Words: Silvia Moser
In the Dolomites, my home mountains, there are still a few places where you can really feel a sense of space and silence within nature.
This is especially the case in the mountain range called Marmarole, which is the widest chain in the Dolomites and also one of the wildest due to difficult access and dangerous conditions in the winter.
A true Dolmitic sunset.
This past winter had finally been a good one at home, so after a number of years of waiting I made my way towards these incredible mountains with a film crew and great friends by my side. In my upcoming film, Space & Silence, you will see different people from my ski community coming together in one of the most unique corners of the Earth, sharing lines and turns, fires and plenty of cold nights spent in a stone bivy. There is nothing greater to me than coming together to share such moments, driven only by our passion for skiing.
The main idea behind this project was to discover this unique place and the possibilities on skis up in the Marmarole. We spent five days sleeping in a stone bivy with no heat, lots of food (thanks to the heli drop), and some wood to make a fire outside to dry our boot liners and gloves.
Home sweet home.
I found inspiration for this project in a way that may be a bit new in the freeriding world. After all of the losses I had experienced recently, this past winter was all about finding the pleasure of skiing for myself and overcoming some of the fears I had developed after my friends’ accidents. What I understood after that bad year was that skiing is maybe the only mountain sport where people at all different levels can enjoy the same environment together and share the same passion. In this case, there were professional athletes (myself and another local), my boyfriend (more “alpinist” style), and some other friends who hold ‘normal’ jobs but have huge passions for skiing and discovery. This place allowed us to enjoy the same space in different ways; some by searching out steep descents, some on more mellow terrain, some who wanted to hit jumps or others who were just there to ski tour around this stunning place to enjoy the views.
There is nothing “extreme” in this film; just a normal community of skiers having fun and discovering an amazing place that is just beyond their backdoors.
We were very lucky with the conditions on this trip. I don’t think any person or group has really got to settle in and explore this zone the way we did. We were treated to beautiful powder for the first two days, and after a strong wind storm made things a bit more dangerous we just took it easy and enjoyed the safe skiing around us.
The most beautiful thing for me about this experience was that we were literally alone in this place. Some days we would see some tracks near our bivy from an animal that might have smelled our food, but we were all alone in the heart of the Dolomites, soaking in the space and silence.
Watch the world premiere of Space and Silence on the evening of Saturday, July 7 at the Arc’teryx Alpine Academy in Chamonix. More information on the free Academy Movie Night: https://chamonix.arcteryxacademy.com/alpinevillage
