Nicholas Wolken is one of snowboarding’s deepest thinkers. A Swiss environmentalist and qualified psychologist, he set out in 2019 to explore ways of getting to grips with the climate crisis.
As he himself admits, it’s a daunting subject, and our own enjoyment of the mountains is often tinged with a sense of guilt that we might be contributing to the problem. His resulting film, Turn of Mind, is both a beautiful splitboarding adventure and a gentle call to action.
“Nicholas set out in 2019 to explore ways of getting to grips with the climate crisis”
To celebrate its premiere, I was invited to join a press trip to Innsbruck. The message of the movie is that by regularly connecting with nature we can gain a profound respect for our environment, and so Nicholas guided us through a day’s splitboarding in the nearby Austrian mountains before we descended on the local Patagonia store for a screening. Afterwards I was able to talk to him at length for an interview on Whitelines.
You can see my snaps from the day below, and check out Turn of Mind for yourself at the bottom. It’s definitely worth quarter of an hour of anyone’s time.
