-packed the small car they gave us, we realized the car had summer tires. It was super sketchy knowing we’d have to drive on quite narrow and slippery, snowy mountain roads, but it was that or hang out in that ugly town doing nothing for the whole weekend so we jumped in the car and somehow just made it in time.

Our luck came back as soon as we arrived in NoBoard land for the 5^th Annual GT Memorial. We showed up at the same time as Gigi and Shandi Campos, who took us straight to the sledding spot. We didn’t have a sled but there, again, we got instantly picked up and doubled all the way to the race field. It was so cool to show up and find Romain, Jussi, Benjie, Shin, Rube, Mikey (etc.) and of course the local legends Scott Penner, Cholo Burns and Jenna Lowe. I met Scott years back and he got me to fall in love with NoBoarding, and to see what he can do without bindings, he is my hero!

I had missed the women’s race but I got a run with the last guy’s heat. The place was tracked already! It was my first run in two years and still I had so much fun riding down that field of pillows and trees! A good part of the fun is knowing you are definitely gonna crash at some point! Of course guys like Gigi and Terje killed it but the locals rule at that game, we’re in their backyard and Young Dave won the race. I had never seen a contest winner holding on so much to his cup, he probably spooned with it after partying with it all night! We all went down and an auction was organized to raise money for Greg’s kids. I couldn’t believe how much stuff was sold. Then we danced all night to DJ Solomon’s tunes! The weekend was a blast—there was such a great vibe!

We stayed some on with Cholo and Jenna to shoot. We went up and spent the first day doing Noboard runs in heavy, but super fun, no roping snow. It was a bit sketchy with snow conditions and what can happen when the conditions are not right happened—at the bottom of a run, Cholo set off a small avalanche. It wasn’t big nor deep, but what appeared to be just a small slide was enough to fully burry him. Luckily this happened right before our eyes so we all ran and got him out in no time and he was fine. However, that was a serious wake up call.

A couple days later we went back up and the conditions were even more dangerous.

We set off two avalanches and decided to go home. That day I had that weird feeling: We were not welcome in the mountains. I was relieved only when we got back to the cars, happy and lucky to be safe and alive. The highway was closed because of avalanche danger and we had to drive all around the mountains on small roads. It took us 15 hours to get to Vancouver.

Some days the mountain is a fun playground, and some others it’s a giant monster ready to eat you up. It’s crucial to listen to your surroundings and hold back when the conditions are not right. The few days we spent with Cholo and Jenna were amazing, I won’t forget their extraordinary hospitality. Long live NoBoarding! My favorite thing ever! Be safe.

—Anne-Flore
www.annefloremarxer.com

Hello everyone,

It has been snowing everywhere in Europe and I have just been traveling like a mad woman, I went to les 2alpes where I received the Award of the best French international rider (with both male and female riders) I guess they gave me that just because they still don’t know that I am French.. for those of you who didn’t know it yet, I have 3 passports, I am French, I am Swiss, and I am Liechtensteinerin -- that’s a mini country between Austria and Switzerland..

Anyways after that I went to Stockholm for a Billabong photoshoot, it was freezing there..
The funny thing is that they put me in between 2 pretty and very skinny models.. which was quite interesting.. I mean for my big muscles and I! Haha we went to the ice bar where we ended up playing soccer with our ice made glasses, we went karaoke in some random empty bar and went dancing in a club which felt like we were in someone’s high ceiling apartment. The music was fun and we had a good time!

From there I flew to Brazil for the Oakley sales meeting in Florianopolis. I thought I was gonna surf and tan on that trip but it was pouring rain the whole trip. Luckily Oakley had invited some other athletes with who I got to test all the local activities the resort was offering from samba dance class to beach volleyball through poker game with the hotel staff.. On top of that I got to meet Oscar Pistorius, by far the most inspiring Athlete I’ve ever met, he was emputed from both legs at a young age and is currently braking all world records of his condition. He will run in the “normal” Olympics in London. This guy is king funny and runs faster then anyone I know!
you need to check him out! www.oscarpistorius.com

On one night  we had the premiere of the Oakley movie and once it was finished and when I thought it was time for bed, brazilian drummers and samba dancer came out of nowhere and got me to samba till my feet burnt to death!

Well with Oscar and Lolo Jones (world’s number one’s hay runner) we went quad driving in the pouring rain! And it was really cool cause all that water had created tons of puddles in the sand dunes and Oscar and I got tons of handbreaks while Lolo was behaving and blocking the view of our guide while we were kicking it at the back!

After Brazil I was back in California for another Billabong photoshoot.. We landed in Orange county flying over all the fires of the santa Anna’s wind.. The sky was so dark from the smoke it really looked like an apocalyptic vision.. I found it really scary. Everyone else seemed to be fine with it “yeah it all burns each November” I mean houses were burning to dust! Photoshoot done and Tara Dakides’life documentary movie premiere and back in the plane to Europe..

I went to say hello to the Billabong euro crew in Bilbao for their sales meeting and flew to Barcelona for a shoot with Les Ettes.. oh yeah did I tell you that I am currently working on my pro model perfume? It smells really good and it will be ready in February!

I just got back from all these crazy travels and I still haven’t seen the snow yet.. everyone has been telling me about their sick powder days already while I was just stuck in airplanes and photoshoots.. which made me super excited for the winter...

I'll be driving my Fiat 500 to the Alps tomorrow cannot wait until I m in the mountains again! I'll see you there!!

-- Anne-Flore