While “Two Italians at the top of a couloir” might sound like the beginning of a particularly bad joke, it’s in fact the prelude to “and then a massive powder avalanche funnels over the ridge and almost kills them.” Close. Call.

For those wondering, this was in the Canale Holzer – a pretty gnarly gulley (between 40-50 degrees of steepness) in the Italian Dolomites. You need to abseil at one point, which it seems these dudes were setting up for as the avalanche entered stage right. We’re betting the remainder of the descent was even more ring-quivering than usual.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a frickin’ crazy avalanche video, but this one more than makes up for it. The filmer’s bravery is admirable, but when you’ve got several thousand tonnes of snow racing towards you it’s probably best to leg it. Instead, he’s engulfed by the monster…

With conditions unseasonably warm across large parts of Europe, here’s a frightening reminder of the power of avalanches. Especially slow, heavy as hell ones that plow into running chairlifts. Mental…

The power of this heavy slab that ripped out the side of a face in Saint Francoise-Longchamp in the Savoie region of France is frankly awe-inspiring. How no one on the lift was hurt is a minor miracle. Take care out there.

And here’s the POV of some dude who was on the lift as it happened. Oh la la!

There’s a lot of snow out there right now. This bit of avalanche control bombing serves as a reminder of the awesome power of the mountains. Be careful out there…

4th – Dual Snowboards – WTF?!

The human mind is a beautiful and powerful thing, but sometimes it comes up with some really stupid ideas. One of these was put in to production. Yet still, as in May when we first posted this, we love it when they run…

3rd – Massive Russian Avalanche Video

From (badly applied) powers of the mind to the power of Mother Nature. And Russians with heavy artillery. Excuse the potty mouth but that was fucking mental.

- Come back for the two most popular videos of 2011 in a couple of days.

Another example of Russians using heavy artillery to set off ‘controlled’ avalanches. Holy crap, them Russians sure like cracking off terrifyingly enormous slides and just hanging about as the beast gets closer. Check this monster out!

A couple weeks ago we posted this gargantuan avvie from deep in Mother Russia. To be honest, that was better filmed but this one not only looks bigger, it’s got more shots of the Russians playing around with big ol’ guns, and the sheer size of this beast raging down the valley had us floored. We’d have been stood anywhere but there. Mental.

Well, as we mentioned in our Mt Baker powder post the US has seen some exceptional snowfall this winter. This means you have to be quite careful regarding avalanches. Always bring your beacon, probe and shovel. But if there’s one place you feel safe at it is your car at the way home from the mountain. Quite clearly, this was not the case for these guys in the Tahoe area. Craziness.

Watch this awe-inspiring video of a MASSIVE avalanche in Russia. With some snow now finally falling in Europe, it’s a timely reminder of the enormous power of Mother Nature.

Sure, this was triggered by some good old fashioned Russian military hardware, but holy crap that is one frickin’ monster of an avvie. We must confess, when we clicked play we were initially laughing at the thought of vodak-soaked Russians gathering around a massive cannon for afterski, but when the shell detonates and the avalanche starts fully rolling we were seriously worried this might turn into some Faces of Death-style horror clip. It just gets bigger and bigger and you really fear for the safety of the chuckling Russians…

Be aware out there. The mountains are more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

If you love freeriding, the backcountry and fresh powder as much as we do, we strongly recommend you to take at least some lessons in avalanche security and backcountry safety regularly.

For example with the Austrian alpine professionals from risk’n'fun, who still got some spots left for their next training session in Heiligenblut from February 28th to March 3rd.

For more info check risk-fun.com

Pirates Week winds down with the final three installments of their webisodes.

Aaaaaargh! It’s been a fun week of Pirating but as Yoda or the dude from the Karate Kid might say: ‘all good things must end, grasshopper.’  For the last day of Pirate Week we’ve got Sani Alibabic scrubbing one of his 9 lives as he’s buried by and avalanche in Austria, Hans Ahlund tackling a sweet roof gap/drop in Umeå, and Marco Feichtner and Bjorn Hartweger staying in the Krippenstein Lodge and scoring bluebird pow pow.

We’ll be swinging our eye back on the Pirates as soon as the teaser for their new shred skinflick, Hooked, drops in a couple of weeks where we’ll showcase that bad boy and also have an interview with Captain of the Pirate ship, Basti Balser. Till then, keep them timbers shivvering and drink more rum.

Sani Buried

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Hans Roof Drop

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