The final chapter of the saga comes to fruition for its third and final year. Ski La Parva is thrilled to announce that it will once again be host to the annual Sony Eye of the Condor – a weeklong film and photo competition set high in the heart of the Andes.

This year’s event will showcase teams of skiers and snowboarders hailing from around the world August 2 – August 9. Discrete Headwear, and Icelantic Skis are among some of the teams returning but the competition will also feature some exciting new faces that will be making a first time appearance for the events third and final year. With all-star alumni featuring icons such as Andy Mahre, Pep Fujas, Sean Pettit, Tanner Rainville, Ingrid Backstrom, Rachael Burks, Seth Morrison, Chris Davenport, and more, you never know who will show up this year.

“Sony Eye of the Condor has been such an important event to us the past several years, and we would love to see more events with this format, but all good things must come to an end and we have decided to put this trilogy to rest and look forward to what is next. To those teams out there thinking about making the trip this year, I am going to make you an offer you can’t refuse!” says La Parva Director of Marketing and Sales Rodrigo Medina.

In addition to the competition, which will award cash prizes to the best video and photography portfolios, Sony Eye Of The Condor will present its annual forum discussions led by industry leaders examining the role action sports and media play in our society at large.

The week of festivities will culminate in the booming metropolis of Santiago Chile for the second annual iF3 La Parva/Chile (International Freeskiing Film Festival). The film festival will play host to the Sony Eye of The Condor awards and will include a celebration of the global Freeskiing film community, complete with athlete autograph sessions, film screenings, vendors, and live music.

The winning films and photos from Sony Eye of The Condor will be showcased not only in Santiago but also around the globe at the other iF3 events, including Montreal, Quebec; Annecy France; and Innsbruck, Austria.

Eye of the Condor is presented with the support of Sony. Please address press and other inquiries to La Parva Team eotc3@laparva.cl

iF3 recently took home the Quebec Tourism award for best Montreal event with less than 300,000$ budget, and was nominated as a finalist for all of Quebec. The finals take place May 14th, 2013.

Lp Sansfacon and Eric D’anjou accept the award on behalf of iF3

“It’s a great honour because there are hundreds of events in Montreal, and it’s rewarding to see a niche festival such as iF3 receive praise amongst so many great initiatives,” says President Felix Rioux. “This award wouldn’t have been possible without everyone involved with iF3; our staff, athletes, producers, media, and of course the public – who travel from all over the globe to attend and support the festival.”

Just like the iF3 Movie Awards motivate producers to raise the bar every year, iF3 looks at this latest achievement as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. Expansion is not always easy, but mainstream attention like this allows the festival to expand into different markets and bring the tour to more freeskiing fans around the world.

iF3 would like to thank Tourism Quebec and Tourism Montreal for recognizing and supporting our work. For more information on the award, please visit www.grandprixquebec.com, www.tourismmontreal.ca, and www.tourismquebec.ca.

As sunset falls in Bralorne on St. Patty’s Day, the 2nd annual Sennheiser Backcountry Picnic comes to a close. The Sennheiser Backcountry Picnic has raised the bar for backcountry events. This year the Picnic saw more competitors and more fun than last year! The format of the contest is for the competitors to ride together over the weekend, then make videos. The winners are determined by a public online vote. 

People came from as far away as the Caribbean, Columbia, and Mexico to be in the event, with the oldest competitor over 60 and the youngest, Hadyn Brown at 15.  The event kicked off on Thursday with registration and an opening party that featured local legend Brian Currie  and Dj John Lee from Montreal. 

Friday was great weather with great snow, though it did wind up greying over towards the end of the day. The competitors were met by a group of safety people in the Not Noel bowl to discuss avalanche conditions. This included a helicopter which we would like to thank Kokanee Helicopters for providing on short notice. At this time the venue was opened. Skiers and snowboarders spent the day listening to music, shredding and filming. Ryan Nadeau even flew his proximity wing down from the top of the bowl to mass cheering from the 50 or so competitors and locals. The Mineshaft Pub saw  Joe Keithly , from D.O.A. , put on a great solo performance that kept people rocking until the wee hours!!   

Saturday was the picnic’s 1st weather day. Snowing hard in the Noel valley all day! This wound up being fine as everyone had a long previous day of riding and a longer night of rocking out at The Mine Shaft Pub.  During the weather day the competitors were welcome to continue filming. It is incredible what you can do in Bralorne for fun on a grey day. Activities ranged from golfing off a 1000 foot cliff into the valley, to a makeshift softball game in a foot of snow and of course jumping off anything that had snow in town. Saturday night Jah Cutta and Chris Murray heated things up at the Mineshaft with a night of ska and reggae that was appreciated by all.

Sunday morning the sun broke and it was on!!! Competitors waited eagerly on Noel Lake for the official go from the safety team. The snow was deep. With over 50cm on the storm board, it was an interesting ride  to get to the top of lines tandeming on snowmobiles. Once the trails were in, every face, cliff and wind lip were ripped, dropped, and shralped. The Noel valley even saw it’s 1st reggae concert.  Canada’s reggae legend , Jah Cutta filled the valley with his warm reggae vibes.  It was good to see the Hopp’s family in the alpine teaching the kids what the backcountry is all about.

A huge thank you goes to Sennheiser Canada, Vans, Dakine, Kokanee Helicopters, The Mineshaft Pub,  Kokanee Beer, Red Bull, The B.R.V.S.A, Naccional Records, all the competitors and crew for helping make this event another great sucess!  Without your hard work and support none of this would be possible.

Thank you to all the people of the Bridge River Valley for supporting and participating in our event. Please check out this years videos on the event site.  See you   all again next year, 

1st place winner 2012 – submitted by Tavis “Meatsaw” Mezies

2nd place – submitted by: Wiley Tesseo, Andrew Geeves, Joel Loverin

3rd place – submitted by Shane Carmicheal

The International Freeski Film Festival, the world’s largest celebration of skiing, is stopping by YOUR home mountain to give YOU the chance to be a part of iF3. Oh, and win a pocket full of cash.

The objective is simple. Film, edit, and submit a two minute edit of what a season at your local resort is like through your own eyes, and more importantly, your own lens. You don’t need to be a professional filmer. You don’t need to be a professional skier. You don’t even need to pay an entry fee. All you need is a love for the sport that puts a smile on your face every time you click in – even if it’s to shred 300 meters of man-made snow. Since it’s more than just the terrain or snow that makes a mountain what it is, we’re expecting you to capture the vibe and showcase the people, places, and things that make it rad.

If you manage to impress our panel of judges and take home top honours at your stop, we’ll hook you up with a cool $500 and feature your edit on all of iF3’s outlets. Not to mention you’ll be the all the rage at the iF3 hosted après ski when we announce the winners – just make sure you honour the 10% rule! 

 Rules & Registration 

• 75% of the edit must be filmed at Le Massif de Charlevoix, but not necessarily on the mountain.
• All footage must be shot during the 2012-2013 season.
• Edits cannot contain any violence, or vulgar/degrading content, or any non iF3 VideoQuest logos.
• Participants must register (here) before uploading their video here.
• Videos must be in Quicktime, at 720p or 1080p, and compressed using H.264.
• Max length: 134 seconds — Title: 4 seconds, Video: 120 seconds, Credits: 10 seconds.
• Your title must be simple white writing on a black background. Anything else will be disqualified.
• The winner will be selected by a panel of iF3 judges, and awarded a $500 cash prize.

The International Freeski Film Festival, the world’s largest celebration of skiing, is stopping by YOUR home mountain to give YOU the chance to be a part of iF3. Oh, and win a pocket full of cash.

The objective is simple. Film, edit, and submit a two minute edit of what a season at your local resort is like through your own eyes, and more importantly, your own lens. You don’t need to be a professional filmer. You don’t need to be a professional skier. You don’t even need to pay an entry fee. All you need is a love for the sport that puts a smile on your face every time you click in – even if it’s to shred 300 meters of man-made snow. Since it’s more than just the terrain or snow that makes a mountain what it is, we’re expecting you to capture the vibe and showcase the people, places, and things that make it rad.

If you manage to impress our panel of judges and take home top honours at your stop, we’ll hook you up with a cool $500 and feature your edit on all of iF3’s outlets. Not to mention you’ll be the all the rage at the iF3 hosted après ski when we announce the winners – just make sure you honour the 10% rule!

 Rules & Registration 

• 75% of the edit must be filmed at Owl’s Head, but not necessarily on the mountain.
• All footage must be shot during the 2012-2013 season.
• Edits cannot contain any violence, or vulgar/degrading content, or any non iF3 VideoQuest logos.
• Participants must register (here) before uploading their video here.
• Videos must be in Quicktime, at 720p or 1080p, and compressed using H.264.
• Max length: 134 seconds — Title: 4 seconds, Video: 120 seconds, Credits: 10 seconds.
• Your title must be simple white writing on a black background. Anything else will be disqualified.
• The winner will be selected by a panel of iF3 judges, and awarded a $500 cash prize.

What can be said about the incomparable Tom Wallisch that hasn’t already been said? Wallisch has been an unprecedented force to be reckoned with for the past few years in the sport of freeskiing, and last winter (his best yet) was a true testament to that… and then some.

In addition to winning his first gold medal at the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, along with the highly coveted Dew Cup, Toyota’s Action Sports Athlete of the Year Award and ESPN’s Top Action Sports Star, Wallisch prevailed in nearly every slopestyle contest he entered. As if that weren’t enough, he somehow found the time to film with numerous production companies, including Level 1, 4bi9 Media, Field Productions and Sherpas Cinema.

Tom Wallisch
Photo courtesy of The North Face

But the most interesting and inspiring part of Wallisch’s story is not the medals he’s won, the film segments he’s starred in or the style he’s perfected. Wallisch, who has been skiing since he was three, wasn’t brought up in a plush slope side condo in a skiing epicenter like Whistler or Colorado, nor did he attend one of the many ski academies that his fellow peers and competitors learned the tricks of the trade at. He grew up in The Steel City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, learned to ski at 610-foot tall Wisp Mountain, and did it all on his own account.

Also unlike many of today’s top freeskiers, who acquired an instantaneous fast-track to fame through competitive-based means, Wallisch—largely thanks to his highly unique and flawless style—was discovered and worshipped on the Internet via a series of groundbreaking edits. He made his first appearance on Newschoolers.com, and later by winning Level 1’s much revered Superunknown contest, which gave him a chance to film with the company and prove his worth on a bigger platform. As his fan base grew (both rapidly and rabidly) so did his talent, accolades, and long list of sponsors, with big-name companies like The North Face supporting him, who featured Wallisch in TV ads that were shown all over the world and helped put the sport of freeskiing on a much more visible pedestal.

While a huge part of Wallisch’s recent mainstream notoriety can be attributed to his success in competitions, he admits that his first love is filming, and that he’d like to eventually put more time and energy into that aspect of the sport, particularly after the Olympics.

“If it stays fun, I’d like to continuing competing as much as I have been for another year or two, do the Olympics, and then focus primarily on filming,” he says. “My schedule has been pretty hectic and stressful over the last few years due to all the events I compete in, and it’s made it hard for me to really focus on my video parts, so after 2014 I hope to and plan to do that.”

Bottom line: if Wallisch’s jaw dropping segment in Level 1 Productions’ new film is any indication, the best is yet to come.

4335 tweets and 8459 followers in, Mike Douglas is reconsidering Twitter.

Although his persona as the Godfather of Freeskiing/creative brain behind Salomon Freeski TV is boosted by the hours he logs in at Tweetdeck, another identity is jockeying for his time. In fact, she’s squirming around on his lap as we Skype.

Kirra Douglas, age 5, has come upstairs to the Switchback Entertainment studio, in her pyjamas. Douglas’ 8 year old son, Devon, is downstairs, getting ready for their trip to Maui. After last year’s family vacations were scuttled by work commitments, (including one intense week over his birthday spent bunking down in the patrol hut on the top of Whistler Mountain to make Whistler Blackcomb’s Embedded videos), Mike Douglas vowed to make family vacations a priority.

“Time is the most precious thing,” Douglas is saying. “So I’m also starting to change the way I view social media. It’s a time suck. And it all comes down to what’s more important. Putting that post out? Or tickling my little girl?”

To shoot the 12 to 15 webisodes of Salomon Freeski TV every winter, Douglas estimates he spends 40% of his year on the road – kicking off with planning meetings in Europe with Salomon every October, and wrapping with an August trip to Chile. On top of that, following the film festival success of The Freedom Chair, Douglas has branched into filmmaking, and has two feature films under development.

“It’s tough, because I am a workaholic,” he admits of the challenges of balancing work and family. “For 20 years, if I wasn’t skiing, I was thinking about skiing, and if I wasn’t thinking about skiing, I was taking a short break from thinking about skiing to think about something else. Then I discovered making films. And now I’m completely consumed by that.”

Which is lucky for us. As is the unlikelihood that Douglas will completely abandon the twitterverse any time soon. As for Kirra and Devon, they always know where to find their old man, when he’s not in bed, in ski boots or in transit— upstairs, in the studio.

Yep. It adds up to 440 days a year. Even a leap year doesn’t make that math work. Clearly, Mike Douglas is a master multi-tasker. (He must sleep in his ski boots.) We’re just wondering when he finds time to eat.

—

by Lisa Richardson’s: A girl who skis, Lisa Richardson works at Origin Design and Communications , a marketing agency run by Danielle Kristmanson and MJ Legault, who are daily evidence that women can be just as, if not more, passionate about mountain culture, shredding, mountain biking and skiing, as the dudes. Amongst their other projects for Whistler Blackcomb, Jay Peak and Sun Valley, Origin is working with the Canadian Ski Council on a project to grow the sport by encouraging more she-skiers.

Noah Bowman
Photo: Paul Wright CFSA

Each and every winter, a new supernova explodes in the world of halfpipe skiing. Three winters ago it was Kevin Rolland, then it was Torin Yater-Wallace, and last year, along with David Wise, Noah Bowman made his presence felt.

Quiet, unassuming, patient and exceptionally talented, Bowman learned how to keep his skills sharp and his edges even sharper while skiing amidst the shivering and flat confines of his hometown ski hill, Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Alberta, where he shifted his passion towards halfpipe after focusing on big air for a few years.

Over the last couple of winters, Bowman maintained a reserved yet foreboding presence on the competitive halfpipe circuit, as he and others waited for his inevitable breakout moment. Then, after years of being hailed as ‘one to watch out for the in the future’, he became the here-and-now at the Winter X Games 16 by landing the first ever switch double flatspin 900 in a halfpipe, which helped him score a silver medal. Following that, he posted another second place finish at the US Grand Prix, along with a more than respectable fifth place performance at the European X Games, which earned him a top five position on the AFP World Halfpipe Rankings and a spot on the Canadian Halfpipe Ski Team.

Noah Bowman

From here, the outer reach of space is the limit for Bowman’s rising star, with some potential big name sponsors on the horizon and a chance at competing at the grandest event of them all, the Olympics. “When I first heard about halfpipe skiing being in the Olympics I wasn’t too sure how I felt about it,” he says. “But after spending a year as a member of the Canadian Halfpipe Ski Team and having a great group of teammates and Trennon Paynter and Marc McDonnell as coaches, it’s really opened my eyes to how big of a deal the Olympics are and how cool of an opportunity it would be to represent my country.”

Stay tuned for a whole lot more from Noah Bowman, because at only 20 years young, he’s just getting started.

Montreal native and pro skier Kaya Turski is familiar with walking the red carpet at the iF3 awards each year. She is a six-time Winter X Games Ski Slopestyle gold medalist who has also had segments in Level 1 Productions’ ski films. But in mid July, Turski walked a different red carpet: At ESPN’s annual ESPY awards, which recognize the top athletes in the world, where she was nominated for the Best Female Action Sports Athlete. Turski was there alongside athletes Eli Manning, David Beckham, LeBron James, Danica Patrick, Tim Tebow, and others. She was the only freeskier nominated in the Action Sports category. Snowboarder Jamie Anderson ended up taking the win, but Turski says she was more than honoured
just to be there.

ESPN.com’s Megan Michelson spoke to Turski about her first ESPY appearance.

ESPN.com: What was your reaction when you heard you were nominated for an ESPY?
Kaya Turski: I was thrilled. What a dream come true. I put my heart and soul into what I do and it was so cool to have my hard work pay off and be recognized for it. What an honour to be nominated among some of the very women I look up to who are so inspiring.

Kaya Turski @ ESPY’s

How about when the winner’s name was announced?
I was so happy for Jamie! It’s funny because Jamie and I were rooming together at the event and we were both so honoured to be part of the ESPYs and excited for each other. She is one of the most talented people I know and deserved the award—she had an amazing season. It makes me want to keep working hard.

Do you think your nomination is a sign that freeskiing is finally being recognized by the mainstream?
I definitely think it’s getting there. Our sport just keeps growing and I think with the Olympics approaching our sport is getting more exposure. The world is about to learn about something great.

Did you hang out with Manning and Tebow?
I met Tebow. I really wanted to meet Kobe or Nadal but they were off training. I did, however, meet a lot of exceptional and inspiring people.

Best advice for someone preparing to walk
the red carpet?
Don’t be shy. Work it! Glam it up.

To see more about Kaya’s adventures check out
www.kayaturski.com

See Kaya’s latest webisode “The Edge State of Mind” at the All-Girls Movie Screening #6 on Saturday September 15th at 1:45pm.

Join the ladies of freeskiing directly after the movie screening at the iF3 Outdoor village across the street for a special All-Girls Autograph signing.

—

By Megan Michelson, ESPN.com