In August 2014 a crew from HEAD snowboards crossed the Atlantic to test the 2015/16 Head gear in Las Leñas, Argentina, in search of southern hemisphere powder. What they found may not have been class A but it definitely put their creativity to the test. There is an old axiom that applies to all snowboard trips: “necessity is the mother of all invention”.


Las Leñas sits well above the tree line, maxing out at some 3,430 metres. You would therefore expect it to get slammed all winter long, as head did, but the altitude as well as the influence of El Niño makes conditions less than predictable. By the time team riders Graham Banks, Fredrik Evensen and Kazushige Fujita landed the snow was all but gone; or in Fredrik’s words “it was mad low tide”. This was the crew’s first to Las Leñas and even without snow they were blown away. “the terrain is absolutely insane,” said Graham, “if it was that much fun in super spring conditions i can only imagine how unreal it would be with powder”.

At times the thermometer maxed out at 25° C. The thing about chasing winter is that sometimes mother nature doesn’t play ball and you have to make the best of what you got. "Our guides “Avalanche Mike” and Javi did such a good job keeping everything super positive despite the less than perfect conditions,” recalled Graham. “but we had such a fun crew and Freddy and Shige are such talented snowboarders that it was awesome riding regardless of the conditions”. The dudes were able to build a few mini hits around the resort, even if the mountain fuzz shut them down on a regular basis.

But beyond the ropes there was plenty of hiking and un tracked, thanks to the argentines’ propensity to stick to the pistes and après bars. “too reach whatever that was left of dry snow we had to climb up to nearly 3,500 meter,” remem bers Fredrik “and for most of us coming straight from sea level, our mountain lungs struggled a little”. The going under foot was mostly ice and rock, no biggy for the crew, and the pockets and lines made the hike worth it. “i love hiking,” said graham. “i just put ke$ha on my ipod and pretend i’m in a club partying with her”. There were a few sketchy moments on the icy steeps remembered graham: “we got super worried at one point that our photographer (flo) had fallen, but he ended up being all good”. Whatever the conditions graham still got to film an episode of mtv cribs at the summit.

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