wind
aiguille de chamonix
HAINES. AK
Tom Wayes skiing.
May powder: a mid may morning run down the cosmique
getting stoked (or not)
motivation is hidden deep these days. it is very hard to find. many excuses flirt with my mind such as: my gear lost or falling apart , not in shape, not good enough, some clouds, my vagina hurts …BLAH! Ive been mostly free riding off the aiguille du mid north face, west face and those awesome flat glaciers where i had a blast , gliding alone down forever silk , that way avoiding the crowded -north face- hysterical- fuckfest …. I finally motivated to get my ass on the argentiere basin to ski some of those dream lines . we were expecting a nice 20cm of fresh . we had nothing added to a breakable crust. The idea of dragging my heavy alpine gear up a 600 m steep breakable crust + the constant sluff coming down everywhere on the basin at 6 am made me turn around at one third of the way. everyone did but the bird who is stoked….i had a great time hanging out with friends on the glacier which might be all i need! stoked!
that day a bunch of my friends were on the north face, here tom grant skiing
it is my friend Brett lotz last day , the north face of the midi is good. I had (no choice) but to take him down that face. i was dragging my feet , and didnt even take my camera (too worried somehow) . I should have, it was a fun day. Here a picture of me taken by brett lotz.
if you dont know who he is , you may want to look at those: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtAplMaZb5k
wine
argentiere refuge
hiking
the bird stoked, full wing span
bird stoked
stoked
Christian Cabanilla, Tchao mon ami. See you tomorrow.
journal
in one run you can meet a soul mate then brutally loose it all in just one other run. tragically ephemeral. like snow.
Picture from Court Leve
http://www.courtlevephoto.com of Christian Cabanilla flying. A good memory of who he was.
04/2013
I was at the top of the world on that ridge. in shape, sick runs, good people. With a great friend . …Everything IS new and fresh. I was Being a “pro” photographer in a heliski paradise. Imagine that. We had so many projects. so much joy. It all scrambled in one seconds. game over.
IT was a freak accident. Like many other in the mountains. We were not pushing it or trying to be rad. The run was steep for only 200 M. It was not exposed: no seracs/crevasses/cliffs. Not even that much snow. A pretty mellow run by today’s standard really. I was off guard not paying attention. misstep. I’am still unclear on how we could have made it safer other than using ropes. Tom konop was at the safest possible spot, he fell. The short time it took to break, 5>10 mins, tells me it would have broken even with small weight. I had all the tools to make a fast abalakov, carrying cams and nuts even. I didnt think of it. It was just bad timing. Gravity. Weak layers. Not predictable. Our mistake was to be on that ridge. We all wanted to be there. That’s that. Bad happenstance of less than a meter (i could have hugged him just seconds before we fell) or bad luck. Both. I dont know. he is gone, partying with too many of my friends.
i would not trade any minutes i had in Haines Ak for anything else. It was all good times. I was there for my friend Chris Cabanilla last week to second of joy. For his last breath. I documented it. it is the job he gave me. His spirit knew it was time. I fell down with him, close to him. Maybe to realize it is ok. It is a good ride. No pain, no fear. You give it up, relax and fly away. It is a beautiful way to pass. Hell really start when you wake up. I lost him, I lost our pipedreams I lost my health, my skis, my pride. I was there for his last perfect moment of joy. For his ride up and over. brotherhood. i am back in my homeland. Almost recovered .trying get my dream back. Christian cabanilla was a good one, loved by so many, positive, enthusiastic, happy, professional. Heli pilot and guide allowed him to visit the world and give many people the best time of their life. He is remembered and loved by many as a great man, fun to be around .
i have more dust of gold in my heart. I cherish that.
thank you cab.TU M’A RENDU LA MORT PLUS DOUCE.
tchao mon ami. see you tomorow.
Cab wanted more pictures of him guiding and snowboarding. Maybe to market his next “grand scheme plan” as he called it. He needed to be more visible as a snowboarder and a guide. He knew with me around it would get done. I just pull out my camera constently. Bad light good light , good pictures or not. It doesnt matter.I am a social media whore. Unfortunately the 2 hours riding we had together was in the shade and most days we had in AK were cloudy. I didnt come back with the “promised” load of spectacular bankable Haines AK pictures. OH well. Still, each one of those remind me of a smell, of words, a feeling, a moment, a touch.
I dont know why we play that game, It just feels good, riding takes me away from my everyday That’s my real being. it’s an escape TO real life, to what IS an amazing reality. There’s no better feeling then being on top of the world, surrounded by nature.
Christian loved it, the steepest and exposed the better. He was good at it. He wanted to come back to cham for the steep season and for winter again. this is how I was in Haines, couch karma he told me once.
I miss his world
christian cabanilla
A dreamer like me, we were hiding in the same places. He came into my life, and left a mark. . . his place in my heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing his name pushes and pulls at me in a hundred ways…
may 31 2013
every time i loose someone to the mountains i go to the signal and build a cairn . It is a place overlooking the leshaud glacier and the mer de glace coming from the mont blanc. You can see the grande jorasse, aiguille verte, dru, moine and many others. it is a very strong place with a lot of energy. I am unsure of when and why people started building cairns here , you have hundreds, its a very nice place. So i built one for christian cabanilla. i dont put names or anything. just something that belonged to him. I come here often. i like it. it is very relaxing. contemplation . Arne, Felix, bloo, kip,bean, allison, fran, Remy, martin, christian,…
christian cabanilla cairn
30/06/13. 4 months now. My life is on hold. Since the 3rd of March. I lost my stoke for the mountains. Is it ever gonna come back? I cant stop thinking of that week in Haines.The What ifs? are haunting. Often, i feel like calling, get pissed at him for the accident “little Brash, so you came out fine from “the death sport capital: chamonix”. Im not even a “guide”. 3 runs in your mini playground and game over.You failed, poseur,fuck you!” … tell him to be safe and i care about him. this”loss” is taking so long to heal. I should let it go.
Is it because i fell down as well, post trauma. It is the first time i am in a ski accident. getting hurt. Maybe because Chris snatched me out of my routine. I was smached back to it violently. It is Not a bad routine but being in that routine completely wrecked phisically, mentally and financially isnt that fun. It pulls me back to that week.
There is the moment before. A moment when life was normal. When I lived with Chris in a small place, sharing life . moments. Hope. the last night was spent talking about life and death. Projects and dreams. Womens. helis. mountains… This moment before the accident I know, but not before I understand because there is no understanding moments like this, the moment before the future no longer matters, before the future is nothing but a wish for the past. fawk! i miss him. I miss his enthusiasm his obsessions. He was driven. crazy. Passionate. Like a spoilt kid flying thru life. So fresh. I didnt just fall down from the ridge. I fell down from his dream cloud.
in a weird twisted way, I dont mind this state of mind right now . Its summer, I am back into the pace of office life. night shift day shift. it chafes. It seems pointless and dull. Boring. My boiling heart and mind- His world and projects in comparison seem alive.
christian cabanilla
July 22nd full moon : reminiscing
waking up at 5am under the full moon.His livingroom in Juneau. I remember thinking it feels melancholic. I could hear him sleep. He woke up. We smoked a spliff.
Christian cabanilla juneau house
It all stopped so brutally. Like waking up from a nightmare. I can remember each and every seconds of the day. Every words we said. When we woke up. His daily happy-good- mood song “goooood morniinnng cedric” , Our breakfast. the guide meeting. Hanging out, smoking in the sun. Each runs. The last heli ride. I remember buckling him up. His face when we heard the whumfs before it all disapeared. That very second before it all vanished. Like an illusion . A day dream. it never existed.
a mirage.
AUG 2nd
It is mid summer so im started to go thru all my winter stuff. Craving the white fluff moments. Im not much of a video guy but I stumble unto this. Nothing much, you can see cab just a little. It is the first day I met him and skied with him. The video just shows Us hanging out at the bottom of an epic 2500 Meters of knee deep powder run thru couloirs, rollers and forrest in Italy. We are waiting to go on another run. Hanging out. This is what we do mostly: Hanging out. With great people. In between we ski or climb. but mostly: we hang out. We Meet with amazing people from around the world. We Share moments. Priceless epic time. Perfects moments. Until one day some disapears . That does not get any easier.
3rd september. Im out of the shockwave now. I am still not active in the mountains, just trying to get stoked for next winter. I cant stop being pissed off at how it all turned out. Christian wanted me to have the best time of my life, make a lot of money, shoot amazing pictures. He wanted to show me the best of AK, of his zone. It is presisely the opposite of everything that happened. Worst 6 months, worst ski, lost money , crap pictures. WTF. If i had cash, i would go back and make sure to do as planned….like he wanted. To cab it up!
<a
I had to charge my US phone , i open my messages box and found that one ..message from heaven?
I was apres skiing at the fort the night before when i got that message. I went back home. We went to have dinner at that mexican joint, some nice fish tacos , ak shrimps and tons of margharitas. Chris paid the bill, that was his last dinner. We went back home, wasted. Carried on with crown royal. Cab wanted to go check out the borealis outside but i was tired. That is when he said “if it is your last night , you’d die without ever see the borealis”. We went on and on talking about life death and what we would do right now if we knew it was our last night. Odd timing.
The next message is from his best friend dustin when i was at the hospital.
Electronic memory is odd sometime.
11/13/13
christian cabanilla
I managed to get a picture of Cab published in the winter issue of Kronicle Magasine, which is a good backcountry snowboard mag in the USA> he would be stoked. Especially a picture of him in the white room.
It is chris’s B day in 5 days Facebook tells me. I just realize i took that picture last year on the 21 st of december. I didn’t know him then, he just happened to be there with a mutual friend the day we were shooting picts and film. I remember seeing him shredding down that run like a pro, thinking who is that dude…We didn’t know it was his bday. we were joking about the Mayan end of the world calendar thing…. A friendship was born that day …
It’s been a year now. They say: everything happens for a reason. I am still searching. I haven’t had fun skiing since then. I ski because that is what i do. I have good times but feeling changed since then, Not the same stoke. Im not so psyched. Oh well. it will come back.
Alaska. The end.
April 28th. 2016
3 years now. Skiing changed so much . Since that day i lost Magnus Kastengren, David Rosenbarger, Andreas Fransson, J.P Auclair, Liz Daley, Brendan o’sullivan, Scott siderstrom. What a waste. The steep skiing frenzy is more popular than ever. But skiing doesn’t really give me a reason to live anymore. I tried to fall back on ski photography with no success really. I am a free man trying to figure out what is next. Photography probably. I’m still skiing. But it is so far away from that pipe dream we had.
June 11 2023
My stats tells me this post got a lot of traffic , reading it again is strongly odd , i feel compelled to post an update. An economic crisis , pandemic , war , … later … and my old time ski partner Luca Pandolfi death . I’m not a skier or a ski photographer anymore. Looking at my crew survival rate, about 90% death , this accident may have kept me alive . I feel jinxed . Aging, work a lot more for less money, series of poor snow seasons , the social media free photos for all, trendy corporate ski influencers. All kicked me out of the dream . The drive , obsession over skiing, alpinism has completely vanished . So reading this , i’m taken back to this period , taken back to that time, when skiing is the only obvious thing to do regardless of risks and tragic losses . It feels beautiful . Simple.
unicorns dont fucking exist
For a ski bum photographer like me to go on a heli ski trip in the ski dream land haines alaska is a pure phantasy , a dream alike seeing unicorn shitting rainbows. That was until i met with christian cabanilla in chamonix ….after a few days showing him the best of chamonix , a road trip thru switzerland and a month worth of a platonic internet relationship he made it clear that i will enjoy the AK powder this year. Wether i want it or not. i am happily kidnapped. He hooked me up with seaba (south east alaska backcountry adventure) , organized my itinary , paid for my lodging and a month worth of food. When i arrived in juneau, we immediatly floated to haines where i met with the seaba crew and the fort seward lodge . I was thrilled and exited , everyone there is hearthy, genuine and are characters. The guides, the cooks , the owners every one is the embodiement of awesome. There are no plain , boring persona. The fort seward lodge is unique and it is clear that you are here to ski. You could easily compare seaba/ fort seward lodge with chamonix. It has the same vibe the same kind of people. A skier’s dream. The first 5 days were shitty weather :we went slednecking , met with awesome locals. Chris was sick for 2 days which i spent making a cattrack with nick trimble (one of the owner of seaba) for future catskiing. When the first clear day came up, i was hired by guests to take picture of their day. That day was my first day skiing AK, my eyes wide open looking at the endless snowporn in front of me. . The second day, cab and myself were given a seat with 2 AK locals who come and ski here frequently. They are good riders so the pace is fast and the runs bigger and steeper. I am skiing the dream: Haines, AK. Cab is so stoked to see me having a blast . living the dream. …. But. Unicorns dont exist and the fuckin ridge broke off. In 3 seconds i fell off from heaven thru the 300 meter asshole of hell and with no rainbows. Its like a nightmare, an out of body experience. I could see my body bounce off stuff and fall thru darkness. Painless but frightening. Cab is dead. And im here in haines ak, in his house , in his bed, in the middle of his clothes . Broken up, heart broken and completly lost. I was not expecting a 7 days trip in haines. it was more a month worth of skiing a safer-than-cham snow heaven . but destiny decided otherwise i guess, the bitch. why so short? why chris?. WHY now?
The seaba crew and guests helped me a lot recovering, trying to see the light. I m poping oxy like candies. Drinking beers smoking. Trying to figure out what to do, what to think, what to understand. What did i learn from cab’s death, from that fuckin accident. Nothing really. Or nothing i didnt know already. I will go back to haines . To the fort seward lodge skiing with seaba. (well! without cab’s loving generosity it might just stay a dream. )
Time will take care of the my loss: Chris Cabanilla. my beloved friend. my brother in arms. it’s been way to short, i had important stuff to tell you . you had to show me your playground. fuck. it sucks. rest in peace.i am swimming in a dark cloud.
For now, i am trying to heal and I cant wait to get back on my skis and honor Chris Canabilla with skiing the rad and fast.
here are some pictures. unfortunately, i only had 2 days riding and i thought i had a months shooting lifestyle…so its limited to a few runs…
FLOATING FROM JUNEAU TO HAINES
christian cabanilla. floating juneau haines alaska
Christian Cabanilla floating -juneau-haines.
stylish cabanilla and his truck and sled.
David Sundnas
David Sundnas
David Sundnas
tom Konop
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
tom wayes
tom konop
tom wayes
tom wayes
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
christian cabanilla
this is the very last picture of Christian Cabanilla. we are both so stoked , this run looks sicko. we are going to get wasted tonight. 10 seconds later.game over.
what we fell down
heli ski with last frontier-bell2 lodge /elemental adventure . BC
Maybe some day i will be a rich photographer i will privatize bell2 for a shredced’s invitational. All my friends-superhero-riders /skibums will come in to ski hard and party like animals. like a real ski debaucherie of sort with DJ-turbo sound and shit. It is a perfect setting, everything is there: pillows line, giant mushrooms, endless ridge lines, couloirs, faces, manucured forrest, hot tub, party igloo, heli hot springs, lodge with 3 choppers on the parking, booze….drugs?…lost on a forrested higways miiiiiles -far far away from civilization. Ski all day howl all night. Perfect.
I didnt get any sunny days whilst there, yet i skied everyday …
The staff at last frontier heliskiing is awesome, from Joss giving a perfect race tune to your skis to the hot bartenders , the cooks making amazing food, the heli pilots fast and smooth, Jamie Whiteside the guide who plays guitar ,sings song and is just awesome, Michael Brackenhofer the Austrian head guide who will show you how to ski with good style or Mike Gajda who is cutting trees ( sorry weeds) on the ski runs so it skis better….
I was hired by dmitri volkov as his personal photographer, on the first 2 days his skiing was sloppy, i was getting very annoyed. By the 3 rd day his turns were getting sharper and his style was improving. His skiing was much better. if you want to improve your skiing you can hire me, i am pretty affordable…
Until then, here are some pictures. Most of which of helicopters my new found passion. Those things are sick!
La Palud.
2 laps on a perfect marbree with good people was a great way to end my winter13 part 1. part 2 will be heli skiing in canada and then… …Haines . Not much hiking/booting so far or in the next future aside from coke chute (east side cali) in november!!!! It feels OK! Not many ski pictures today. too cold-too fast and it is february the crowd is arriving, they are here….!
A good day in la palud starts with coffee
Seth Morrison is among us
This is Luca pandolfi and Davide Capozzi doing the avalanche control
Seth enjoying his first Marbree
A good day in la palud always ends with pasta under the sun or a giant pizza in town. red wine-beer -coffee and cigs…optional!
and this is Manu sporting some Gucci
Turn around part 2
Again today we had a dreamy objective: a nice Italian sunny high alpine scramble to the top of a wonderful snowy face. Our dream fell apart when we met in la palud with local Davide Capozzi and Fransesco who gave us a pretty grim picture of what went on here the last few days/hours…
At the summit , it was obvious we had to stick around the “safer resort”. Of course “safer” here is all relative; once here you are clearly attracted to “maybe” not so safe ground..we found good snow.
weather change
Due to high wind , we had to cancel our tour into the wild and big mountains and go for smaller but fun rollers. Unfortunately , it got hot and windy and les posettes powder heaven was more of a death trap. We (3 italian stallions, 3 hot chicks super riders and myself the hedonist…) got out of there safe we all enjoyed coffee, packed in my car (7 in the car) and skied le chapeau in variable conditions but safer. It might be the end of ultra powdery winter 2013 part 1. And we may start booting up and start getting edgy. I would love that before i fly to more arctic destinations…There wasnt much photo opportunities. i just took a few snapshot…
are you guys bored yet? of endless powder runs pictures? because …ha…i am not.
Those pictures were taken in the cosmique and rond.
freeride world tour Chamonix
the freeride world tour. Not exactly scott schmitt or glen plake definition of “ski libre” but more of a stunt show…really (really) strong athletes are throwing their bodies down a slope at mac2, no matter what the snow is and huck huge cliffs , trying to make it look good and fluid. Very hard and crazy!
Given the overly sponsored nature of the show, there were about 100 photographers sporting their newly high tech toys….so i didnt really try to take any pictures. i just snapped a few stolen shots.
girls peiing
Oakley and Ralph sharing a croissant !
An awkard picture of Drew Tabke. The man himself , the winner. He just flew down. tight and strong.
those are poles made by Oakley white-allen. I want those.
Drew Tabke. winner.
Doods Charlet, local hero. winner.
of the aiguille verte.
so this is what “freerider males” are summed up with: If you want freeriders males to come to your event, just throw average looking chicks inside a plastic bubble (a condom of sort?) , wearing trashy bikinis and have them dance on tacky techno…et voila! you will have a hord of testost-urinaited pigs drinking your tasteless beer and buying whatever shit you sell them! fail!…
to end this with beauty
Heli ski in a blizzard
Today Blizzard skis kept a seat for me in their Heli. as a photographer. I like that !
Cedric Bernardini 