This winter I got the opportunity to travel the world with the Swatch Freeride World Tour by The North Face. It was an amazing few months, jam-packed with travels all over the globe to Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada, Courmayeur, Italy, Chamonix, France, Kirkwood, California, Fieberbrunn, Austia, and Verbier, Switzerland. The schedule was crazy, and the jet lag took a while to recover from, but the experiences of travel, freeriding, snow, and events were unbelievable. I cannot wait for what 2014 has in store for the FWT. Now I have a few free months...

In the past view weeks spring has finally arrived here in Austria, the cold and snow has vanished of our valley grounds, uncovering the near by blocs in the Ötztal from their hibernation... I personally love winter for all it's beauty and pleasures it offers here in the center of the Alps, hiking up the mountains and ride powder really can catch up with climbing that's for sure! But at the same time I can't wait to escape the crowded and dusty gyms and go climb for real again as soon as the local crags are on. ...

Last weekend, I participated at my first world cup this year in Imst, Austria. One week after the European cup.I liked the comp even if I noticed that I need more power and strength for performing. Nevertheless, I climbed well : I got stopped because of time in my first route, not far away of the top and that's what I didn't get to the semifinals. Time really became a limiting factor and the way you get to the top doesn't matter any more. It's seems that the rules want that we climb fast but that the beauty of...

Footage of sending "La Coka Nostra" V12 in Oetztal, Tyrol, Austria this spring. It's an amazing compression bloc reminding me of some blocs I did in Rocklands...

First descent. These words always sound a bit strange in the context of mountain biking but have become regularly used when it comes to bike alpinism, bike mountaineering or whatever you want to call it. All these terms try to describe the adventurous combination of high Alpine mountains and self supported trail riding. You can become addicted to this type of mountain biking, always in search of higher mountains, steeper and more technical trails or simply some mountain nobody has ever been to with a bike just to make the first descent.

After two weeks of being in Rodellar and climbing some amazing rock Alex, Josh, Nick and I took a flight to Zurich and drove to Imst, Austria for the Youth World Championship. We picked up Danny Aleowski and Alex Fritz and took a 3 day detour to the Zillertal Valley, an amazing climbing area in the magnificent mountains of Austria.