Heli Boarding a Travelers Documentary

 This short documentary follows four young gentelmen on their quest to Heli-board the iconic Swiss alps. In 2012, Lloyd Garden, a student at Sierra Nevada College, and Andrew Gauthier, an alumni of Sierra Nevada College, set out to the Alps from Lake Tahoe for a life changing experience. Motivations for this journey included education, snowboarding, and overall exploration. The true vision for this trip developed over time to become a once in a lifetime Alps Heli-Skiing Trip. There were many challenges, shenanigans, and danger along the way. However, car crashes, deep powder, Guinness races, train rides, glaciers and Italian Police all made this journey one to remember. Finally, the explorations, ended at 16,000 Ft outside of Zermatt Switzerland with boards at the ready and a white canvas in the distance. This is their journey.

Riders:
Lloyd Garden
Andrew Gauth
Bruno Bocti
Maxime Piekarski

Heli Ski Company:
www.airzermatt.ch


Songs:
Wake Me Up (Instrumental) By: Avicii
Shuriken By: Madeon

2013 a year of Travel and adventure this is my overall trip video

My trip to Rome Italy

Travel to Belgium - Road Trip

All my Europe Timelapse videos

Video blog from Solden austria

GLION SGA school BBQ: my schools social life

My trip to IbIZA

High on Life in Amsterdam! Another Trip Edit

Enjoy.

My Latest Adventure to Milan, Italy

Peep it & Enjoy!
Lloyd

Weeks Go By

      Its been another two weeks here in Switzerland and I already feel like time is moving to fast! The powder has been so amazing and I keep meeting more and more people who want to snowboard and are interested in joining me on a Heli skiing trip over spring break here in Switzerland. School is starting to take up more and more of my time. I really like my classes out here, I feel they are more direct and on point with the topic of the classes. The majority of the classes I am taking out here are marketing classes with topics like "brand management" and international marketing" However I have to say my favorite class so far is "Sports and entertainment in the media". In this class I am really learning how the media can use a company and how a company can use the media, it seems to be a tricky science that I am very interested in learning. I am also taking a economics class called "economics for hospitality tourism & leisure" this is a very specialized economics class as it is the only economics these hospitality students receive. Having taken many economic classes and having a huge interest in the subject I am finding it interesting to see the way other cultures look at economics and seeing the way it interacts with tourism. the class has been mostly review for me thus far yet the case studies have been very interesting and I feel I will learn more that will be useful to me and my career in the ski industry. (also we have been able to watch part of the global economic forum happening here in Switzerland)

All of my classes have us doing group projects and I've begun to start working on a few and having group meetings, these projects are very serous compared to SNC and make up 90% of are grade. I did not go snowboarding as much as I would have liked in the past weekend but still here is a photo from an amazing day at Le Moleson!  Next weekend I will be traveling to Milan Italy to see some of the historic churches and what not. I look forward to making another video blog of that as well. Also, if you haven't already watch my video from last weekend of me and a few buddies shredding some amazing powder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucI6F3lYmkY
Best,
Lloyd W. Garden

Swiss Powder Turns

Sweet little edit that I made from riding with the guys out here in switzerland! Enjoy!

Update from my weekend in Portes Du Soleil

        During last week I was invited by this kind Swiss native to join her, her family, and a few other students at her ski-in-ski-out chalet on the Swiss side of Portes Du Soleil. We left early Friday evening in the middle of a blizzard, the drive was a tricky one and we even got to witness a small land slide on the side of a mountain pass which was pretty siick . After arrival I met her family who spoke little but enough English, to teach me about the Swiss native way of ski vacations. The chalet was very small but very cozy, yet it was extremely modern for a ski cabin. It snowed hard the entire first day and had most of the mountain closed which was a major bummer; however, around 3pm the sun peaked through the clouds and allowed for some amazing face shots in knee deep powder! I was only able to really get 2 good runs in with the father of the girl who invited me before the storm started back up again. That night after dinner we went out to a small bar with in walking distance. There were only a few small groups within the bar, and didn't not look very inviting until we started talking to the bartender who was from England. After a few beers he started giving us free shots and the night went from there. I woke up early the next morning to find that the clouds were gone and the sun was on the horizon. I quickly woke up and put on my gear, forgetting that in Swiss culture they have a sit down breakfast and take there time getting ready... the saying "no friends on a pow day" clearly does not exist here. After waiting 3hours for the hung-over girls to get ready and for are bread and butter breakfast we were on the mountain! There was power everywhere! Just steep fields of untouched or barley touched powder. It was the type of days I dreamed about when I thought of coming to ski the Swiss Alps. After face shot after face shot we went in for lunch which of course was not my idea and was a bit more of a culture shock as we were sat down and treated to a full sit down meal... a time waster in my opinion, but was very tasty. After lunch we ventured to the French side of the resort and split into different groups. The father and me headed into the steeper region and even ventured to ride the famous Swiss wall. All I can say was EPIC, truly Epic. I didn't want to leave it seems as this massive resort which I only say 1/3rd of in 2 days was the perfect place to be a ski bum. As we left it began to snow again. I arrived at home late Sunday night and was confronted by neighbor to go snowboarding again the next morning at a much closer resort. Charmey where we went the next morning (Monday) is the Diamond Peak to Glion. It was still snowing but we managed to get a few face shots in before classes started at 1pm. I’ve been here 2 weeks now and I've gotten 4 days of powder snowboarding in, I could not be any happier. 

That’s it for me, ill write more about school next time, which is a lot like SNC with just more directional classes.

Cheers,

Lloyd W. Garden

My first video blog

This video includes my trip to Villan ski area and memorys from Tahoe.

First post here in Switzerland

Arriving In Switzerland
         I arrived in Switzerland early saturday the 19th after landing I managed to meet a fellow american who was studying at Glion. We went through customs together (which was extremely easy)  and after finding out there would be a solid 2hr wait for our shuttle to school we went to the bar. The other swiss in the airport looked at us quite differently as they saw to americans drinking tall boys at 7:30am. Chris told me some helpful things about living in switzerland and we hit it off, unfortunately he is located on Glion's other campus in Montreux.

The shuttle ride to school was an adventure of its own. The Glion campus in Montreux where we stopped first is located half way a mountain that over looks a beautiful lake much like lake Tahoe expect these are extremely steep mountains that pierce through the clouds. The bus driver managed like most buss drives to pass the school and become completely lost, which would of been fine if we weren't on a steep mountain pass full of switch backs and in a charter bus with a trailer attached to the back... it was quite thrilling watching the driver do 3 point turns to make a switch back and the amazing 8 point turn around turn at the top. we eventually made it and dropped off the kids at that campus and moved on to the Glion campus where I am in attendance in in Bulle switzerland.

I am on my 4th day of school now and I am making many friends and have tons of free time as most of my classes don't start to next week. The school is very strict and will taking some getting used to their new and different polices but I am confident that I will do fine. My apartment is large and modern and I absolutely love the view of the swiss alps from out my window. I live with 3 other 6th semester kids so seniors if you will, 2 of them are from Liberia in Africa and the other is from france.

I will write more later and start my video blogs soon im sure there will be lots to share as my first weekend is fastly approaching and I have many plains for partying and snowboarding in the Swiss Alps.

Stoked,
Lloyd W. Garden