This article has been adapted from the Winter 2018 print issue of Downdays Magazine. Use the mag finder at the bottom of this page to find a copy in a ski shop near you.

Words: Leo Björklund

Photos: Alric Ljunghager

The following is an unfiltered, unadulterated, photographic and poetic representation of the ski crew known as The Bunch. Take it as you will.

The Bunch is in the air with skis or no skies.
Skilled to the bone, Carrying the load of a warm tremulous feeling. 
Nameless at the group gate.
Every element was an opposite.
Opposite throughout the connection.
Body bros.
While water is cold fire is hot.
Still, fire can feel like ice as water can be boiling.
Thus, the material world, composed by the indefinite and boundless. 
Love is in the air tonight. 
Love is in the air tonight. 
The Bunch is in the air with skis or no skies.
Skilled to the bone, Carrying the load of a warm tremulous feeling. 

Later on

Passing through as an explorer. 
The temptation to share your journey.
Does the temptation change whilst sharing it with an old friend?
To lay all the colour painted days on the same table. 
Plenty small windows in an old, bought, assuring military tent.
Step out and you become the window.
Step inside and chill out. 
Surprised by the tinted limo windows.
The fire burns and needs more firewood, crackling sounds from the corner of the octet shaped tent says money doesn’t grow on trees. 

Plenty stars outside the city sheets covered with oil, 
Said the ocean in a wast and untamed manner of speech. 
Tell us something we don’t know, should be quite easy. 

When time reaches the destination of speech, FRIENDS are good to have. Without them time can only speak to time. 
And time knows the heavy burden of knowledge,
Time knows that knowledge is fleeting and stuck fleeing from time itself. 
Kindly gestured in such powerful choices. 
The power of choice, yes, always there, always wanting to play the harmonica or clarinet. 
Mostly the clarinet. 
Mostly getting home while stuck in a snowstorm blizzard, Canada.
Needless to say when New Delhi arrives.
But you see, we’ve been on a journey, an expedition if I may, and we are not weary nor tired, only scraped and injured and we all know soup can fix most things. 
The simplest soup could probably stop a great war. 
Bring bunch more soup on the next adventure.
Needless to say when Matterhorn rises. 
Thankful when the cook approaches happily.

Determination is useful when rocks are heavy as ships at sea. 
Float is one way, reacquires a certain vast, hollow, bowl shaped mind. 
Fly is another, the dreamers point. 
Formatting into a sea turtle is a long and life approaching process, full of shells and shields. 
Freedom is another way, freedom of speech, surfing, pace, taste, hair colour, tights, sofas, not doing anything, doing everything, counting, waiting, lifting, helping, taking, giving, traveling, seeing, eating, mating, no irony, love, selling, sending, creating, conversing, singing, painting, editing, playing, telling truth, dwelling, concentrating, drinking, partying, thinking, linking, building, smoking, digging, shaping, breaking, sleeping, skiing, skiing, preaching, teaching, keeping, warming, warning, confusing, choosing, amusing, loosing, wanting, winning, sinking, hacking, cutting, burning, learning, turning, growing, attending, standing, talking, looking, barking, filming, carving, packing, carrying, unpacking, laughing, deciding, distancing, shipping, closing, opening, dancing, cooling, stretching, latching, borrowing, returning, moving, entering, passing, asking, worrying, assuring, reading, concerning, forgetting, denying, trying, devoting, feeling, 

So my point is The Bunch is what ever you want it to be.