The crew who brought us the Nendaz Backcountry Invitational for the past handful of years out of Nendaz, Switzerland are now bringing their freestyle-focused freeride Backcountry Invitational event to locations all over the world. The Ushuaïa Backcountry Invitational was the inaugural international event, taking place at Cerro Martial in Ushuaïa, Argentina. This was the first of two test events this summer in the southern hemisphere to dial things in for their upcoming events during the ’25/26 North American winter.
This unique event incorporates human-made terrain features built into the natural landscape to create a wild freeride event with plenty of freestyle-focusd hits for the athletes to choose between. These Backcountry Invitationals typically have a longer weather window (up to 30 days) in order to allow for the best conditions and softest, freshest landings. This test event had a weather window of only a few days due to time constrains and the crew and athletes made the most of the more-firm conditions, still throwing down and pushing the sport’s creative aspects.
This Ushuaïa Backcountry Invitational test event featured 21 local South American athletes across ski men, ski women & snowboard men disciplines along with three international pros. The three pros from abroad were Jake Müller from Austria, Kendall Goodman from the US and Whistler’s Olivier Gagnon. The energy of the local community was palpable and their passion & dedication to pushing the sport of freeride skiing is evident.
Event Results
Men’s Ski; Best Line went to Olivier Gagnon, Best Trick to Jake Mueller with a corked out 7 and Most Creative went to Patrico Maino.
Women’s Ski; Best Trick went to Fiorella Rodriquez and Best Line to Julia Funes.
Men’s Snowboard; Best Line went to Alan Brandeman, Best Tirck to Enzo Mair with a 720 and Most Creative went to Gianluca Cebron.
It was an incredible test event and we’re pumped for more of these events on beautiful venues around the world. Next up, Treble Cone, New Zealand! See below for the recap video and a few photos from the event.
