KORUA Splitboard Weekend: Minus 17 Degrees, Dead Batteries and Piz Buin

When I think of the KORUA Splitboard Weekend, one thing comes first: frozen fingers. But it was a huge amount of fun.

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Why KORUA

KORUA Shapes is a well-established snowboard brand that has deliberately moved away from the mainstream – away from park and all the rest, back to classic carving and free riding. Their shapes are different from other brands. For me personally, they build the best snowboards on earth. I have big feet, I’m a big guy, I only ride big boards – and KORUA’s are perfect for me.

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The climb

KORUA makes splitboards as well as snowboards – and since the guys are out in nature a lot anyway, they built an event series around it. Ischgl was a good starting point, because you can go up very high by cable car. Otherwise you’d have to hike the first part, around 1,500 meters of altitude – tough if your endurance isn’t there.

From there it was about another 1,000 meters to the summit: Piz Buin. It was truly beautiful up there. We slept in a hut near the Swiss border. Which in plain terms means: switch off the internet – very important, or your mobile provider surprises you with a nice bill at the end of the month.

We had two mountain guides on the team who gave us avalanche training. The hut served a very good dinner, breakfast was strong too, and over the next two days we explored the surrounding mountains – day tours. The really fit ones did two in a single day.

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Back to the cold fingers

One day it was minus 17 degrees plus wind. I had an older Sony with me and six small batteries – one in the camera, the others the whole time in the inner breast pocket of my ski jacket. The camera wasn’t the problem. The batteries were.

They didn’t die, but they were always empty within 15 minutes. Or rather, they weren’t empty – they were just cold and stopped delivering power. Think of old iPhones switching off the moment it gets cold. The funny part: warm the batteries with your body heat and they’d run another 15 minutes. So I changed them every 15 minutes. Exhausting – but worth it.

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What became of the photos

There were so many shots, you can hardly imagine. The editing took me forever. KORUA originally wanted to use the images to promote the next Splitboard Weekend – which then had to be postponed because of Corona. We were in Ischgl at exactly the moment Corona hit the place. Luckily we were far from the touristy spots and never came into contact with anyone infected.

The participants got their photos a week later. Everyone was overjoyed, many printed them and hung them on their walls. Now we’re waiting for the next Splitboard Weekend. Hopefully soon.

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So long,
Nikolay Keller