Sone name is “Snowflake”, and of course he wears white, all white. He always does it that way when he goes skiing because he feels good about it, because he wants to blend in with nature and also because it has long since become his trademark. Snowflake’s real name is Heinrich Giesker, he’s seventy-six years old and a legend in Engelberg. Almost every day he is out on skis, on and off the slopes, without a cap, without glasses, with blowing hair. He doesn’t take a lunch break, he doesn’t need it, it’s a shame about the time when you can go skiing instead. Years ago, at the end of winter, they once told him that of all lift ticket holders, he had driven the most kilometers in the past season, they had evaluated it based on the cards, they could also print them out for him if he wanted to. He didn’t want to. Nice, he thought, but it doesn’t really matter: “I didn’t know at the time that something like that was possible.”
Spectacular off-road descents
Other things count for Giesker. Hours, kilometers or kilometers per hour are not important, it’s a feeling that he’s looking for, that he can’t get enough of, even at the age of seventy-six. That’s why he’s so often on the slopes of the Swiss ski area Engelberg-Titlis, preferably on those that have become internationally known as the “Big Five”: Galtiberg, Laub, Steinberg, Sulz, Steintäli. Five long, demanding, spectacularly scenic off-road runs, unprepared, but accessible without having to climb the lifts or cable cars. For many freeriders, they are among the best that their sport has to offer, varied, sometimes alpine challenging, up to eight kilometers long, with up to two thousand meters in altitude. The glaciers, the ice walls, the rock falls, crests, cliffs, couloirs. “There are situations where you think you’re floating,” says Giesker. “There’s nothing more beautiful.”
Off to the slopes: A paradise for freeriders
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Bild: Picture Alliance
Giesker therefore spends most of the winter in Engelberg, where he has a small apartment next to his actual home in Lucerne. He used to be a successful fashion entrepreneur. He now prefers to rave about the colors of the evening sky at the end of the day’s skiing. His father, an artist, opened his eyes to nature and he followed his paths again and again, trout fishing, looking for crystals, and freeriding. There he finds peace, strength, happiness. Age? Don’t be decisive. “You have to know what you like to do, then a line through life emerges,” says Giesker. The way he skis seems like an expression of this line: he pulls across the slope in wide, even turns, rhythmically, harmoniously, a bit out of time, elegantly circumnavigating the carving age. His style has nothing intentional, nothing brute force, nothing demonstrative, he glides along seemingly effortlessly, in a long, calm flow that carries him away reliably even when your thighs are already burning.
Driving in open terrain
Engelberg, located a thousand meters above sea level in Central Switzerland, is not only popular with Heinrich Giesker. Many passionate skiers come here because skiing in open terrain, away from marked and controlled slopes, has a long tradition in the place. In the 1960s and 1970s, Geny Hess was already making his mark in deep snow. He was a hotelier back then, offered adventure trips in his house, and guided his guests every day. And: “They liked it so much that they kept coming back,” he says. American filmmaker Warren Miller came later, and film crews from Scandinavia also spread the word.