Blimey, its only a month until Kaunertal’s Spring Classics gets underway. The weather has been a bit menstrual these last few weeks, chopping and changing it’s mind as and when it fancies and there’s just no reasoning with it. By mid February we were rolling around with half a tan on our faces and skipping through puddles on the way home from the hill, and now that it’s march we’re back to extra layers and down jackets. Huh, whatsupwiththat? If it weren’t for the afternoons getting longer, anyone could forgive us for wondering had we accidentally skipped a page on our calendars. And then along comes good old Kaunertal to remind us that spring first brings slushy park laps and before anyone worries about the end. Fear not, you gloves will soon have that familiar suncreamy barbecue stench we all know and love, until it festers in your board bag all summer long and won’t wash out in October. Here’s what Kaunertal’s got in store this time around:

From 13 April to 20 May 2013 the Snowpark Kaunertal opens its doors for the Spring Classics 2013. Over this period of five weeks the Spring Classics offer a top snow park and various funny events. Better be there!

You are up for varied creative lines, smooth obstacle landings and lots of sunshine? The Spring Classics are just around the corner. From 13 April 2013 to Whitmonday 20 May 2013 it is going to be a wild one at the Kaunertal Glacier. The snow park still offers a two pro kicker line, two medium kickers and 21 jib obstacles in total. Over five weeks the crew daily shapes and regularly rebuilds the park setup. Brand new at the Snowpark Kaunertal – from now on the whole park area owns free WiFi.

This springtime several events take place at the Kaunertal Glacier. The Spring Classics 2013 program:

In the previous season-flow Mother Holle has taken a bit of time. But during the last days it was
working out and a lot of new snow has come down. Till December the snowpark at the Kaunertal
Glacier, Tirol will be open and there are several innovations for this season you can be excited
about.

Motivated to go shredding? Then better have a visit at the Snowpark Kaunertal! The snowpark is placed at
the same location like in the last spring season. During the past days the whole glacier was being covered
with fresh snow. The depth of snow is more than one meter. Right now there are perfect conditions for the
Schneestern shapers who have timbered a sweet park setup. So finally two medium kickers, one pro
kicker coupled with various rails, boxes and the new jib tank invite all riders to test and measure the
obstacles this weekend.

And that´s not all! The triple-headed shape crew will put up with it and build the second pro kicker and
further obstacles in the coming days. Brand-new in this season – free WiFi all over the snowpark. Not bad
- post your snapped photos on Facebook and watch the newest clips directly in the park area!
From now on all skiing lifts are open for people who want to ride the slopes.

Sunshine, hard-fought contests and relaxed park action is the best way to sum up the 27th Kaunertal Opening!

Last weekend the Snowpark Kaunertal officially started into the new winter season with testival, contests, side events and parties and truly stoked out thousands of snow-addicts, jibbers and party animals.

With blue skies and sunshine the Kaunteral welcomed its visitors already on Friday for the opening of the Snowpark and the start of the winter season 2012/2013. Weather conditions over the previous days resulted in an unexpected challenge for the Snowpark-team, which was handled with many nightshifts and heaps of working hours. They succeeded in putting up a small but very fine park with rails, boxes and a kicker, which was pretty entertaining over the 3 opening days.

The true highlight of the weekend was the KTO Pro Contest on Saturday, where snowboarders were batteling for a total of 7,000 USD prize money.

The first ranks in the snowboard divison were quite tight, as expected, and last year’s winner Eric Beauchemin (US) was challenged by riders like Jamie Nicholls (GB) and Nuutti Niemelä (FIN). For sure the judges had a hard time to award this fat lump of prize money, but finally it was again Eric Beauchemin who took the shot followed by David Loibl (AUT) and Ryan Hryckiewicz (US). 15-year-old Rowan Coultas (GB) won the best rookie award. Elena Koenz (CH) crushed the girls event, leaving rank 2 and 3 for her competitors Anna Gasser (AUT) and Birgit Rofner (AUT) dominated the snowboard ladies division.

Of course, the pro contest wasn’t the only highlight for the shredders. Friday was full of rail action presented by downdays.eu and Snowboarder MBM at the glacier restaurant, where fame and honour was rewarded by countless soft and hardgoods provided by all testival partners. The overall winner was snowboarder Klaus Lotto.

New this year was the KTO Photo competition powered by Sweet Protection, which awarded the best pics of the Kaunertal Opening with a complete Sweet Protection outfit.

The ams also got their fair share of action on Sunday, where they had the chance to share the same battlefield as the pros on Saturday. The amateur snowboarders causes the judges some headaches, but finally results placed Thomas Wolf (A) in first position, followed by Benno Postert from Germany and the Austrian Dominik Metzler.

Over 35 brands were also part of the game: everything from boots to boards to goggles to protection was explained and handed out to the shredders for serious testing. No questions left on what equipment to use for the next winter.

On Friday and Saturday evening an action-loaded program on the mountain was completed by a banging party in the valley. On Friday night loads of party animals celebrated until early morning with Golden Reef, AG Trio and DJ Dan in the party tent in Feichten. Lipstick Productions and Junkies on a Budget also presented their latest movies. More sick riding action was shown on Saturday by the Pirate Movie Production and Legs of Steel, before the party marathon peaked with quality tunes presented by Yambalaya and the Wax Wreckaz and of course the main act Mono & Nikitaman.

All in all a pretty successful KTO Opening 2012 that only could be commented by Stefan Richter from the Kaunertal Glacier with the following: “With the current snow situation we have succeeded to built a perfect park set-up for the KTO. The weather forecast predicts plenty of snow for the coming days so we will be able to open the big snow park next weekend.”

As always, the show must go on, so save the date for the obligatory must attend happening of the 28. KTO 2013 from 11th to 13th October next year.

Action-packed season start at the 27th Kaunertal Opening kicks off next week. Peep the deets.

Next week thousands of shredders will take over the small village of Feichten in Kaunertal for the 27th time and welcome the new winter season 2012/13 with a big bang from October 12th – 14th.

Next Friday the long months of waiting are finally over and the Snowpark Kaunertal invites shredders to officially start into the new season. A broad action programme on the mountain accompanies the happening as well as hot live acts at the party tent in Feichten.

Julia Baumgartner

CONTESTS & OPEN PARK ON ALL 3 DAYS The program on the mountain holds something for everyone – on Friday it’s the jibbers turn to show their skills at the rail session presented by downdays.eu & Snowboarder MBM on the rail directly at the glacier restaurant. Saturday’s highlight will be the pro contest which holds a prize money of total USD 7.000. So not only “being part of it” will be the day’s slogan when nice pocket money is up for grabs at the beginning of the contest season. To not only give nominated riders a chance to compete in the pro contest we have saved 2 starting spots for wildcard winners. To grab one of those wildcards, people have to post an action shot of themselves on the Snowpark Kaunertal Facebook wall and motivate their friends to like the pic .. those snowboard pictures with the most likes until Tuesday October 09th 1 pm are the lucky winners to battle the Pros. More information about the wildcards on: www.snowpark-kaunertal.com and www.facebook.com/snowparkkaunertal.

Test site

On Sunday the contest action continues when all motivated riders have the possibility to show their skills at the amateur contest. They will ride on the same line as the pros – so exciting tricks for the audience are guaranteed.

Good news for all those, who don’t care much for a contest – there will be a separate contest park so the main park will be open for everyone during all 3 days and has a whole bunch of different obstacles for all riding levels to offer. Amongst others there will be 2 medium kickers that can be combined with diverse rails and boxes in one run. In the long jib line obstacles like downpipes, one straight rail, one kinked rail, one straight box and many other fun options can be used in various ways.

Partyzeit.

3 DAYS FOR FREE MATERIAL TESTING Numerous freeski and snowboard companies will bring their latest products to the testival at the KTO and give everyone a chance to test boards, skis, poles, protection and much more on all 3 days for free. So for everyone who is not sure yet what to buy will definitely be after the KTO. So you’d better take the chance to find your perfect winter.

LIVE ACTS & MOVIE PREMIERES The action continues in the evenings with the newest movies from the freeski and snowboards scene and great live bands! On Friday night you can expect hand-made guitar music by Golden Reef, dirty electro-house from Austrian AG Trio as well as sophisticated mixes from DJ Dan (Texta). Riding inspiration for the next day will come from the ladies from Lipstick Productions and the guys from Junkies on a Budget.

Saturday night promises not less noise and party when Yambalaya enter the stage and no other than Mono & Nikitaman take over with their raggae songs and ragga-dancehall beats. It’s the Wax Wreckaz privilege to close the night with their unique mixes of raggae, hip hop and electro. Movie-wise Legs of Steel and the Pirate Movie Productions will show their newest flick of their travels from last season.

Find more information about the program and news on: www.snowpark-kaunertal.com and www.facebook.com/snowparkkaunertal

The Kaunertal glacier team and partners are looking forward to a fulminant kick-off to the season 12/13 with the legendary Kaunertal Opening!

Last month we hit the road in our trusty Wicked campervan to be part of the crew that descends on the sleepy Austrian village of Kaunertal every year for the legendary annual UK Snowboard test. It was a sick week of park shredding, goggle tans and campfire ramp parties, and when it came to the DC/Whitelines/FBBB rail jam, the UK massive threw down to make it one of the best jib comps in living memory. If you weren’t there, check the evidence!
See you next year. forget it, regret it!

Young British buck Will Smith’s got the lick on rails. Check him crushing the jibs in Kaunertal at the recent UK Board Test.

Most resorts have shut up shop by now, but not Kaunertal. Spring’s the time when shit starts rocking on the Austrian glacier and the park’s already open with kids shralping the hell out of the features. Check what’s up…

Shot on what looks suspiciously like a telephone, you can nevertheless see that there’s some goodtimes to be had up the Kauner Valley as a crew of locals get intimate with the jibs, the kickers and the pipe. We’ll be heading over in the next couple of days, and even though this edit is verging on ghetto it’s got us pumped on strapping in and shredding the spring slush…

Does the guy in the background possess a giant gun-shaped cock?

Last week we buggered off to play some football in Austria. And who would have thought: We made the finals! Sadly, nobody cared to sign us for a professional club so on Monday it was all back to the usual drag. Usual drag? Not quite, since we knew we’d have to compile a unique 8-day-TWIS, full of the best internet links on snowboarding. And here it is!

FRIDAY

We interviewed Euro Gap 3 filmer Jaakko Itäaho, Marie-France Roy is a cool chick, Rip Curl release their Welcome Home 2 teaser, Jamie Nicholls had fun at the London Freeze, Mortal Wombat is a solid full movie from Finland, ESPN talks about yellow bananas, the Mustachio posts a very lo-fi vid of the Shaped Jibfest, and Kevin Backstrom knows his Mayrhofen…

SATURDAY

Nick Niebes‘ video part goes down quite well, and Yobeat rejects a lot of edits.

SUNDAY

Euro Gap 3 is released online and it is pretty, pretty good, Have Some Boarding have a clip of the Motown Throwdown, the Shredniks hail from East Germany, people in the Midwest keep slaying rails (as in this Standard Recreation flick), and the Mustachio compiles a cool Variety Pack megapost.

"What? You said we'd go on a shooting!"

MONDAY

We post the Nitro Roadwarriors full movie, and we play football and wear Nike boots, The Pirates enter the webisode game with their “Pirate Logs” (and so does the Kaunertal with their “Parkflicks“). Nicolas Müller’s NowHere part gets remixed, Relentless promote their finest asset: Jenny Jones, Tim Humphreys talks about his TWS cover, the Angry Snowboarder posts NuuLife’s No Joke full movie and the lowdown on snowboard flea markets. Speaking of NuuLife, here’s a behind the scenes edit. Yobeat sums up all the rail jam madness in the US, Whitelines post an interesting TTR vid on juding. High Guality is yet another free full movie from Finland, Keystone opened last weekend, and for whatever reason, Swiss website twoleftfeet.ch posts the Snowboarders in Exile teaser from 1990.

TUESDAY

Jake Blauvelt and Lucas Debari zigzag through Absinthe’s Flipside episode 4, The Gun Rack Pack is Swedens answer to the Party Snake, Wappulounas is the Finnish answer to a question that has yet to be phrased, TWS posts Gigi Rüf’s entire Alaska footage from 9191, Fluofun created this edit of Gigi’s Nike Snowboarding football tourny (where we made the finals), oh and Nike 6.0 launched this staircase thing, Erin Comstock is the star in this Roxy webisode,, Snowboarder Mag has a thorough report of the Queen City Rail Jam (includes a video), Rhythm Snowboards has fun in the sun at Mt Hood, then there’s the ‘Peach Hat 2 Full Movie‘, the IOC will look beyond FIS events, Jeremy Jones digs the Wedding Singer, Joe Sexton hits a 12 kink, and 686 teams up with Suicidal Tendencies.

WEDNESDAY

Frames is possibly the slowest snowboard film ever made. We dump the full movie Dump Em Out on our website, and post the Finnish flick Wannabe, too. JP Solberg and Tadashi Fuse for sure know how to ride pow. Here’s Ryan Paul’s part from Poachers 10, the Frends go NASCAR, Cheers go behind the scenes at Bear Mountain, Copper is open, Eric Willett shows you how to do a proper back 9 (though he’s a switch rider), Mike Ranquet talks about misguided talents, Forest Bailey isn’t sponsored by Saab (yet), and it takes a lot these days to film for Videograss.

No gloves, no plan, no problem.

THURSDAY

Process Films release their über-epic first A Shot in the Dark teaser. TWS has a nice Deeper sneak peek (although you could just get it for free with our latest issue), Banshee Bungee release and epic promo vid, Hood is where the heART is, It’s on Tape is yet another free movie, Sani Alibabic quits his snowboarding career, and Chris Grenier knows how to ride a rail.

FRIDAY

The Commotion full movie is fairly dope, as features half of the Gnarly crew. Here are Sorsa’s, Eliassen’s, Grenier’s and Arnold’s full parts from All Plugged Up, this is Bone Zone’s second episode and here’s Kaunertal’s third Parkflicks pisode, we’re stoked on ESPN being stoked on Stoked, Jeremy Jones is not stoked on dirty words, Salomon has more behind the scenes footage of Jamie Nicholls and Jenny Jones at the London Freeze, Burton does some weird shit, Johan Bergkvist isn’t too bad at riding but Jake Black is also quite good, the Ästhetiker shred their home turf, and the Pirates go Iceland.

Don’t forget: If your board sponsor dropped you last season, don’t sweat it! That’s it for now, see you next week!

The infamous Austrian season opening is gearing up to rock out on its 25th anniversary.

This Friday, October 15th, the Kaunertal glacier will celebrate its 25th opening and welcome shredders to the snowpark opening and the start of the winter season 2010/2011. Well-known pro riders have already confirmed their attendance at the contest and the snow park, testival area, parties and concerts will offer full-on fun for three days in a row.

Top riders confirmed

Also in 2010 we are happy to have already confirmed many pro riders, who will be taking part in the BIG PARK minishred Pro Contest and fight for USD 7.000 purse. The 10 ‘Lucky Ones’ in the snowboard contest, who were chosen from the amateur contest registration, can get ready for a heavy fight.

Watch out for the Pirate Gerome Matthieu who is also last year’s winner overall and very eager to take home the prize money once more. Some other top names, however, will try prevent that happening and with Peter König, Alessandro Boyens, Benny Deeg, Mario Wanger and KTO best rookie 2009 Tor Lundström in the starting field we can be looking forward to an exciting contest. Conny Bleicher and Tini Gruber will be competing too – there’s gonna be no easy rides in the girls’ category either.

Park info!

There is also some good news about the snowpark. All season long the fresh set-up is going to provide the perfect ride with two jib lines and a kicker line. While the mini shred comes up with tons of playful jib options and two new butter boxes, the big obstacle line is going to score with a brand-new double kinked rail and another up-down combination for a playground with thirty obstacles on the whole and fun guaranteed. Two innovative “surprise obstacles” will complete the park pleasure for the Kaunertal Opening. Beside the new facebook site www.facebook.com/snowparkkaunertal the new website www.snowpark-kaunertal.com will go online in October with movies, photo gallery, news and much more about the snowpark.

Side events at KTO!

In the testival area more than 30 companies with nearly 50 brands will be giving you the chance to test their brand new stuff for 2010/11. Besides that there will be the Rail Session presented by Gloryfy, downdays.eu and Grounded Freestyle on Friday at the Gletscherrestaurant Weisssee. The rail will stay there for the remaining weekend and be ready for everyone to jibb. The guys from Air2Bag by Air(Bag)Patrol will be ready at your disposal for jumping their colossal airbag and a less risky training on Saturday and Sunday.

Full information on: www.kaunertal-opening.at