4 Nitro Snowboards
Nitro Snowboards 5 ELIAS ELHARDT The most dangerous place on earth Bill Clinton
6 Nitro Snowboards ELIAS ELHARDT
Nitro Snowboards 7 Carry a Snowboard, instead of a gun. Snowboarding in the Himalayas is something you always dream about, but never think you will experience because of its remote location from the general snowboard world. Last winter this dream became a reality for professional Nitro snowboarders, Elias Elhardt, Marc Swoboda, and myself (Nitro Team Manager wanna-be professional Knut Eliassen). We were going heli-boarding above 5500 meters within the world s highest mountain range. The only catch to this opportunity of a lifetime was that we had to snowboard in a part of the Himalayas - Gulmarg. Kashmir which was declared by form US president Bill Clinton the most dangerous place in the world. Kashmir is a country controlled by India s military and it is landlocked between, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China. After thinking over the situation and the consequences of going to Kashmir to snowboard in the highest mountain range in the world the boys decided it was well worth the risk of entering an active war zone. The dream trip was finally set in motion and after months of planning we set off to the last place we ever thought we would go snowboarding. As most of you know, bringing snowboard and filming/photography gear to a normal ski destination is hard enough with overweight luggage restrictions, and just dealing with ignorant security people at the airport. Imagine bringing all your snowboard gear, avalanche bags with CO2 cartridges that resemble bombs, drones for filming, and video cameras that look like high impact machine guns into one of the most active war zones in the world. It is not easy and you sweat a lot. The drone we used for filming was the worst, because everyone thought it was a spy drone from Pakistan and we were using it for recon. Once we arrive at the one of two heli operations in the mountain range, Kashmir Heliski, we all thanked god we made it in one piece through the countless military controls and crowds of people who wanted everything and anything from us. As you can imagine the mountains and snow were breathtaking and impossible to describe with words. The state of Utah s license plates say Utah Best Snow on Earth, well they are going to have to change that because it s in the
8 Nitro Snowboards KNUT ELIASSEN & MARC SWOBODA KNUT ELIASSEN Himalayas. Our first day out snowboarding we stumbled upon the very first Himalayan Banked Slalom contest and we had to sign up this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Elias Elhardt was the Victory, probably because he had just come from the Legendary Banked Slalom straight to the 1st Annual Himalayan Banked Slalom. We spent the next 7 days snowboarding down everything we could fly or hike to before the sun set. The combination of the undeveloped terrain, culture, military presence, sky-high mountains, and snow monkeys created an environment that was surreal. There were moments when we would be snowboarding when you could see a guy with an AK 47 with the safety off, monkeys playing in the trees, and grown men riding 100-year-old homemade sleds all at once. I know for a fact that this is something you can only experience in the Kashmir Himalayas. Kashmiris living up in the mountains are very humble and outgoing people, even the military guys with their live weapons would say hello and crack a smile. They seemed to be very hap- py that people were coming from all over the world to experience the beauty of their home country. Despite being in an area 50 km away from where they found Bin Laden, we felt extremely comfortable while snowboarding and walking around the area I never once felt in danger or uncomfortable up in the mountains only in the larger cities of Kashmir. Maybe we were just being naive and trying to focus only on the good parts so we could feel good about enjoying our dream trip, and did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation that Bill Clinton called the most dangerous place on earth. I would still recommend anyone looking to have a snowboard and lifetime adventure to go check out the Himalayas in Kashmir. One quote that stuck with me from a Kashmiri snowboarder we met at the start gate of the 1st
Nitro Snowboards 9 Himalayan Banked Slalom is: Kashmir is becoming a better place one snowboarder at a time, because my friends and I choose to carry a snowboard instead of gun. This guy gave us hope that Kashmir was changing for the better and will soon be one of the safest places on earth. ELIAS ELHARDT ELIAS ELHARDT & KNUT ELIASSEN