Winter Sports from Above

To get a sense of how drones are revolutionizing the way we can view action sports, check out this magnificent video from the French Alps by new AirVuz contributor maximemoulinfilm.  The subject of the piece is Sam Favret, one of France's top freeride skiers.  The video captures him seemingly flying down a mountain in the Aiguilles Rouges, a massif of the French Prealps which is situated across the Chamonix Valley from Mt. Blanc.  This video earned a nomination in the Extreme Sports category at the 6th NYCDFF.

Top AirVuz contributor JAZ used a drone to create this mini-documentary covering a dogsled race in the Alps Mountains.  The event is called the La Grande Odyssée Savoie Mont Blanc 2020, and it's been held on the slopes of the tallest mountain in the Alps since 2005.  The race involves teams of 14 dogs and covers a distance of 900 km (around 560 mi.) in France and Switzerland, with a total altitude change of 25k meters (about 82k ft.).  This video earned a NYCDFF nomination in the Narrative/Documentary category.

The mountains of the Southern Alps on the South Island of New Zealand provide an abundance of recreation for its winter season.  Top AirVuz contributor and travel blogger YoumiTrip caught the highlight of winter fun when he flew his drone over the 'mad spring party' known as the Mount Hutt Snow Palooza.  Revelers cruise their way down the ski mountain either via snow kayaking, proving that the winter in the Southern Hemisphere is not to be missed. This video was a Drone Video of the Month Staff Pick.

New AirVūz contributor and drone pilot nightvision brings us this epic aerial film of fat bike riders in Zermatt, Switzerland. Zermatt, which is located in southern Switzerland’s Valais canton, is a mountain resort renowned for skiing, climbing and hiking.  Using a variety of techniques ranging from filming on skies with a handheld gimbal, drone shots, and some time-lapse, nightvision was able to capture the moonlight in the swiss alps. This video earned a Drone Video of the Week nomination in January 2020.  

Yes, you read the title correctly: jetskiing in 20 degrees Farenheit weather.  Lake Superior is not warm even in the summer months, rarely exceeding 60 degrees Farenheit.  In the winter months, well, let's just say it's cold.  But not too cold for contributor Andrew Achter and his friends, who attend the University of Minnesota Duluth.  They took a jetski out on the Duluth Harbor when it was plenty cold outside but the lake was still jetskiable - that is, before it became completely frozen for the duration of the winter. 

If you think rock climbing in the Alps would be challenging, how about climbing an iced waterfall.  Really?  Contributor Enrico Pescantini used a drone to film a climber scaling the Cascata di Cambrembo waterfall, one of Italy's largest, in its frozen state during the depths of winter.  The waterfall is located in the Italian Alps in the Lombardy region of northern Italy.  Despite its copious water flow, during the frigid winter months it completely freezes, allowing it to be scaled like a rock cliff. 

AirVuz contributor Geoff Kyle has made a career out of big mountain freeride sledding. His tours take other snow seekers throughout Whister on sleds and snow bikes. However, the team in this video are no amateurs - they're team iRev, a group of people that love anything to do with motors and revs. Watch them rip down, around, and over the mountain in this Drone Video of the Week nominated video.  It was shot at the Whistler Ski Resort in British Columbia, Canada, about an hour drive north of Vancouver.

What is snowkiting?  You'll find out when you watch this drone video by Rocannon.  Snowkiting is like kiteboarding except it's on snow instead of water. And what better place to practice an extreme winter sport than in a far northern corner of Russia.  The video was shot on the Kola Peninsula, which is best known for its main city, Murmansk.  It's almost completely within the Arctic Circle, and the waters of the Berents and White Seas freeze up, making this the land of icebreakers and snowkiting! 

Check out this amazing drone video of the world's largest ice fishing contest, compliments of contributor Blaze.   An annual event for almost thirty years, it's held on Gull Lake near Brainerd, Minnesota.  One of the premiere lake recreation areas in the Midwest, the area has become a year-round destination with events like this, in which thousands compete.  Footage from this aerial shoot was used in an episode of the TV series Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which aired on HBO in February, 2019.  

The San Juan Mountains are a high and rugged range within the Rocky Mountains of the western United States. Located in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico, the San Juans played a huge role in the gold and silver mining booms that were critical to the history of Colorado and indeed of the entire American West. Now known more for their fresh powder and fantastic ski conditions, you can see the range in this dynamic drone video by talented AirVuz contributor and drone pilot HAYDEN KAST.

Winters in Scandinavia can seem endless, and many Scandinavians have developed ways to make the elements work for them.  Witness this fantastic first person view (FPV) video from contributor and FPV pilot karlsson on the roof.  It captures a winter version of windsurfing on a very frozen Lake Saimaa in Finland.  The lake is enormous, covering 4.4k square km (1.7k square mi.) in the southeastern part of the country.  The temperature during filming is reported at around 0 Celsius, but that's before the effect of the 20-30 knot winds.  

Michelle Kwan is considered the top American figure skater of her generation.  Retired since the mid-2000's, she has two Olympic medals to her name in addition to nine US and five World Championships.  One of the most popular female athletes of all time, she went on to serve as an American cultural envoy under two different Presidents.  And can she still skate!  Check out this stunning video of Ms Kwan by top contributor Fit Lam Studios, who filmed her skating on a very frozen White Bear Lake just north of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Action sports and first person view (FPV) drones is one of the best combinations that this industry has to offer! In this edit by top drone racer and FPV freestyle pilot JohnnyFPV, watch as he follows some of the world's best freestyle skiers at the Audi Nines competition at the Sölden ski resort in Tyrol, Austria.  This amazing FPV film was nominated for the AirVuz Drone Video of the Week Contest in the Spring of 2018 and was our Winner in the Extreme Sports category for the 2nd Annual Drone Video Awards.

Given it's long, cold winters and countless lakes, it's not surprising that Sweden punches way above its weight in the field of ice skating.  Whether it's ice hockey, figure skating, or simply cruising around for fun, skating is almost in the DNA of this Scandinavian country.  And what better way to capture Sweden's skating scene than with a drone?  AirVuz contributor and pilot Alyzzer does just that in this marvelous drone video, which was filmed over a glass-smooth and very frozen Swedish lake.  

Former Drone Video of the Week winner and Drone Video Award nominee ZilverSchmitz brings us this beautiful video from the famed ski resort of Les Arcs in the French Alps.  It's located in the town of Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the Savoie Department.  Situated in the Tarentaise Valley , it's one of the original mega-resorts of the French Alps.  It consists of five separate ski areas, each of which corresponds to a different base elevation ranging from about 1.2k meters above sea level (around 4k ft.) to to around 2k meters (about 6.6k ft.).  

Check out these insanely cool drone views of a very skilled snowmobiler tackling the slopes of the rocky mountains, compliments of AirVuz contributor Matt Baker.  The footage was filmed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Located in the northwestern corner of Wyoming, Jackson Hole is situated between the Teton Mountains and the Gros Ventre Mountains of Idaho, both of which are part of the broader rockies chain.  Once fairly obscure, in recent decades the valley has emerged as one of the USA's top winter sports destinations.  

The Iditarod  is an annual long dog sled race that is run in early March from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska.  Mushers and their 14 dogs cover the 1.5k kilometer (938-mi.) span in an average of 8-15 days. The race began in 1973 and is thought to honor the group of mushers and dogs who saved the city of Nome when a diphtheria epidemic threatened the city in 1925 (an event which was made famous in the film “Balto”). See the amazing Iditarod from a drone in this video AirVuz contributor and pilot JAZ.

We don't even know what to call the extreme sport depicted in this first person view (FPV) video by AirVuz contributor and FPV pilot TomzFPV.  Maybe kite-skiing?  It just looks dangerous and wickedly fun, and the only way to film it is the way he did - with an FPV racing drone.   Watch him chase this very brave skier down a mountain, as his subject alternates between "regular" back-country skiing and literally flying down the slope.  We had a hard time deciding whether to be impressed more by skills of the skier or the quad pilot!   

The Pyrenees Mountains, which act as the natural boundary between France and Spain, contain some amazing ski spots.  Though not as tall as the Alps, they feature incredible groomed runs and freeriding opportunities.  Case in point is this drone video from AirVuz contributor and drone pilot WildWorld.  Shot with a DJI Mavic Pro drone and a GoPro ground camera, the video captures some epic freeride skiing in Vallnord, a resort in the tiny country of Andorra which sits between France and Spain.

Contributor nicolaf degauls created this stunning drone video of Mt. Faloria in northeastern Italy. It's part of the Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy's most well known ski area, which is situated in the Belluno province of the Italy's Veneto region.  Cortina d'Ampezzo has appeared in numerous feature movies (including in installments of the James Bond and Pink Panther series), and it also hosted the 1956 Winter Olympics.  At the Olympics, the Men's Giant Slalom event was held on the slopes of Faloria.

Cross-country skiing is an activity that has been practiced in one form or another in Scandinavia for thousands of years.  While the sport - in which the skier uses primarily their own power rather than gravity to move - has spread throughout the world, northern Europe continues to be its epicenter.  In this drone video by roylac, you'll get an aerial view of a cross-country skier in Venabygd.  The area, which is home to numerous cross-country trails, is part of Innlandet County in the country's Eastern region, north of Oslo.