It’s been a bit of a road trip since the contest in Chamonix took place. Right after the Chamonix I found myself packing once again to head to Courmayeur to watch the men’s third stop of the Freeride World Tour. I wanted to cheer on Reine and my friends. It’s always a good time to be able to watch all of the men’s runs!

Reine getting interviewed after his run in Courmayeur

After Courmayeur we had to some how make our way to Munich for ISPO. For those of you that don’t know what ISPO is it’s a much larger version of SIA the winter sports trade show that is held in the U.S. However we soon realized the morning after the contest that we had no actual plan for getting to ISPO. We had a crew of four, myself and Reine, fellow American Matt Annett’s and another Swedish Freerider Erik Sunnerheim. After many hour of trying to work out a plan and seeming to come up short the whole time we were fortunate to find help from the French! Julien Lopez, Seb Michaud and Carl Guichon were kind enough to squeeze us and all or luggage in three cars so we could make our way to Chamonix to pick up a rental.

Since it took much longer than expected to get on the road we all decided to brake up the trip a bit and get some skiing in Engelberg, Switzerland. It had been snowing there and were hoping to get some good powder skiing in!

The snow was great but visibility was far from good. We did find one spot that was so much fun even though we found ourselves lapping the same area over and over. It was nothing crazy but it felt so good to get some freeskiing in. Despite the high costs of Switzerland Engelberg seems like a great place to come back. I recommend you check out The Ski Lodge for a place to stay, or if your like me and that’s a bit rich for your pocket it’s worth stopping by for a some Apre Ski…

http://skilodgeengelberg.com/

A few days later we finally found ourselves in Munich, Germany for ISPO. I personally am not the biggest fan of cities but it’s sometimes nice to get a change of scenery. At ISPO I had a chance to check out the sweet new Kastle skis for 2013 as well as get to meet some of my new sponsors. Over at Helly Hansen I was able to get a look at their new line. I’m definitely looking forward to getting some of the new gear!

Happy models at the Helly Hansen fashion show!

After ISPO it was straight to Garmisch, Germany for the night to say hello to my good friend Marja Persson. Then off again the following day to Innsbruck to stay with one of Reine’s friend Floh. Next stop after that was to Lech, Austria. Reine had to meet up with Dynastar to try out some new skis. I got to do some amazing powder skiing as well as check out the Kastle Mountain Museum that just happened to be at the top of the mountain in Lech!

Kastle Mountain Museum, Lech Austria

Chris Davenport, Kastle Pro Team

After a great day in Lech it was back to Innsbruck to pick up some new skis from Kastle. I’m pretty excited to try them all out and play around on some new skis! They all look like a ton of fun! We spent some days in Innsbruck and checked out one of the local ski areas called Kuhtai. Despite the extremely cold temperatures it was a great time. We found some good snow and saw some amazing views down in the valley. The mountains around the resort look like they will make for some great touring. I definitely want to make my way back to that area sometime soon. The friends we were with told us that area is known for some great touring and is only accessible by human power, so despite a few skin tracks the area remains

pretty untouched.

The view from Kuhtai

Now I find myself in the Zillertal valley in Austria. It’s a down day and the plan is to head out tomorrow to get some jumping in at Mayerhofen and a chance to try out my new back country freestlye skis from Kastle, the West’s!!