All photos: Moritz Waas

In skiing today there is an (over?) abundance of great content. The past few days have seen the release of the unbelievable new Keeshlife movie, Quinn and Ferdi's 'Capeesh?' and, of course, the new Traveling Circus Russia episode. In such a glut of content, it's easy for even significant projects to get lost, especially if they don't have the well-known names behind them. And to me, Stanice shows that doing things differently is possible, and that is too important to be missed.

Most thinking people agree that the world is facing significant environmental challenges and that humans are, at least in part, the cause. NS member @Lonely , posted a great article the other day about how he is trying to reduce his environmental impact, with some tips for others too. He highlighted travel as one of the areas he's trying to reduce his impact. Stanice highlights the fact it's not that hard to reduce your impact on that front to extremely low levels, without sacrificing either your skiing experience or even the ability to explore new places.

Many of us are coming to experience what the Swedish have dubbed "flygskam" (flight shame). Last year, I quit flying within Europe despite spending half of my time living in London, and half in Switzerland... and having a job that requires a fair amount of travel. I took the train from Switzerland to Kimbosessions in Kläppen and have been using trains to commute between the Alps and the UK for more than a year now (PSA UK/Euro guys: Buy an Interrail ticket and it's cheaper than flying once you've paid for bags, you barely need to book in advance and you can take as much stuff as you want). And I'm not the only one. Quite a number of the Kimbosessions crew this year rocked up on trains rather than planes. I even met Rosina Friedel, who also stars in Stanice, en-route. But the el.Makrell crew took the concept even further with Stanice, filming an entire ski movie powered only by their Interrail train passes.

Their journey, which started in their home of Innsbruck, took them through Eastern Europe and the Balkans by train, where they explored relatively untapped areas with huge skiing potential if you hit it right in terms of conditions. The crew definitely managed that, stacking both street and powder clips with the unique backdrops of a very different winter environment. Pow stashes were accessed with some lifts, but largely by skinning, again reducing the impact. There were a couple of very cramped taxis involved, but by and large, this film was about as green as it gets for skiing.

As people have rightly identified, all of us who ski but care about the environment are hypocrites. All of us in the western world really. But that is no reason or excuse to do nothing, to make no changes to our behavior. I found Stanice inspiring because it shows that you really can have a proper ski adventure with your friends, without the need for environmentally (and financially!) costly transport. Fire it up and enjoy, and maybe, just maybe, get inspired to find a way to have an adventure of your own without hopping on a plane... I know I did.

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