On the 23rd of February, 2014 the time finally came: for the first time that season we had top weather and snow conditions in Hoch-Ybrig Switzerland, our home resort. The conditions were ideal to establish the largest and most legendary backcountry kicker in this region.
Accompanying me that day were the snowboarders: Mike Knobel, Deniz Cinek and Philipp Schicker. Since we had built this spot in previous years, we knew exactly how to calculate the distance from the take-off to the landing. To build the jump, we shov-elled snow for around four hours.
For this photo I chose my Canon 5D Mark III with a matching Canon 70-200 2.8 L telephoto lens. I put the shutter speed to 1/2500 in order to capture and freeze the energy of the perfect moment. Combined with a large aperture of 13, the sun's rays are perfectly reproduced in backlight.
Thanks to a superb leap, Mike Knobel earned the best photo of the session. Philipp Schicker unfortunately had less luck – for him it was not only the first backcountry session of the season, but also his last, since he sadly injured his foot.
He was taken back to the valley in the dark and in the deep snow on Deniz’s back. Sometimes good and bad luck lay within each other’s proximity; a year earlier my photo of Philip at the same spot earned the cover of TransWorld’s photo issue.