Summer guide profile: Pete Gaston & Mathias Marschner

Pete Gaston, 26, lives in Aspen, USA. When not riding in the high mountains of Colorado Pete is right at home in the Alps. His favorite place to ride? Zermatt, Switzerland. When not guiding for Big Mountain Adventures in Europe Pete can be found climbing and skiing throughout the winter as a Salomon Freeskiing athlete. Pete and his brother John also founded Strafe Outerwear, a technical snow sports outerwear company. Pete will be co-guiding our CrossAlps trip, August 17-25 and our Swiss Cloudraker trip, September 2-10. 

Pete Gaston, right at home in the Alps.

46 year old, Munich-based Marschner did his first north to south trans-alp mountain bike crossing in 1999. Since then he’s ridden across the Alps annually on a variety of different routes. The route on this CrossAlps trip is the result of a culmination of these years of exploration. His philosophy of guiding and riding are summed up in three words: bike, nature and soul. Mathias is at the helm of this year's CrossAlps trip, August 17-25.

Mathias cleaning up before the big descent.

 

5 reasons why our new CrossAlps trip rocks.

We've developed a new all-mountain / enduro trip called CrossAlps that we think you'll find interesting. It goes like this: we pick you up in Munich, Germany and transfer to the Austrian ski town of St. Anton where we'll ride the next seven days through Austria, Switzerland and  Italy. Local guides, four countries and a whole lot of good times. The date is August 17-25, 2013. Want to come?

Crossing the Alps one pedal stroke at a time.

5 reasons why our new CrossAlps trip rocks:

#1. The route does not conquer the Alps from North to South as direct as possible like many Trans Alp routes. Instead we devised a route that passes over the most beautiful passes and includes the best rides that we could find, even if it means a few deviations.

#2. We don’t end the trip in Lake Garda like most routes, but instead we cross some of the most impressive regions of the Swiss and Italian Alps, ending on the beach of very bella Lake Como. 

Another day in paradise.

#3. Our goal isn’t to aim for greatest/longest/fastest but rather the mostest funest. Oh, we mean the most fun. That means very little asphalt, some very fun double track and singletrack jewels such as the descents from Idalp to Heidelberger Hütte, the Fimba Pass, the Corviglia FlowTrail  and Lake Como’s Traccionlino as our final ‘digestive.’

#4. Yes, we use the odd lift. With some trans Alpers it’s practically the law that every single meter needs to be ridden. Not us. If a shuttle is available and brings us to great riding, we’ll take it. This means using the Swiss Red Train, some lifts or the van once in a while to increase percentage of good times. 

Zee Red Train.

#5. CrossAlps is not a ‘challenge’ ride where only the strongest survive and riding consists of a being in a psychological tunnel. Instead, we’ll enjoy the awesome scenery, the riding, each other’s company and the culture of each region. Be it soaking up Austria’s welcoming Tyrolean “Gemütlichkeit” vibe, enjoying Swiss perfection on the train, sipping a few Italian cappuccinos, feasting Swiss Engiadin cuisine and doing our best to learn the host of languages along the way.

With great effort comes great reward.

NEW Swiss DH video!

Big Mountain Adventures mountain biking in the Swiss Alps. from Big Mountain Adventures on Vimeo.

We're quite excited about this amazing video on our Alpenrock DH mountain bike trip produced by our friends at Anthill Films featuring riders Matt Hunter, Ludo May and the Godfather Wade Simmons. Sick back and enjoy!