These Things I Know

Morton Gjerstad



ONE - Katabic winds (winds that fall from the top of mountains) are damn cold! Wear a face mask or be prepared to suffer frostbite.

TWO - Kiting in deep powder is the best feeling on earth, until the wind dies and you're stuck miles from the road with no snow shoes.

THREE - U.S. custom officials will confiscate your ham and cheese sandwich without even blinking.



FOUR - In the mountains, wind and sun are mutually exclusive weather phenomenons.

FIVE - There are two kinds of people on this planet - those who divide the world in two, and those who don't.

SIX - Copy protection, unfortunately, is dead.

SEVEN - The Empire Strikes Back is the only Star Wars movie worth watching. And I'm not just saying that because the snow scenes in that movie were shot in the same place where we snowkite.



EIGHT - If you want to go snowkiting, go snowkiting. If you want to go paragliding, go paragliding. Don't confuse one with the other.

NINE - It’s not just hype: Utah really does have the greatest snow on earth.

TEN - At -30°C the liquid crystals in the LCD display on your video camera will start to freeze.

ELEVEN - Don’t let your friend who flunked geography class order the plane tickets for your next trip. You'll end up having to drive an extra ten hours to get to where you want.

TWELVE - Bring lots of snacks on every film shoot. Professional snowkiters will always go the extra mile to get the shot if you feed them some candy.

THIRTEEN - No matter how fit you are, running around in the snow at an altitude of 12,000ft will have you feeling like an asthmatic chain-smoker.

FOURTEEN - The human body can tolerate a diet consisting of only Subway sandwiches and Gatorade for exactly one month before malfunctioning.

FIFTEEN - Eat the yellow snow, it might be beer.

OUTRO – Morten Gjerstad is 27-years-old and was born and raised on the west coast of Norway. He is the creative force behind the stunning Entropy and Something Stronger snowkite DVDs, and although he has only been making snowkite films for two years he has already caused a storm with his talent for  accurately capturing and portraying the excitement and back-to-basics nature of the sport and its environment. He will finish his snowkite instructional DVD in January, is then heading to South Africa to shoot Ozone's team of water kiters before returning to Norway to shoot more snowkiting. From April Morten will be shooting the PKRA tour.
Something Stronger is out now and is available at kiteworldmag.com and snowkitefilm.com