Nothing strange here

This is my response to a post I saw on the following blog: Even normal recreation is getting weird

"Talk about people getting too jaded and needing extreme excitement to prevail over boredom!!

Talk about being out of your freaking mind!"

I don't see anything unusual with snowboarding or skiing on volcanoes. I just see them as a different type of mountain, that might results is some interesting terrain. I think that Kamchatka is likely to be a lot more mellow than Krasnaya Polyana in the Caucuses or Gulmarg in the Pir Pinjal range, both being places I benchmark my trips against. I certainly don't consider riding a volcano to be extreme, crazy, or fringe. I think spending your waking hours working to make other people's dreams come true rather than your own is crazy.

In fact, judging by most people's actions, I think they are fine with snowboarding or skiing volcanoes, even if they haven't ever consciously thought about it. Mammoth, amongst others, is actually a volcano, a fact that often escapes a lot of people.

For me I simply see Kamchatka as an exotic and vast snowboarding destination (larger than France, Belgium and Luxembourg combined), with a long winter, runs filled with endless powder turns, and hopefully enough variation to be technically challenging. Unlike skiers, I can't simply satisfy myself with nice symmetrical zigzag's down the mountain. Bring on hips, lips, drops and gullies! I don't expect to find many trees but then we can't have it all.

There is one volcano that I do want to snowboard that I do think does fall into the crazy, fringe, extreme category. Its Cotopaxi in Ecuador! We have a history. About 4 year ago, with only 100 metres left to climb largest active volcano in the world (according to the 2002 CIA World factbook), my guide decided that the risk of avalanche was too severe and turned me back. I have sworn to go back and conquer that baby, and when I do, I might consider strapping a board to my pack and snowboarding down to declare victory on the sleeping icy beast that will one day kill thousands.

Each to their own really, but I certainly don't see anything too extreme about heliboarding in Kamchatka. What is perhaps extreme is how far away it is from everywhere, including most people's consciousness.