There isn't only one way to plan a ski trip, but these days, most of them involve more planes and automobiles than trains – so a new ski film set out to challenge that narrative. A stirring new documentary by Canadian brand Arc'teryx finds out just how far four skiers can get using only public transport – and the answer, it turns out, is pretty far.
Going East, which you can watch below, chronicles skiers Joi Hoffmann, Max Kroneck, Loic Isliker and Siliva Moser as they embark on the unusual three-week ski trip. While traveling by train in European cities is largely easy, doing so in the mountains is a different story.
Each member of the group travels by train from their respective home countries of Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy to Tarvisio in northern Italy. From there, they travel east across Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey using dozens of trains and buses, several metros and even a couple of trams exploring lines in resorts and the backcountry.
There are plenty of ski movies dropping on YouTube in any given winter, all delivering majestic footage of untouched lines and most detailing adventurous expeditions. A few, like In a Lifetime, also focus on climate change and sustainable skiing. But there is something different about Going East.
For starters, you'll get to see terrain that's not usually the focal point of ski films. In place of the Alps, Alaska and Antarctica you'll discover the desolate wilderness of Slovakia's High Tatras, bizarre Bulgarian ski resorts and vertiginous peaks of eastern Turkey.
It's also not all face shots and endless powder. There are snorkel days to be had, but there's also plenty of disquieting chattering in icy gulleys and measured bailouts when the skiers are confronted with concrete slabs of snow.
But it's the journey itself that makes this film unique and captures both the perks and pitfalls of slow travel. The skiers have time to slowly arrive and immerse themselves in each location, while the viewer gets evocative glimpses into far flung mountains and huts.
It should also come as no surprise that logistical nightmares abound – sleepless nights, buses that don't line up and comrades who get left behind. In the end, though, the trip turns out to be epic in the truest sense of the word and you may be left with the sense that 33 minutes wasn't quite long enough.
"I think traveling by public transport has taught us that the journey to go skiing is actually just as important as the skiing itself," says Isliker.
"Even though this trip started because we wanted to go skiing, without all those little moments in between the skiing this would have been a completely different trip."
Going East by Arc'teryx is out now on YouTube.
