A Day In Austria: Nike Chosen Sessions

There are a lot of people who tell me how nice it must be to have a job that allows me to travel so much. I will admit, the travel is definitely is a perk… but it is still a job. As the online editor for Snowboarder Magazine, I bounce from mountain to mountain covering snowboarding… but the thing is, the snow looks the same in Colorado as it does Austria, Chile, Japan, or any other far off ski destination. What I am saying is that if I didn’t make a point to get out and explore, then everywhere I traveled for work would all feel the same… a hotel room, a mountain, some form of trees, snow, and snowboarders throwing themselves off features. When I went to Austria I didn’t want it to just fall into that routine.

More after the jump.

Austin Smith getting that Instagram photo of the glacier water… so blue.

In the beginning of April Nike brought me out to Austria for the grand finale of their Nike Chosen Series, the “Nike Chosen Sessions”. If you want to know more about the actual snowboarding aspect of it then check out my coverage on Snowboardermag.com. Being only my second time to Europe I was pretty excited to go check out a different part of the world. But at an event of this scale you need to put in a little extra effort to get outside of what is planned for you and see what the place is really about. On one of the weather days and without my own rental car, I didn’t want to just be stuck hanging out in the hotel, regardless of the continuous mist falling from the sky. So I suggested to Nike team rider, Austin Smith (who happened to have a car there) that we cruise around and check out Montafon, the small town where we were staying, tucked in a valley surrounded by The Alps. Photographer Daniel Blom joined in and we spent an afternoon exploring. These photos are the result of that day, I will let them tell the rest of the story.

Daniel Blom

They were really into stacking wood there. This is inside someone’s garage… floor to ceiling.

Austin at the edge of the world.

But it was really just this thing…

Shouldn’t this be in German?

Not a bad place to Apres…

I’m telling you.. the whole stacked wood thing.

Austin getting acquainted with the locals.

This thing was for sale… if I didn’t live thousands of miles away I would have bought it.