February 21, 2024 • 46 mins
29-year-old Carmen Verdeyen, is a Product Manager for a medical corporation in Chile, and a Certified Ski Instructor, Kitesurfer, Snow-kiter, and co-coordinator for snow-kite camps in Chile. She also serves as an organizer for competitions with South Kite Sessions and aspiring Olympic athletes in Chile. Carmen takes us inside the amazing world of Snow-kiting.
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Outdoors People TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Outdoors People Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
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(00:00):
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We make no recommendations or endorsements forradio show programs, services, or
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(00:20):
W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoorsPeople with Me. CW Getz and her
Maya mar Zaki. Good evening.It's Wednesday, February February twenty first,
(00:54):
twenty twenty four. Sorry a littlelake, kids, we had a little
technical issue. Yeah, I tellyou bye. Coming back from cation.
How are you feeling about this?I mean, it's just it's like everything
is new and different, and producerslike, c W where's the episode description?
I'm sorry. Really, it feelslike a new job, right the
(01:17):
first day in your new job.If they were the case, I'd be
fired. I would be fired onmy first time. I'm glad you write
a boss. Oh my god,me too. Me too. How are
you doing down there? How's yourhow's thing that? Hey, how's your
weather? I want to know thatbecause we get some spectacular stuff. I'll
tell you about a second. Ohyeah, well it's summer here pretty much
(01:40):
like always. So it is areally beautiful sunny day with twenty three degrees
cells shoes and it means seventy degreesfahrenheit. Perfect. I mean, it's
absolutely That's about the way I leftit when I was in because I was
in Brazil or most like the mostof the month of January, and tell
(02:02):
people, because I didn't want tocome back and have everyone like my furniture,
you know, like, okay,advertised he's gone. It's okay,
come on, he lives alone,so it's cool. Noo, no dog,
you know, I'm good, right, But I really enjoyed my time
in Brazil. And and I haveto mention this. So there are two
(02:25):
young ladies. When I was inthe airport in Brazil and in s Paulo,
I have a hard time finding thelittle tiny, little teeny tiny English
in the on the science, youknow, and it is about that big,
by the way, I'm not makingthat. And I happened to be
doing okay, getting so well.Actually, no, that's not true.
(02:46):
I was in the wrong line tobegin with, and people go and I
said, hey, man, isthis the line for this? And they're
not speaking English Man, but youknow, they're doing their phones like in
the Google and I'm doing my Google. But at some point they sent me
around the corner. I ran intothese two young ladies and they were pushing
wheelchairs and I asked them, Isaid, hey, do you guys you
(03:07):
know doing my phone? And theyalways speak a little the one speaks a
little leaders they speak a little less. But those ladies helped me. I'm
talking. We must have walked fortwelve fifteen minutes to get to the next
part. Yeah, and I totallywould not have done that on my own.
I totally would have been lost.I would have been on the plane
to like Hong Kong or something.Oh my, I'm telling you, you
(03:32):
are unreal. I hate. Iam so happy that I always find angels.
I'll just like to playing follow littleleader. I don't like being in
charge to myself. Can't I can'ttrust me. But these two young ladies,
they had to take their people inthe wheelchairs up to the plane or
(03:53):
up to the gate and they saidwe'll be right back. They didn't come
back for like twenty minutes, andI was kind of faking. I go,
I'm gonna be late for my plant, freaking out, and they did
tell me they go, well downthere is where you need to check in,
and I going where So I justwent that way and lo and behold
they showed up after about ten moreminutes and it was running nip and tuck
(04:13):
to missing my plane. I gotto the gate. These ladies escorted me
the whole way to my gate andeverything. I was there five minutes before
we started boring very close. Oh, I told you, I want to
mention your names on the radio,and it was these two young ladies wonderful
and thank you again so much,Kaitlyn Battista and Olivia Cap. I hope
I said that that Cap. ButI'm telling you, next time you're in
(04:36):
So Paulo, just on by theairport, gr you and and thank those
ladies in persons for a minute.Okay, I'm sure I'm going to do
that because the airport is so small, right, it's so easy to find
people in there. Monster. It'sa monster, it's crazy, But I'm
(04:59):
sure you. That to me isyour your flight and stay more in Brazil.
You did. I'm sure that thatwas on the way there. That
was just of the trip. Ihad no problem the way back, well,
I won't say that either. Ihad a little problem and again,
uh or maybe it was Miami,I don't remember. It was all a
(05:20):
big blur on the way back.But it met some wonderful people Brazil.
We did some hiking through the rainforestand it was just a marvelous time.
I really really enjoyed everything. SoI didn't get to see you. We
were hoping to do that. Yeahit didn't. Yeah, I'm very sad
and I'm very sorry. I reallywanted to see you, but it didn't
(05:43):
work out for me. Zio wasa little bit big, right, it's
a little big, and I actuallymore and very much a little big.
Yeah, it's a little bit big. But I'm glad. You had a
good time, and I'm sure youwere in a good company and you had
a good time. And it isimpossible do not have a good time in
(06:03):
Brazil, because here it is justamazing place, which is like paradise,
paradise with perfect food. The foodwas amazing, the people were amazing.
I don't think I met a Idon't think I met one jerky person when
I was down. And you cantalk to anything, yes, because if
we didn't manage, right, ButI mean anybody, I mean you could,
(06:26):
You could talk to anybody. Anybodywill talk to you there. You
know that's nabby like up here inthe United States. And I do say
that that's true. It is adifference. There is a difference, kids.
Yeah, sixty two degrees fahrenheit herein north central Illinois seventeen degrees sells
is for the rest of the freeworld. And I'm telling you it's it's
(06:46):
weird. It's a weird weather year. Yeah, that's very warm, a
far winter, right. Jane sentme a picture. Janell sent a picture.
She's in bare feet yesterday and she'sin Canada. So that's very weird.
It's your times, people. Ithink the world is coming through an
end. I really do believe that. Yeah, true. Unfortunately, Well,
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twenty nine year old Belgium born medicalproduct manager, certified ski instructor,
kite surfer in snow kier, CarmenVerdeon aka Cardimensia is I hope I did
that right? Is also a coordinatorfor the snowkite camps in Chile. She
also serves as an organizer for competitionswith South Kite sessions and aspiring Olympic athletes
(07:33):
living in Chile. As part ofTeam Chile, Carmen won back to back
titles as national Female Big Air Championin twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three.
In twenty twenty three, she placedin the top five for Formula kite
at the Pan American Games, alongwith winning the national female championship for Formula
(07:54):
kite. Today, Carmen Verdeon takesus inside the amazing world of snow kiting.
Boot the storm, the storm,the storm stand start stastorm stuff fast,
(08:41):
dost the storm stops faster StAst thestorm bo stuff fast boost West,
storm staffast booster wester storm standards fastAnd with that, Welcome to the show,
(09:05):
Carmen. How you doing awesome?Thank you, thank you super glad
to be here. Well, we'reglad to have you here. And you're
only like three hours ahead of us, so it's not like one o'clock in
the morning there, that's good.No, no, no, it's eight
seventeen pm. So I'm in thesouth of Chili. Right now, and
the days are super long, soit gets dark at like nine thirty ten,
(09:28):
so we still have a light today. But it is rainy here even
though it's summer, it's currently raining, so we're kind of good with a
snowcutting theme. It feels kind oflike it's winter right now. Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of what Brazilwas like. It rains every day and
(09:48):
time of years. Yeah, buthere because it is too warm, right,
so rains every day. But Chili, Chili is much like colder than
here, so it's weird. Yeah, in the central region right now,
it's like thirty five degrees, it'ssuper warm. But in the south we've
(10:09):
had a lot of like warm days. But every i don't know, fifteen
days or so it rains a littlebit, just so that there's a little
bit of water so it's not toonot too hot. Yeah, well you
grow grow, yes, exactly,they do, they do. And talking
(10:33):
about that tiny wondering watch weater whatseason is better to kite surfing Chili because
it is almost cold right, soin summer we do a lot of kite
surfing on the water. So inthe ocean, on lakes, et cetera,
we generally use a wet suit obviouslybecause the water is quite cold,
(10:54):
as you mentioned, So with awet suit you basically think kite probably from
September till April, and then therest of the season. So when it's
winter we actually snowkite, which iswhat we're here to talk about today.
So probably from June, depending onthe season. Obviously there's seasons where it
(11:18):
snows earlier and some seasons later,but approximately mid June till end of September,
sometimes even later we snowkite in today. Cool and how and when did
you first start with snow kait jingbecause I have never heard about before you
that's what. Yeah. So actuallyfor me, I started kite surfing a
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long time ago, like twelve yearsago, and I skied also, probably
even more like fifteen sixteen years andI'd never really combined the two until about
three years ago when I met agroup of like friends that I have in
common with. Georgia who is thefounder of snowkited Chile, invited us to
(12:09):
a snow kite camp and so forme, it sounded amazing. I was
like combining two of my favorite sports, kites a ring and skiing sounds fabulous.
So I went to this camp whichwas in the south of Chile h
and that was the first time thatI practiced snowkiting, and also where I
met my current boyfriend Giorgio, whois the calendar of snowkite Tilla, and
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so basically that was the first campthat he'd organized, and then from there
we kind of started the project togetherand started creating more and more camps and
every year we're doing about four tofive every winter now and so we take
people to different places in the southof Chile to experience a little bit snowkiting.
Yeah, you know, I tellyou snowkiting sounds. I mean,
(12:58):
I'm thinking about two s which,by the way, I went skiing one
time and I'll never do that again. Didn't have a great experience, but
i will tell you something. I'mlooking at the skis and I'm thinking I
watched you know, kite surfing iscool. You if you wipe out in
the water, the water is prettyreasonably soft, depending on how you hit
it, of course, but ifyou've got skis and your I mean you
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can't. You can pop off thatboard, that kite what board you use
for kite serving pretty easily, butyou got skis, and if you get
twisted up and tang on, youland wrung. I'm imagined it's pretty easy
to get. Am I right aboutthat. I mean, obviously you have
to be careful, but I guessit's kind of like skiing where you can
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also twist the leg and it obviouslyhasn't hairened dangers. But in general,
I would say it's not h Ifyou're careful and follow all of the procedures,
the safety procedures, it's it's prettysafe. We generally do it on
more powdered snow, so like softerwhen it's recently snowed. That's like the
(14:05):
ideal condition. Or in spring whenyou have like the watery snow and it's
already like quite warm outside, that'salso like really good conditions. Obviously,
sometimes you have ice when it's icy. Obviously we try and be like extra
careful and maybe not jump as muchbecause you know the landing is going to
be hard. All the powdery stuffsounds fine, that sounds great, even
(14:31):
the slushy stuff, But man,I'm thinking that hard stuff because that's most
of what I see people skiing isreally hard stuff, you know, I
know they Yeah, yeah, well, I guess that's one of the things
as well. So we do snowcutting like outside of ski resorts, so
not really on like flat and terrain. So generally it's like off pieced places
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where there's no ski resort or anything, so it's it's not like groom slopes
virgin snow. I love it.Oh my god. So how long is
kit I'm sorry, snowkiting been around? I mean that's kind of something new
we new. Well actually surprisingly not. So actually I went and researched a
little bit because I didn't actually knowwhat the origins were, and so surprisingly
(15:18):
it's actually been around for longer thankitesurfering. So people started doing snowkiting on
snow before they did it on thewater. So there's like records with people
in like Germany, Austria, Switzerlandin like the nineteen sixties fashioning kind of
like their own type of kite andthen like finding wind and trying to use
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like these homemade kites to travel forlike farther distances kind of because one of
the things that we also do alot is like you use ski touring to
kind of go where there's more windand then the kite is like a compliment.
So if it's windy, you cango a lot farther than you would
if you were just ski touring becauseobviously the wind it makes you travel a
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lot faster. So basically, peoplein like the nineteen sixties were already using
like homemade kites to kind of beable to travel farther distances in a short
period of time. I'd say.However, like the more modern version,
it's kind of been like an evolutionslowly over time. Obviously, like more
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gear has come out, and thekite companies have like focused a little bit
more on this area, and nowyou have foil kites which are like specifically
made for snow kiting. So it'sdefinitely something that in recent years have kind
of picked up more attention from likethe general public and from kit serve manufacturing
(16:51):
companies. So nowadays you have likea kite that is specifically made for snow
kiting, which yeah, exactly cool. Yeah cool. I would never imagine
that. And how how are thatthose differences between the kite from the snow
kite and the KRT surf. Yeah, that's it's a really good question.
(17:15):
So basically, when you have thekite that's for the water, you inflate
it, so it's like this inflatabletwo that you pump up with a pump
and it stays inflated. With thesnow kites, they're foil kites, so
it's kind of more like than yeah, like a paragliding sale exactly a word
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in English, So it's like aparagliding sale, but smaller. So it's
like the size that we use wouldbe eight meter squared or eleven meters squared.
Those are like the two most commonsizes, and so basically it's a
foil kite. So it's just likeone layer of material. Since obviously you're
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not in the water. If itfalls, it doesn't matter if it's only
one layer because in the water,if it would get wet, you wouldn't
be able to lift it anymore.But since you're on the snow, you
don't have a problem. So it'sonly like one layer of material. And
one of the differences is that thesekites that are made more for like exploring
on the mountain, they have afifth line. So normal kites they have
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four lines, or like kite linesthat are connected to the bar, this
one has a fifth one. Whyso the reason is that when you reached
Because these kites, you can usethem to go uphill. So basically what
you do is you always try andfind the wind that is going uphill.
So this creates an effect where thegravity is going down, the wind is
(18:45):
going up, and so the kiteliterally is like a personal lift and it
doesn't take you straight up to themountain. Yeah, yeah, it's really
cool. So basically you have likeyour personal ski lift to go wherever you
But what happens obviously is at thetop of the mountain the wind is a
lot stronger. So for safety reasons, when you arrive at the top,
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what you can do with these snowkites is you can eject them. That's
what it's called. So you releasethem and they just collapse. They go
like in accordion, they go likethis and they fall onto the snow and
they stop pulling you. So it'sbasically like an extra safety measure. So
if you reach the top of themountain, you can just eject the kite,
it closes, falls, and thenyou just don't even have to ask
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help from anyone. You can justroll it up yourself, put it in
your backpack. It weighs like twokilos, so it's very light. The
idea is that you can just likeput it in your backpack, go ski
touring, if there's wind, pullit out, So that's kind of the
idea and what you So basically,yeah, it's basically has this really important
safety measure that you can lift ityourself, collapse at yourself, put it
(19:56):
away whenever you need to ski down, which is something that the normal kites
don't do because since they're inflated,it's always going to keep its shape and
it's going to keep pulling you ifyou reach the top of the mountain.
So it's basically like designed kind offor safety reasons and practicality reasons, designed
for the mountain. Another difference issince you don't have to inflate it,
(20:19):
you don't have to take your pumpwith you. So for anyone who kit
serves, you know that you needto inflate your kite with a pump.
And the pump is pretty big andit also weighs a lot. So yeah,
if you're going key touring, youknow you don't want to have a
pump in your backpack and a bigkite plus all your you know, gear
(20:41):
for extra layers and whatever. Elseyou're bringing with you, so you want
to try and be as light aspossible. You know, let me ask
you this. I mean, allthings considered, which one is more challenging
snow kiting or kite surfing. Imean, I know that probably one is,
maybe not as dangerous is the other. Maybe they're both, But which
(21:02):
one is? I'd say for peoplewho know how to ski your snowboard,
snowkiting is easier to learn because youalready kind of know everything from the waist
down. And the difference is you'restanding on a solid ground so you're standing
on snow, or you're already standingup well in the water, you're obviously
(21:26):
like in the water, and youhave to learn how to stand up with
the kite. So that's one thingthat in the snow you don't need to
do, which makes it easier.Plus another difference is that in the water,
a lot of times, like ifyou lose your board, you need
to learn how to body drag andget back your board. In snowkiting,
obviously that's not a problem because you'recompletely like strapped into your snowboarder ski,
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so you're you don't need to learnhow to like recover your board, which
is one of the more annoying thingsto learn when you're learning how to kite
serve. But that being said,I always like to make this comparison,
like kitesurfing is more two D,so it's like you're going in a straight
line up and down. The wanedsnow kite is more three D because you
(22:11):
have the extra dimension where you're goingup a hill and down a hill,
and so it's kind of like youhave this extra dimension to play with.
That's crazy. I mean, Ijust think that would be so weird and
you get to I know me,I can see me at the top of
the hill, I'm gonna forget that. What is that one, the ejector
thing that you call, Yeah,the exact Yeah. Yeah, it's kind
(22:33):
of like when we were skydiving theyyou pull down and be flair. Yeah
yeah, I could see me forgettingto do that and then I'm like flying
off into the wild blue yonders.I just can see that. Yeah,
that's that's kind of true because Isaw the video in the beginning of the
show and I was like, ohmy gosh, if it's just like fly
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away, so it's impossible. Butat the same time, was like it
must feel so good, feeling offfreedom like real because being in the mountain
itself it is amazing, but youare there pretty much like flying, but
in the snow. At the sametime. I don't know, it seems
(23:17):
like so amazing and I'm wondering howit actually works, like how you do
that, how it works, youknow, like how you go there and
how you choose places. I don'tknow how it works, like in general.
Yeah, So I mean obviously veryimportant to like read all the weather
(23:41):
conditions, right, So for thistype of sport, as I mentioned,
there's like so many factors, soyou have to read the snow report,
the wind report, and then alsokind of look at the direction of the
wind, which is also important.So we generally use like snow forecast to
see what the weather is going tobe like, then we use windy to
(24:02):
look what the wind is going tobe like, and then we use either
Google maps or fat maps to seewhat the direction of the wind is going
to be. So based on allthese factors, you kind of decide what
the best spot is going to befor your expedition. So generally you're always
looking for wind that is ascending.So going up the mountain that's what you're
(24:26):
looking for. And so basically,for example, with fat map, it's
like a three D map, Soit's really good because you can see like
what direction the wind is going togo, and based on that kind of
make a decision of where you're goingto go that day, which is obviously
something that we also like decide whenwe do Stokeye camps. And then we
(24:47):
share this knowledge with everyone who's atthe camp and we kind of say like,
okay, like this is what theweather forecast says, this is what
the wind forecast says. So basically, like looking at these things, we
try and make like help people learnhow to read the report and later be
able to make those decisions by themselveswhen they go on expeditions for example,
(25:11):
with friends or when we're not around. So that's part of what we do
in the snow kite camps as well. Basically to start, we generally find
like an area which is flatter,so not so mountainous kind of for people
who are beginning, right, Sothe ideas that you in the beginning can
find kind of a flatter area sothat you get to get used to the
(25:32):
kite, understand how it works,and kind of get a good feeling for
what the sport is like, andthen slowly, as people kind of get
more confidence and they start improving intheir abilities, we start looking for like
small hills to practice on, andthen obviously with time, as you get
better and better, you can kindof like go and start exploring and going
(25:53):
more into the mountains and finding newspots and et cetera. So one of
the things as well as as youmentioned, is like this flying, So
basically, like in the water,when you jump, I don't know,
you jump two three meters, andit's kind of like you progress, like
the better you get, the higheryou jump. But in the snow,
(26:15):
it's not necessarily like that because likesince you're on a mountain, if you
jump here, you can't fly backwards, so you kind of the longer you're
in the air, the higher you'regetting because you're going farther away from the
mountains. Yeah, so that's alsoone of the reasons why generally, like
when you're starting, you stay onflatter terrain, and then as you get
(26:36):
better and better, you start likegoing further up mountains and exploring a bit
more and learning like how to controleverything properly. So that's definitely a safety,
a safety precaution. I can seeme screwing that up. What do
you think, Maya, you cansee me after I was good. There's
two things I want to know.First of all is like what places around
(26:59):
the world is snowkitting most popular.But I also want to know there's no
skis in or there's no poles involvedin this? No, so yeah,
good question. So when we're skitouring, generally we have poles because it's
a lot easier to ski tour withpoles, but we generally use like these
retractable poles ski poles, so youthen just like collapse them and you put
(27:22):
them in your back back when youlift you up your kite. Yeah,
And in terms of locations, reallyyou can do snowkiting pretty much anywhere where
there's snow. So for example,in countries like Norway and kind of North
Europe where it's not that mountainous butthere is a lot of snow, it's
quite popular. But for example,in the US, I know there's quite
(27:48):
a few places. In France there'sa place that's quite popular as well.
And here in Chile, I thinkmore and more people are starting to get
into the sport. And the goodthing here is we have a lot of
volcanoes in the south and so thesevolcanoes generally like they're quite open, so
there's not that many other mountains around, so that means that there's generally quite
(28:11):
a lot of wind. So it'sreally here in Chila. We're starting to
explore more and more. And it'salso great uh sports since obviously in most
of these places there's no ski resorts, so it kind of permits you to
go to these insanely beautiful locations andexplore in a different way. So you're
(28:32):
definitely growing in South America as well, so you're going to have it down
there in Brazil Mine. I thinkthat's pretty cool. Hey, it's cool
because you know, you don't havea way up the mountain. There's no
ski left, there's not a skiresort, so you have to these kites
pull you up the mountain. That'sreally cool. How you know it takes
(28:52):
you a luck time to get outthere. By the time you got there,
yeah, I love it. That'samazing. And I love it because
usually I walk to the top ofthe mountain or I climb, but I'm
really interested in go up with thekite. Sounds really nice. Actually,
(29:15):
yeah, we always like we kindof go past the people's ski touring and
they're always looking at us like,oh what, like they're going so quickly,
that's so fair. Yeah, it'sdefinitely a massive plus if you enjoy
like ski touring and going up upmountains. It's definitely a really useful tool.
(29:36):
There you go, man, Yeah, I'm booking. I'm happy.
Yes, we'd be happy to haveyou. And are there any animal events
for is no kiting? So yeah, there's there's actually one really famous race
(29:56):
which is in Norway. It's calledrang Rock. It's actually been around for
quite a while, so it's probablylike the most famous snow kiting race that
there is here in Chile, wehave an annual snow kite Fest as well,
which is kind of like it's morea festival, so it's kind of
there's competitions and people are learning howto snow kite and it's on a flat
(30:21):
a flat plane. So we havethat event every year as well, and
I think there's also they're starting toorganize kind of tournaments that are more like
federated, so it's kind of it'sgrowing. I think last year was the
first year that they did these kindof more. The International kite Boarding Association
organized some more like federated events indifferent locations. I think it was Italy
(30:47):
and France. So it's definitely growingin terms of events. I think rang
Rock is still the most prestigious,the most It's been around for quite a
while, so that's definitely like inthe snow kiting community is like the uh,
the biggest, coolest, most I'venever been, but I would love
to go. I think it's inMarch if I'm not mistaken. So yeah,
(31:11):
if you get the chance to goto Norway to run Rock, definitely
go. It's really cool. There'salways like lots of kites and it's really
colorful and yeah, so I've seenI've seen videos, but I've never been
myself. Very cool. Well,we're winding down on time here because we
got started a little late, butwe're gonna take a look some photos.
But before we do that, I'mgoing to ask you this, people that
(31:32):
want to go snowkite I mean,it looks amazing, it really does.
Even though I'm not a skier,it just looks fun. You can see
yourself flying through the flying through theair. But what should people know I
mean, or what should they dobefore going snowkitting. I mean, you
don't just go somewhere and rent asnow kite and figure it out. I'm
sure you're gonna want some training.I'm sure, yeah, I think for
(31:56):
sure, I think definitely, Likefine, there's more and more instructors that
are giving lessons and snowkitting always welcome. Here in Tile we do snowkite camps
where we basically teach people all fromzero to one hundred, so we definitely
do that as well. A bigrecommendation though, is if you want to
(32:19):
try snowkitting, the best thing isto at least have like a basic level
of skiing or snowboarding first, justbecause like you're adding an extra element.
So if you don't know how toskier snowboard, it could be pretty pretty
tough. So I'd start with skiingor snowboarding first. In terms of if
you have your own kite from thewater, you can definitely try it in
(32:40):
the snow as well, but probablybest on a flat terrain, not going
up mountains right away or anything likethat, but definitely a good like starting
point to get a feel if youlike the sport or not. And you
can definitely always look for school nearbywhere you live where there's snow or for
(33:00):
example, I know that in certainplaces where they practice a lot of snow
cutting, there's always like, uh, an organization that does camps or or
training clinics and that kind of stuff. So that would definitely be my my
recommendation. Very good. I'm gonnasay hi to some people here before we
do our photos. Must Mina Erickson, Nick Cole bar and is it?
(33:25):
I am? I am? Canyou talk? How do you say that?
C a n ut? Oh?And she actually she said, in
rock climbing, we have grade levelsthat define the difficulty of the route.
Uh. Do you have something likethat in snoke? Good question? You
(33:49):
love it? Yeah, So notofficially, there's not like or like,
for example, in skiing you alsohave like black piece, red piece.
Uh. Since you're kind of likeon the mountain open range, there's not
like a specific like grating level oranything like that. Obviously, higher mountains,
(34:09):
more inclination, more difficult. That'sdefinitely like one way that you can
kind of measure difficulty. Also,it depends a lot on the weather conditions.
So for example, the wind directionof the wind strength, can also
be a big factor in how difficultthe terrain is, which is obviously something
(34:30):
that changes day to day. Soit's kind of like you have a mountain
that maybe one day in certain winddirection is a lot easier than in another
day with a different wind direction.So not any official type of measuring system,
but obviously there's like factors that youconsider to see what's more difficult and
(34:51):
what's easier. So it is prettymuch about surviving, no having Lucia,
When is the snow snowkite fest inChile? You did? Did you mention
that? Yes, yes, thereis one in Chile. It's generally in
(35:12):
August, so obviously it depends kindof year to year and weather conditions,
but it's almost always like the secondor third weekend in August. Very good,
Well, that's good to know.Absolutely all right, Uh let's uh,
let's see those. Let's take alook at those photos before we have
to say good evening. Get someof those here there we go so bad,
(35:38):
Look at that. Yeah, it'sthe last Snokau camp that we did
in last season. And this isin Volcan Yaima, so it's in the
south of Chile. It's a beautifulvolcano, and so this is at the
top of kind of another mountain abit earlier before the volcano with our group.
(36:00):
So we had a good group ofpeople who came to the to the
snow kite camp. That's amazing.Oh my god. So this picture basically
chose it because the person who ison the snow kite is going uphill.
So that's kind of what I wantedto show here is that you really can
use the kite to go up likedeep slopes and it really really pulls you.
(36:24):
So that was one example of likea terrain where we would go and
then the more like beginner people wouldstay on the flatter bit and as they
get better and better kind of likestart exploring further up up the hill.
Oh my gosh. That's so Mainlyso this is my boyfriend jo Yo's coaching
(36:45):
me. This is in actually oneof the snow kite fests, so he's,
uh, well, he taught mehow to snowkite, and it is
also very very good at the sportand always is is helping everyone, including
myself and getting better and improving.Oh my gosh, rockstar. Yeah,
(37:17):
So this is basically wanted to showthat there's also another element in snow kiting,
which is more jumping, so it'si think more similar to what kitesurfing
in the water is like. Soyou have come freestyle competitions, for example,
which are generally on flat terrain,and it's about jumping and doing tricks
and all that stuff. So that'sdefinitely something that is also part of snow
(37:40):
kiting. So it's like a differentfreestyle side of snow kitting. So here
we have another one of our studentslearning how to snow kite. So for
example, this hill, the onein the back, is also one that
we It's a place where we govery often to snow kite, and so
(38:02):
the hill in the back is oneof the ones that we do all the
time. So you can go allthe way up and then you can ski
down with the kite. So youcan, for example, like leave it
quite loose and ski down with thekite, or you can eject it,
put it in your backpack and skidown normally, or what some people do.
(38:22):
Personally, I'm not that adventurous.There are people who jump from the
top all the way down too.Yeah, it's kind of like spit flying.
But yeah, obviously it's the kitesmaller, but yeah, that's for
the not faint of heart. Sohere we're ski touring to basically a place.
(38:51):
So generally when you start the expedition, you're in a place lower and
there's for example, a lot oftrees, or for example, the wind
doesn't really quite reach where you are. So here is, for example,
with our group, we're going skitouring to like a section of the mountain
where there's more wind and more openspace. And as you can see obviously
(39:12):
there's like some people who are onski touring. Other people are using rackets
with a snowboard on their back,and then you can also see that everyone
has like or you can't see becauseit's in their back back. But so
the snow kite is really small andso it just fits in everyone's backpack.
So that's kind of we're sharing there. That's pretty cool. My gosh,
(39:35):
that's a great So there's your deal. This is also during one of the
type best in one of the freestylecompetitions, so also you can do it
skiing. I'm a skier. Iknow how to snowboard, but I love
skiing. Skiing is like for onehundred percent sure feel more comfortable. So
I generally snowkite skiing, but youcan also do it with a snowboard,
(39:57):
so just basically whatever your pres diferences, both are possible. That's very cool.
Here's one of our students, likeone of the first lessons they would
have snow kiting. So always wealso use climbing harnesses, so you can
see in the picture as well,we're using like a very lightweight climbing harness,
(40:21):
which is something that people who areinto the mountaineering in the mountaineering world
kind of have with them anyway.So that's kind of another benefit is that
you're using gear that you would usein the mountain on other in other sports
and occasions as well. So yeah, that's cool. Cool. So this
is Coraco in Tilt's a ski resortwhich they actually have like a designated snow
(40:47):
kiting area. So for example,there are places ski resorts in Argentina.
There's another one as well that havelike designated snow kiting spaces. So for
example, here right next to theski resort, they have like this big
plane where it's kind of common tofind people snow kiting, and it's it's
(41:07):
like a place where they encourage peopleto try this war. So this is
me skiing down the mountain with thekite. So, as I mentioned,
you can also leave the kite inthe air when you're skiing down and you
kind of just like leave it alittle bit looser so it doesn't pull you
(41:30):
and you can kind of ski downwithout poles obviously, and then when you
reach the bottom, you just immediatelyhave your personal lift to go back up.
That looks like an a picture thatwe'd see on snow kite magazine.
R. I'm just saying, rightlike, yeah, that's very cool.
(41:51):
Thanks for sharing those pictures. Sonice, so cool. I'm dying to
try that. I'm not kidding,all right, it's feeling in faith,
aha, and I and I Iasked one to put that up. I
think that's a very you know,it's feeling in faith. Pretty true,
I'd say, so. Yeah,I love And those are awesome pictures,
(42:13):
by the way, and thank youso much for sending those to us,
and great job explaining them to appreciatethat. Happy, happy to share and
uh great great work on doing thosepictures because you are on the teatures yeah,
so uh, Carmen, where canpeople find your online? Yeah?
(42:37):
So we have an Instagram page whichis specifically for snow gutting, so it's
called snokey Chili without any doubts oranything, just one word. So basically
there we have lots of like pictures, videos. If you're interested in kind
of understanding a little bit more aboutthe sport, definitely there you can find
lots of material. Also if you'reinterested in coming to one of those snow
(43:00):
camps. We also post all ourdates and things there as well, So
definitely if you're coming to tile inwinter, definitely recommend super experience, great
way to kind of immerse yourself inthe nature of the South of Tiler And
(43:21):
obviously if you have any questions,field freedom messages as well, and we're
happy to kind of help you outand give recommendations, et cetera. So
yeah, that's probably the best placeto find more snowkite material. A wonderful
trip to do that. I meanto go out there and do that and
have you teach, I mean reallyand they can have you teach, right,
(43:43):
So yeah, yeah, for sure. Exactly. We organize lots of
different camps and kind of in differentlocations as well, so it's not like
we only go to one different spotso we kind of throughout the winter have
like five different locations that we liketo go to, So have one for
example in yeah, I'm a volcano, then we'll go to for example Motocha
(44:07):
Wenko, which are two volcanoes nextto each other, and then kind of
like go to different places so peoplecan also experience like different places which maybe
they wouldn't go to normally. That'sthe most beautiful part for all those people
because you can go away from allthose busy places and really know Chili how
(44:29):
it is and the volcans and stayingwith you guys. And by the way,
do you guys rent the kite?Yes, a good question. We
do. We in the Snowkait camps, we provide the kite, so it's
part of the package. So wealways have like quite a few kites that
we lend to everyone who is atthe camp. Slowly with time, like
(44:52):
we have our regulars who come toall the camps and who have their own
gear and who are already like fanatics. But yeah, in the beginning,
we definitely rent out all the Kaigear and stuff. Generally people bring their
own kind of touring like split boardor skis or whatever. But yeah,
(45:15):
I mean, obviously we help.We have friends who will have like ski
rental places and stuff, so wecan definitely help you with that part of
great question man. Yeah, Well, we want to thank you for being
our guest here tonight. It wasa pleasure having you on the show,
really was. Thank you. Itwas a pleasure speaking to you guys.
Thank you, yes, thank youmuch, thank you very much for our
(45:37):
time and for being here. AndI'm looking forward to try that out.
I hope you can see each otherwinter. Well. We also want to
thank all of you for tuning intoOutdoors people and we will see you next
week. Showish
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questions or comments should be directed tothose show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:20):
W FOURCY Radio. Welcome to outdoorsPeople with Me. CW Getz and her
Maya mar Zaki. Good evening.It's Wednesday, February February twenty first,
(00:54):
twenty twenty four. Sorry a littlelake, kids, we had a little
technical issue. Yeah, I tellyou bye. Coming back from cation.
How are you feeling about this?I mean, it's just it's like everything
is new and different, and producerslike, c W where's the episode description?
I'm sorry. Really, it feelslike a new job, right the
(01:17):
first day in your new job.If they were the case, I'd be
fired. I would be fired onmy first time. I'm glad you write
a boss. Oh my god,me too. Me too. How are
you doing down there? How's yourhow's thing that? Hey, how's your
weather? I want to know thatbecause we get some spectacular stuff. I'll
tell you about a second. Ohyeah, well it's summer here pretty much
(01:40):
like always. So it is areally beautiful sunny day with twenty three degrees
cells shoes and it means seventy degreesfahrenheit. Perfect. I mean, it's
absolutely That's about the way I leftit when I was in because I was
in Brazil or most like the mostof the month of January, and tell
(02:02):
people, because I didn't want tocome back and have everyone like my furniture,
you know, like, okay,advertised he's gone. It's okay,
come on, he lives alone,so it's cool. Noo, no dog,
you know, I'm good, right, But I really enjoyed my time
in Brazil. And and I haveto mention this. So there are two
(02:25):
young ladies. When I was inthe airport in Brazil and in s Paulo,
I have a hard time finding thelittle tiny, little teeny tiny English
in the on the science, youknow, and it is about that big,
by the way, I'm not makingthat. And I happened to be
doing okay, getting so well.Actually, no, that's not true.
(02:46):
I was in the wrong line tobegin with, and people go and I
said, hey, man, isthis the line for this? And they're
not speaking English Man, but youknow, they're doing their phones like in
the Google and I'm doing my Google. But at some point they sent me
around the corner. I ran intothese two young ladies and they were pushing
wheelchairs and I asked them, Isaid, hey, do you guys you
(03:07):
know doing my phone? And theyalways speak a little the one speaks a
little leaders they speak a little less. But those ladies helped me. I'm
talking. We must have walked fortwelve fifteen minutes to get to the next
part. Yeah, and I totallywould not have done that on my own.
I totally would have been lost.I would have been on the plane
to like Hong Kong or something.Oh my, I'm telling you, you
(03:32):
are unreal. I hate. Iam so happy that I always find angels.
I'll just like to playing follow littleleader. I don't like being in
charge to myself. Can't I can'ttrust me. But these two young ladies,
they had to take their people inthe wheelchairs up to the plane or
(03:53):
up to the gate and they saidwe'll be right back. They didn't come
back for like twenty minutes, andI was kind of faking. I go,
I'm gonna be late for my plant, freaking out, and they did
tell me they go, well downthere is where you need to check in,
and I going where So I justwent that way and lo and behold
they showed up after about ten moreminutes and it was running nip and tuck
(04:13):
to missing my plane. I gotto the gate. These ladies escorted me
the whole way to my gate andeverything. I was there five minutes before
we started boring very close. Oh, I told you, I want to
mention your names on the radio,and it was these two young ladies wonderful
and thank you again so much,Kaitlyn Battista and Olivia Cap. I hope
I said that that Cap. ButI'm telling you, next time you're in
(04:36):
So Paulo, just on by theairport, gr you and and thank those
ladies in persons for a minute.Okay, I'm sure I'm going to do
that because the airport is so small, right, it's so easy to find
people in there. Monster. It'sa monster, it's crazy, But I'm
(04:59):
sure you. That to me isyour your flight and stay more in Brazil.
You did. I'm sure that thatwas on the way there. That
was just of the trip. Ihad no problem the way back, well,
I won't say that either. Ihad a little problem and again,
uh or maybe it was Miami,I don't remember. It was all a
(05:20):
big blur on the way back.But it met some wonderful people Brazil.
We did some hiking through the rainforestand it was just a marvelous time.
I really really enjoyed everything. SoI didn't get to see you. We
were hoping to do that. Yeahit didn't. Yeah, I'm very sad
and I'm very sorry. I reallywanted to see you, but it didn't
(05:43):
work out for me. Zio wasa little bit big, right, it's
a little big, and I actuallymore and very much a little big.
Yeah, it's a little bit big. But I'm glad. You had a
good time, and I'm sure youwere in a good company and you had
a good time. And it isimpossible do not have a good time in
(06:03):
Brazil, because here it is justamazing place, which is like paradise,
paradise with perfect food. The foodwas amazing, the people were amazing.
I don't think I met a Idon't think I met one jerky person when
I was down. And you cantalk to anything, yes, because if
we didn't manage, right, ButI mean anybody, I mean you could,
(06:26):
You could talk to anybody. Anybodywill talk to you there. You
know that's nabby like up here inthe United States. And I do say
that that's true. It is adifference. There is a difference, kids.
Yeah, sixty two degrees fahrenheit herein north central Illinois seventeen degrees sells
is for the rest of the freeworld. And I'm telling you it's it's
(06:46):
weird. It's a weird weather year. Yeah, that's very warm, a
far winter, right. Jane sentme a picture. Janell sent a picture.
She's in bare feet yesterday and she'sin Canada. So that's very weird.
It's your times, people. Ithink the world is coming through an
end. I really do believe that. Yeah, true. Unfortunately, Well,
(07:10):
twenty nine year old Belgium born medicalproduct manager, certified ski instructor,
kite surfer in snow kier, CarmenVerdeon aka Cardimensia is I hope I did
that right? Is also a coordinatorfor the snowkite camps in Chile. She
also serves as an organizer for competitionswith South Kite sessions and aspiring Olympic athletes
(07:33):
living in Chile. As part ofTeam Chile, Carmen won back to back
titles as national Female Big Air Championin twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three.
In twenty twenty three, she placedin the top five for Formula kite
at the Pan American Games, alongwith winning the national female championship for Formula
(07:54):
kite. Today, Carmen Verdeon takesus inside the amazing world of snow kiting.
Boot the storm, the storm,the storm stand start stastorm stuff fast,
(08:41):
dost the storm stops faster StAst thestorm bo stuff fast boost West,
storm staffast booster wester storm standards fastAnd with that, Welcome to the show,
(09:05):
Carmen. How you doing awesome?Thank you, thank you super glad
to be here. Well, we'reglad to have you here. And you're
only like three hours ahead of us, so it's not like one o'clock in
the morning there, that's good.No, no, no, it's eight
seventeen pm. So I'm in thesouth of Chili. Right now, and
the days are super long, soit gets dark at like nine thirty ten,
(09:28):
so we still have a light today. But it is rainy here even
though it's summer, it's currently raining, so we're kind of good with a
snowcutting theme. It feels kind oflike it's winter right now. Yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of what Brazilwas like. It rains every day and
(09:48):
time of years. Yeah, buthere because it is too warm, right,
so rains every day. But Chili, Chili is much like colder than
here, so it's weird. Yeah, in the central region right now,
it's like thirty five degrees, it'ssuper warm. But in the south we've
(10:09):
had a lot of like warm days. But every i don't know, fifteen
days or so it rains a littlebit, just so that there's a little
bit of water so it's not toonot too hot. Yeah, well you
grow grow, yes, exactly,they do, they do. And talking
(10:33):
about that tiny wondering watch weater whatseason is better to kite surfing Chili because
it is almost cold right, soin summer we do a lot of kite
surfing on the water. So inthe ocean, on lakes, et cetera,
we generally use a wet suit obviouslybecause the water is quite cold,
(10:54):
as you mentioned, So with awet suit you basically think kite probably from
September till April, and then therest of the season. So when it's
winter we actually snowkite, which iswhat we're here to talk about today.
So probably from June, depending onthe season. Obviously there's seasons where it
(11:18):
snows earlier and some seasons later,but approximately mid June till end of September,
sometimes even later we snowkite in today. Cool and how and when did
you first start with snow kait jingbecause I have never heard about before you
that's what. Yeah. So actuallyfor me, I started kite surfing a
(11:43):
long time ago, like twelve yearsago, and I skied also, probably
even more like fifteen sixteen years andI'd never really combined the two until about
three years ago when I met agroup of like friends that I have in
common with. Georgia who is thefounder of snowkited Chile, invited us to
(12:09):
a snow kite camp and so forme, it sounded amazing. I was
like combining two of my favorite sports, kites a ring and skiing sounds fabulous.
So I went to this camp whichwas in the south of Chile h
and that was the first time thatI practiced snowkiting, and also where I
met my current boyfriend Giorgio, whois the calendar of snowkite Tilla, and
(12:35):
so basically that was the first campthat he'd organized, and then from there
we kind of started the project togetherand started creating more and more camps and
every year we're doing about four tofive every winter now and so we take
people to different places in the southof Chile to experience a little bit snowkiting.
Yeah, you know, I tellyou snowkiting sounds. I mean,
(12:58):
I'm thinking about two s which,by the way, I went skiing one
time and I'll never do that again. Didn't have a great experience, but
i will tell you something. I'mlooking at the skis and I'm thinking I
watched you know, kite surfing iscool. You if you wipe out in
the water, the water is prettyreasonably soft, depending on how you hit
it, of course, but ifyou've got skis and your I mean you
(13:22):
can't. You can pop off thatboard, that kite what board you use
for kite serving pretty easily, butyou got skis, and if you get
twisted up and tang on, youland wrung. I'm imagined it's pretty easy
to get. Am I right aboutthat. I mean, obviously you have
to be careful, but I guessit's kind of like skiing where you can
(13:45):
also twist the leg and it obviouslyhasn't hairened dangers. But in general,
I would say it's not h Ifyou're careful and follow all of the procedures,
the safety procedures, it's it's prettysafe. We generally do it on
more powdered snow, so like softerwhen it's recently snowed. That's like the
(14:05):
ideal condition. Or in spring whenyou have like the watery snow and it's
already like quite warm outside, that'salso like really good conditions. Obviously,
sometimes you have ice when it's icy. Obviously we try and be like extra
careful and maybe not jump as muchbecause you know the landing is going to
be hard. All the powdery stuffsounds fine, that sounds great, even
(14:31):
the slushy stuff, But man,I'm thinking that hard stuff because that's most
of what I see people skiing isreally hard stuff, you know, I
know they Yeah, yeah, well, I guess that's one of the things
as well. So we do snowcutting like outside of ski resorts, so
not really on like flat and terrain. So generally it's like off pieced places
(14:52):
where there's no ski resort or anything, so it's it's not like groom slopes
virgin snow. I love it.Oh my god. So how long is
kit I'm sorry, snowkiting been around? I mean that's kind of something new
we new. Well actually surprisingly not. So actually I went and researched a
little bit because I didn't actually knowwhat the origins were, and so surprisingly
(15:18):
it's actually been around for longer thankitesurfering. So people started doing snowkiting on
snow before they did it on thewater. So there's like records with people
in like Germany, Austria, Switzerlandin like the nineteen sixties fashioning kind of
like their own type of kite andthen like finding wind and trying to use
(15:43):
like these homemade kites to travel forlike farther distances kind of because one of
the things that we also do alot is like you use ski touring to
kind of go where there's more windand then the kite is like a compliment.
So if it's windy, you cango a lot farther than you would
if you were just ski touring becauseobviously the wind it makes you travel a
(16:07):
lot faster. So basically, peoplein like the nineteen sixties were already using
like homemade kites to kind of beable to travel farther distances in a short
period of time. I'd say.However, like the more modern version,
it's kind of been like an evolutionslowly over time. Obviously, like more
(16:30):
gear has come out, and thekite companies have like focused a little bit
more on this area, and nowyou have foil kites which are like specifically
made for snow kiting. So it'sdefinitely something that in recent years have kind
of picked up more attention from likethe general public and from kit serve manufacturing
(16:51):
companies. So nowadays you have likea kite that is specifically made for snow
kiting, which yeah, exactly cool. Yeah cool. I would never imagine
that. And how how are thatthose differences between the kite from the snow
kite and the KRT surf. Yeah, that's it's a really good question.
(17:15):
So basically, when you have thekite that's for the water, you inflate
it, so it's like this inflatabletwo that you pump up with a pump
and it stays inflated. With thesnow kites, they're foil kites, so
it's kind of more like than yeah, like a paragliding sale exactly a word
(17:38):
in English, So it's like aparagliding sale, but smaller. So it's
like the size that we use wouldbe eight meter squared or eleven meters squared.
Those are like the two most commonsizes, and so basically it's a
foil kite. So it's just likeone layer of material. Since obviously you're
(17:59):
not in the water. If itfalls, it doesn't matter if it's only
one layer because in the water,if it would get wet, you wouldn't
be able to lift it anymore.But since you're on the snow, you
don't have a problem. So it'sonly like one layer of material. And
one of the differences is that thesekites that are made more for like exploring
on the mountain, they have afifth line. So normal kites they have
(18:22):
four lines, or like kite linesthat are connected to the bar, this
one has a fifth one. Whyso the reason is that when you reached
Because these kites, you can usethem to go uphill. So basically what
you do is you always try andfind the wind that is going uphill.
So this creates an effect where thegravity is going down, the wind is
(18:45):
going up, and so the kiteliterally is like a personal lift and it
doesn't take you straight up to themountain. Yeah, yeah, it's really
cool. So basically you have likeyour personal ski lift to go wherever you
But what happens obviously is at thetop of the mountain the wind is a
lot stronger. So for safety reasons, when you arrive at the top,
(19:10):
what you can do with these snowkites is you can eject them. That's
what it's called. So you releasethem and they just collapse. They go
like in accordion, they go likethis and they fall onto the snow and
they stop pulling you. So it'sbasically like an extra safety measure. So
if you reach the top of themountain, you can just eject the kite,
it closes, falls, and thenyou just don't even have to ask
(19:33):
help from anyone. You can justroll it up yourself, put it in
your backpack. It weighs like twokilos, so it's very light. The
idea is that you can just likeput it in your backpack, go ski
touring, if there's wind, pullit out, So that's kind of the
idea and what you So basically,yeah, it's basically has this really important
safety measure that you can lift ityourself, collapse at yourself, put it
(19:56):
away whenever you need to ski down, which is something that the normal kites
don't do because since they're inflated,it's always going to keep its shape and
it's going to keep pulling you ifyou reach the top of the mountain.
So it's basically like designed kind offor safety reasons and practicality reasons, designed
for the mountain. Another difference issince you don't have to inflate it,
(20:19):
you don't have to take your pumpwith you. So for anyone who kit
serves, you know that you needto inflate your kite with a pump.
And the pump is pretty big andit also weighs a lot. So yeah,
if you're going key touring, youknow you don't want to have a
pump in your backpack and a bigkite plus all your you know, gear
(20:41):
for extra layers and whatever. Elseyou're bringing with you, so you want
to try and be as light aspossible. You know, let me ask
you this. I mean, allthings considered, which one is more challenging
snow kiting or kite surfing. Imean, I know that probably one is,
maybe not as dangerous is the other. Maybe they're both, But which
(21:02):
one is? I'd say for peoplewho know how to ski your snowboard,
snowkiting is easier to learn because youalready kind of know everything from the waist
down. And the difference is you'restanding on a solid ground so you're standing
on snow, or you're already standingup well in the water, you're obviously
(21:26):
like in the water, and youhave to learn how to stand up with
the kite. So that's one thingthat in the snow you don't need to
do, which makes it easier.Plus another difference is that in the water,
a lot of times, like ifyou lose your board, you need
to learn how to body drag andget back your board. In snowkiting,
obviously that's not a problem because you'recompletely like strapped into your snowboarder ski,
(21:49):
so you're you don't need to learnhow to like recover your board, which
is one of the more annoying thingsto learn when you're learning how to kite
serve. But that being said,I always like to make this comparison,
like kitesurfing is more two D,so it's like you're going in a straight
line up and down. The wanedsnow kite is more three D because you
(22:11):
have the extra dimension where you're goingup a hill and down a hill,
and so it's kind of like youhave this extra dimension to play with.
That's crazy. I mean, Ijust think that would be so weird and
you get to I know me,I can see me at the top of
the hill, I'm gonna forget that. What is that one, the ejector
thing that you call, Yeah,the exact Yeah. Yeah, it's kind
(22:33):
of like when we were skydiving theyyou pull down and be flair. Yeah
yeah, I could see me forgettingto do that and then I'm like flying
off into the wild blue yonders.I just can see that. Yeah,
that's that's kind of true because Isaw the video in the beginning of the
show and I was like, ohmy gosh, if it's just like fly
(22:55):
away, so it's impossible. Butat the same time, was like it
must feel so good, feeling offfreedom like real because being in the mountain
itself it is amazing, but youare there pretty much like flying, but
in the snow. At the sametime. I don't know, it seems
(23:17):
like so amazing and I'm wondering howit actually works, like how you do
that, how it works, youknow, like how you go there and
how you choose places. I don'tknow how it works, like in general.
Yeah, So I mean obviously veryimportant to like read all the weather
(23:41):
conditions, right, So for thistype of sport, as I mentioned,
there's like so many factors, soyou have to read the snow report,
the wind report, and then alsokind of look at the direction of the
wind, which is also important.So we generally use like snow forecast to
see what the weather is going tobe like, then we use windy to
(24:02):
look what the wind is going tobe like, and then we use either
Google maps or fat maps to seewhat the direction of the wind is going
to be. So based on allthese factors, you kind of decide what
the best spot is going to befor your expedition. So generally you're always
looking for wind that is ascending.So going up the mountain that's what you're
(24:26):
looking for. And so basically,for example, with fat map, it's
like a three D map, Soit's really good because you can see like
what direction the wind is going togo, and based on that kind of
make a decision of where you're goingto go that day, which is obviously
something that we also like decide whenwe do Stokeye camps. And then we
(24:47):
share this knowledge with everyone who's atthe camp and we kind of say like,
okay, like this is what theweather forecast says, this is what
the wind forecast says. So basically, like looking at these things, we
try and make like help people learnhow to read the report and later be
able to make those decisions by themselveswhen they go on expeditions for example,
(25:11):
with friends or when we're not around. So that's part of what we do
in the snow kite camps as well. Basically to start, we generally find
like an area which is flatter,so not so mountainous kind of for people
who are beginning, right, Sothe ideas that you in the beginning can
find kind of a flatter area sothat you get to get used to the
(25:32):
kite, understand how it works,and kind of get a good feeling for
what the sport is like, andthen slowly, as people kind of get
more confidence and they start improving intheir abilities, we start looking for like
small hills to practice on, andthen obviously with time, as you get
better and better, you can kindof like go and start exploring and going
(25:53):
more into the mountains and finding newspots and et cetera. So one of
the things as well as as youmentioned, is like this flying, So
basically, like in the water,when you jump, I don't know,
you jump two three meters, andit's kind of like you progress, like
the better you get, the higheryou jump. But in the snow,
(26:15):
it's not necessarily like that because likesince you're on a mountain, if you
jump here, you can't fly backwards, so you kind of the longer you're
in the air, the higher you'regetting because you're going farther away from the
mountains. Yeah, so that's alsoone of the reasons why generally, like
when you're starting, you stay onflatter terrain, and then as you get
(26:36):
better and better, you start likegoing further up mountains and exploring a bit
more and learning like how to controleverything properly. So that's definitely a safety,
a safety precaution. I can seeme screwing that up. What do
you think, Maya, you cansee me after I was good. There's
two things I want to know.First of all is like what places around
(26:59):
the world is snowkitting most popular.But I also want to know there's no
skis in or there's no poles involvedin this? No, so yeah,
good question. So when we're skitouring, generally we have poles because it's
a lot easier to ski tour withpoles, but we generally use like these
retractable poles ski poles, so youthen just like collapse them and you put
(27:22):
them in your back back when youlift you up your kite. Yeah,
And in terms of locations, reallyyou can do snowkiting pretty much anywhere where
there's snow. So for example,in countries like Norway and kind of North
Europe where it's not that mountainous butthere is a lot of snow, it's
quite popular. But for example,in the US, I know there's quite
(27:48):
a few places. In France there'sa place that's quite popular as well.
And here in Chile, I thinkmore and more people are starting to get
into the sport. And the goodthing here is we have a lot of
volcanoes in the south and so thesevolcanoes generally like they're quite open, so
there's not that many other mountains around, so that means that there's generally quite
(28:11):
a lot of wind. So it'sreally here in Chila. We're starting to
explore more and more. And it'salso great uh sports since obviously in most
of these places there's no ski resorts, so it kind of permits you to
go to these insanely beautiful locations andexplore in a different way. So you're
(28:32):
definitely growing in South America as well, so you're going to have it down
there in Brazil Mine. I thinkthat's pretty cool. Hey, it's cool
because you know, you don't havea way up the mountain. There's no
ski left, there's not a skiresort, so you have to these kites
pull you up the mountain. That'sreally cool. How you know it takes
(28:52):
you a luck time to get outthere. By the time you got there,
yeah, I love it. That'samazing. And I love it because
usually I walk to the top ofthe mountain or I climb, but I'm
really interested in go up with thekite. Sounds really nice. Actually,
(29:15):
yeah, we always like we kindof go past the people's ski touring and
they're always looking at us like,oh what, like they're going so quickly,
that's so fair. Yeah, it'sdefinitely a massive plus if you enjoy
like ski touring and going up upmountains. It's definitely a really useful tool.
(29:36):
There you go, man, Yeah, I'm booking. I'm happy.
Yes, we'd be happy to haveyou. And are there any animal events
for is no kiting? So yeah, there's there's actually one really famous race
(29:56):
which is in Norway. It's calledrang Rock. It's actually been around for
quite a while, so it's probablylike the most famous snow kiting race that
there is here in Chile, wehave an annual snow kite Fest as well,
which is kind of like it's morea festival, so it's kind of
there's competitions and people are learning howto snow kite and it's on a flat
(30:21):
a flat plane. So we havethat event every year as well, and
I think there's also they're starting toorganize kind of tournaments that are more like
federated, so it's kind of it'sgrowing. I think last year was the
first year that they did these kindof more. The International kite Boarding Association
organized some more like federated events indifferent locations. I think it was Italy
(30:47):
and France. So it's definitely growingin terms of events. I think rang
Rock is still the most prestigious,the most It's been around for quite a
while, so that's definitely like inthe snow kiting community is like the uh,
the biggest, coolest, most I'venever been, but I would love
to go. I think it's inMarch if I'm not mistaken. So yeah,
(31:11):
if you get the chance to goto Norway to run Rock, definitely
go. It's really cool. There'salways like lots of kites and it's really
colorful and yeah, so I've seenI've seen videos, but I've never been
myself. Very cool. Well,we're winding down on time here because we
got started a little late, butwe're gonna take a look some photos.
But before we do that, I'mgoing to ask you this, people that
(31:32):
want to go snowkite I mean,it looks amazing, it really does.
Even though I'm not a skier,it just looks fun. You can see
yourself flying through the flying through theair. But what should people know I
mean, or what should they dobefore going snowkitting. I mean, you
don't just go somewhere and rent asnow kite and figure it out. I'm
sure you're gonna want some training.I'm sure, yeah, I think for
(31:56):
sure, I think definitely, Likefine, there's more and more instructors that
are giving lessons and snowkitting always welcome. Here in Tile we do snowkite camps
where we basically teach people all fromzero to one hundred, so we definitely
do that as well. A bigrecommendation though, is if you want to
(32:19):
try snowkitting, the best thing isto at least have like a basic level
of skiing or snowboarding first, justbecause like you're adding an extra element.
So if you don't know how toskier snowboard, it could be pretty pretty
tough. So I'd start with skiingor snowboarding first. In terms of if
you have your own kite from thewater, you can definitely try it in
(32:40):
the snow as well, but probablybest on a flat terrain, not going
up mountains right away or anything likethat, but definitely a good like starting
point to get a feel if youlike the sport or not. And you
can definitely always look for school nearbywhere you live where there's snow or for
(33:00):
example, I know that in certainplaces where they practice a lot of snow
cutting, there's always like, uh, an organization that does camps or or
training clinics and that kind of stuff. So that would definitely be my my
recommendation. Very good. I'm gonnasay hi to some people here before we
do our photos. Must Mina Erickson, Nick Cole bar and is it?
(33:25):
I am? I am? Canyou talk? How do you say that?
C a n ut? Oh?And she actually she said, in
rock climbing, we have grade levelsthat define the difficulty of the route.
Uh. Do you have something likethat in snoke? Good question? You
(33:49):
love it? Yeah, So notofficially, there's not like or like,
for example, in skiing you alsohave like black piece, red piece.
Uh. Since you're kind of likeon the mountain open range, there's not
like a specific like grating level oranything like that. Obviously, higher mountains,
(34:09):
more inclination, more difficult. That'sdefinitely like one way that you can
kind of measure difficulty. Also,it depends a lot on the weather conditions.
So for example, the wind directionof the wind strength, can also
be a big factor in how difficultthe terrain is, which is obviously something
(34:30):
that changes day to day. Soit's kind of like you have a mountain
that maybe one day in certain winddirection is a lot easier than in another
day with a different wind direction.So not any official type of measuring system,
but obviously there's like factors that youconsider to see what's more difficult and
(34:51):
what's easier. So it is prettymuch about surviving, no having Lucia,
When is the snow snowkite fest inChile? You did? Did you mention
that? Yes, yes, thereis one in Chile. It's generally in
(35:12):
August, so obviously it depends kindof year to year and weather conditions,
but it's almost always like the secondor third weekend in August. Very good,
Well, that's good to know.Absolutely all right, Uh let's uh,
let's see those. Let's take alook at those photos before we have
to say good evening. Get someof those here there we go so bad,
(35:38):
Look at that. Yeah, it'sthe last Snokau camp that we did
in last season. And this isin Volcan Yaima, so it's in the
south of Chile. It's a beautifulvolcano, and so this is at the
top of kind of another mountain abit earlier before the volcano with our group.
(36:00):
So we had a good group ofpeople who came to the to the
snow kite camp. That's amazing.Oh my god. So this picture basically
chose it because the person who ison the snow kite is going uphill.
So that's kind of what I wantedto show here is that you really can
use the kite to go up likedeep slopes and it really really pulls you.
(36:24):
So that was one example of likea terrain where we would go and
then the more like beginner people wouldstay on the flatter bit and as they
get better and better kind of likestart exploring further up up the hill.
Oh my gosh. That's so Mainlyso this is my boyfriend jo Yo's coaching
(36:45):
me. This is in actually oneof the snow kite fests, so he's,
uh, well, he taught mehow to snowkite, and it is
also very very good at the sportand always is is helping everyone, including
myself and getting better and improving.Oh my gosh, rockstar. Yeah,
(37:17):
So this is basically wanted to showthat there's also another element in snow kiting,
which is more jumping, so it'si think more similar to what kitesurfing
in the water is like. Soyou have come freestyle competitions, for example,
which are generally on flat terrain,and it's about jumping and doing tricks
and all that stuff. So that'sdefinitely something that is also part of snow
(37:40):
kiting. So it's like a differentfreestyle side of snow kitting. So here
we have another one of our studentslearning how to snow kite. So for
example, this hill, the onein the back, is also one that
we It's a place where we govery often to snow kite, and so
(38:02):
the hill in the back is oneof the ones that we do all the
time. So you can go allthe way up and then you can ski
down with the kite. So youcan, for example, like leave it
quite loose and ski down with thekite, or you can eject it,
put it in your backpack and skidown normally, or what some people do.
(38:22):
Personally, I'm not that adventurous.There are people who jump from the
top all the way down too.Yeah, it's kind of like spit flying.
But yeah, obviously it's the kitesmaller, but yeah, that's for
the not faint of heart. Sohere we're ski touring to basically a place.
(38:51):
So generally when you start the expedition, you're in a place lower and
there's for example, a lot oftrees, or for example, the wind
doesn't really quite reach where you are. So here is, for example,
with our group, we're going skitouring to like a section of the mountain
where there's more wind and more openspace. And as you can see obviously
(39:12):
there's like some people who are onski touring. Other people are using rackets
with a snowboard on their back,and then you can also see that everyone
has like or you can't see becauseit's in their back back. But so
the snow kite is really small andso it just fits in everyone's backpack.
So that's kind of we're sharing there. That's pretty cool. My gosh,
(39:35):
that's a great So there's your deal. This is also during one of the
type best in one of the freestylecompetitions, so also you can do it
skiing. I'm a skier. Iknow how to snowboard, but I love
skiing. Skiing is like for onehundred percent sure feel more comfortable. So
I generally snowkite skiing, but youcan also do it with a snowboard,
(39:57):
so just basically whatever your pres diferences, both are possible. That's very cool.
Here's one of our students, likeone of the first lessons they would
have snow kiting. So always wealso use climbing harnesses, so you can
see in the picture as well,we're using like a very lightweight climbing harness,
(40:21):
which is something that people who areinto the mountaineering in the mountaineering world
kind of have with them anyway.So that's kind of another benefit is that
you're using gear that you would usein the mountain on other in other sports
and occasions as well. So yeah, that's cool. Cool. So this
is Coraco in Tilt's a ski resortwhich they actually have like a designated snow
(40:47):
kiting area. So for example,there are places ski resorts in Argentina.
There's another one as well that havelike designated snow kiting spaces. So for
example, here right next to theski resort, they have like this big
plane where it's kind of common tofind people snow kiting, and it's it's
(41:07):
like a place where they encourage peopleto try this war. So this is
me skiing down the mountain with thekite. So, as I mentioned,
you can also leave the kite inthe air when you're skiing down and you
kind of just like leave it alittle bit looser so it doesn't pull you
(41:30):
and you can kind of ski downwithout poles obviously, and then when you
reach the bottom, you just immediatelyhave your personal lift to go back up.
That looks like an a picture thatwe'd see on snow kite magazine.
R. I'm just saying, rightlike, yeah, that's very cool.
(41:51):
Thanks for sharing those pictures. Sonice, so cool. I'm dying to
try that. I'm not kidding,all right, it's feeling in faith,
aha, and I and I Iasked one to put that up. I
think that's a very you know,it's feeling in faith. Pretty true,
I'd say, so. Yeah,I love And those are awesome pictures,
(42:13):
by the way, and thank youso much for sending those to us,
and great job explaining them to appreciatethat. Happy, happy to share and
uh great great work on doing thosepictures because you are on the teatures yeah,
so uh, Carmen, where canpeople find your online? Yeah?
(42:37):
So we have an Instagram page whichis specifically for snow gutting, so it's
called snokey Chili without any doubts oranything, just one word. So basically
there we have lots of like pictures, videos. If you're interested in kind
of understanding a little bit more aboutthe sport, definitely there you can find
lots of material. Also if you'reinterested in coming to one of those snow
(43:00):
camps. We also post all ourdates and things there as well, So
definitely if you're coming to tile inwinter, definitely recommend super experience, great
way to kind of immerse yourself inthe nature of the South of Tiler And
(43:21):
obviously if you have any questions,field freedom messages as well, and we're
happy to kind of help you outand give recommendations, et cetera. So
yeah, that's probably the best placeto find more snowkite material. A wonderful
trip to do that. I meanto go out there and do that and
have you teach, I mean reallyand they can have you teach, right,
(43:43):
So yeah, yeah, for sure. Exactly. We organize lots of
different camps and kind of in differentlocations as well, so it's not like
we only go to one different spotso we kind of throughout the winter have
like five different locations that we liketo go to, So have one for
example in yeah, I'm a volcano, then we'll go to for example Motocha
(44:07):
Wenko, which are two volcanoes nextto each other, and then kind of
like go to different places so peoplecan also experience like different places which maybe
they wouldn't go to normally. That'sthe most beautiful part for all those people
because you can go away from allthose busy places and really know Chili how
(44:29):
it is and the volcans and stayingwith you guys. And by the way,
do you guys rent the kite?Yes, a good question. We
do. We in the Snowkait camps, we provide the kite, so it's
part of the package. So wealways have like quite a few kites that
we lend to everyone who is atthe camp. Slowly with time, like
(44:52):
we have our regulars who come toall the camps and who have their own
gear and who are already like fanatics. But yeah, in the beginning,
we definitely rent out all the Kaigear and stuff. Generally people bring their
own kind of touring like split boardor skis or whatever. But yeah,
(45:15):
I mean, obviously we help.We have friends who will have like ski
rental places and stuff, so wecan definitely help you with that part of
great question man. Yeah, Well, we want to thank you for being
our guest here tonight. It wasa pleasure having you on the show,
really was. Thank you. Itwas a pleasure speaking to you guys.
Thank you, yes, thank youmuch, thank you very much for our
(45:37):
time and for being here. AndI'm looking forward to try that out.
I hope you can see each otherwinter. Well. We also want to
thank all of you for tuning intoOutdoors people and we will see you next
week. Showish
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