In the spring of 2025, the Camptastic Voyage brought together 20 hungry skiers and filmers at the Stubai Glacier in Austria. Their mission: in teams of four, shred and destroy the whole mountain, and make the best possible edit during a week of filming.
Vebjøn Gråberg and Lars Ruchti of Team Headhunters double up on the Red Bull rail.
Klaus Polzer
Stories
the kings are crowned
Camptastic Voyage video contest: The winners are…
For a week straight, five teams—Early Bird, One Stitch, World Peace, Gori and Headhunters—ran rampant across the spring slopes of Stubai. No landing was safe as the crews shoveled, jibbed and stomped their merry way around the resort. By the end of the week, there were jumps and stomped-out landings in every direction that you looked.
Stinius Skjøtstift floats a cork 3 over one of our special features.
Klaus Polzer
It was awesome to see skiers from different areas of the sport coming together for a contest like this. We had everyone from World Cup slopestylers to Freeride World Tour athletes, and local legends to travelers from afar. This eclectic mix of characters and talents gave the event a very unique flavor.
Paz aka Patrick Schuchter, captain of the Early Birds crew, doing what he does best: dripping flavor all over a feature.
Klaus Polzer
Yes, it was a contest, but it was also a vibe. Each day, after shredding from first lift to last call—sometimes long after the lifts had closed—we gathered back at our campground at the base of the mountain to share stories and beers around the campfire, before tucking into our fleet of camper vans for the night.
Camp vibes: scoping the day's shots while Carlo whips up dinner. Thanks Carlo!!!
Klaus Polzer
Our home away from home for the week: a fleet of camper vans and RVs generously provided by Sunlight and Crossrent.
Klaus Polzer
Even so, at the end of the day, a winner had to be crowned to take home the €10,000 prize purse for Best Edit. Without further ado, those winners are…
Team Gori!
Team Gori | Camptastic Voyage
Downdays YouTube
Team Gori was comprised of a crew of hungry young freeride talent from across the Alps. Team captain Tiemo Rolshoven first caught our eye at the Nendaz Backcountry Invitational—which he won back in January—and his unique blend of freeride ability and freestyle prowess seemed like a natural fit for Camptastic.
Tiemo enthusiastically accepted our invitation and quickly rallied a crew of two more young up-and-comers in the freeride scene: Martin Bender and Alex Williams, both representing Verbier’s “Gorillas” crew — hence the name Gori. Felix Raffaelli jumped on board as filmer, and the team was set.
The people I spent the week with in Stubai are some of my best mates from skiing and they're also awesome at what they do, so that's how Team Gori came together. The week felt like the perfect season ender. It was one of the first experiences with filming for me, and I can say that it challenged me in a very different and unique way, which I highly appreciated and am looking forward to do more in the future. All in all, it felt like the perfect week to slightly push yourself while just fully embracing the joys of freeskiing in spring.
Tiemo and team hit some of the week's more unique features, like this bounce-off-the-cornice offer.
Klaus Polzer
I thought Gori had the best combination of skiing, spot selection, trick selection and filming. You could see the energy they put in, that they really went for it. The filming was also on point, and it had a good vibe to it.
How was the winning team chosen?
The winning team was selected via a system that combined a public poll with votes from a jury and the teams themselves. These inputs were weighted as follows: 40% public vote, 40% team vote, and 20% Downdays jury. We wanted to give the public a chance to weigh in, while letting the teams have an equal say.
The Downdays jury was comprised of our core team of staff, plus some close friends: Klaus Polzer, Christian Stadler, Roy Kittler, Ethan Stone, Simon Bartik, Scotty Naismith, Daniel Hanka, Jannis Hoffmann aka Hoffi FPV, Markus Eder and Alex Hackel.
Vebjørn Gråberg and Arther Herbosch getting 'er done for Headhunters.
Klaus Polzer
Second place went to Team Headhunters. This freestyle-heavy team, comprised of hard-hitting slopestylers Vebjørn Gråberg, Nikolay Jenssen and Lars Ruchti as well as filmer Arthur Herbosch, put down some of the week’s most technical tricks—including an absolutely ridiculous switch dub 12 from Nikolay. However, Team Gori’s mastery of off-piste terrain gave them a slight edge in all voting segments—public, team and jury—despite the best efforts of the hardy Headhunters.
Team World Peace was a favorite among the team vote. Team captain Sebi Mall, Stinius Skjøtstift, Manu Barnard and filmer Guillaume Berthelot served up a vibing, feel-good edit that combined smooth freeriding with some of the week’s better BC jump sessions.
World Peace captain Sebi Mall knows a thing or two about BC jumping.
Klaus Polzer
Team One Stitch, tossed together at the last minute by Guillaume Schutz after another team pulled out, starred Nico Lepori, Mona Falkner and filmer Antoine “Obitoine” Deglangy. Despite starting a day late and a dollar short, One Stitch ended up serving one of the more entertaining edits of the group—a commendable effort.
Last but not least, Team Early Birds kept the Camptastic crew well represented both on the slopes, and at the apres bar. Captain Patrick Schuchter, an Austrian style legend, rallied his crew of Elias Meister, Manuel Lerchbaumer, filmer Stefan Freiberger and editor Pascal Khier. Despite some great skiing from the crew and loads of Paz’s signature style, the Early Birds were held back by their loose approach to production quality—not to mention a few late nights out.
All in all, the 2025 Camptastic Voyage served up five great edits and lots of great memories. Thanks to all the teams and everyone who voted — we’re already looking forward to next year!
