Safe Passions remembers Andreas Fransson, teaches skiers

A year after ski mountaineer Andreas Fransson died in a South American avalanche, Fransson’s sister, Sandra, is starting an organization in his memory. An artist, Sandra has designed and is selling a poster inspired by her brother, and the artwork is printed on a pair of Salomon MTN Lab skis, available for auction. It’s all to raise funds for a youth-focused educational initiative that will kick off with a safety course in Chamonix this January, taught by Andreas’s friend, Morgan Salén, and in partnership with Salomon and Recco.

“It was thanks to my brother that I became an artist,” Sandra says. “Being in the mountains, I get so much inspiration. And my brother—he’s still such an inspiration to me.”

We chatted with Sandra Fransson to learn more about the organization, her relationship with her brother and how she channels his approach to life in her own. Here’s the story of Safe Passions in her own words.

I’m a fully certified ski instructor and I’ve been skiing for many, many years, but what Andreas and I saw as fun skiing was a bit different. The last few years, our time spent together was climbing or having good dinners together. We are both quite spiritual, so that was something that connected us, but actual skiing? We didn’t do as much as people would think.

He was almost finished with his mountain guide education, the Swedish one. When he was young, he got a lot of help from older skiers and they influenced him a lot and helped him in so many ways, so he felt like he wanted to give back to the skiing community. He talked about how he wanted to hold freeskiing camps for youths; to make it an affordable price to go with a mountain guide. So that’s where this whole thing came from. He actually came up with the idea, so we’re just kind of pursuing it.

[Safe Passions partners] with Salomon and Recco. Also, family and close friends to Andreas. One is Morgan Salén—he’s one of the mountain guides holding the course in Chamonix. Especially for friends and others who knew him, it’s a good thing to be able to do something nice in his memory.

The color was quite an easy choice to start with. Andreas liked to push the rules and question society. And he liked to wear pink, because he thought, “Why should pink be a color for girls?” For me that color was an obvious choice.

Andreas was really good at facing his fears and talked a lot about that with me, pushing me in the same way. The last year he was alive he had a lot of nightmares about snakes. That shows how Andreas is climbing his way from fear and darkness up into the light with the help of yoga and meditation and his love for skiing.

The mountains are inspired by the silhouettes of San Lorenzo, where Andreas and JP passed away. And the top are the two condors that represent JP and Andreas because, according to South American beliefs, they say that the soul of a person who passes away in the mountains goes through the condors and they help them into the light.

The people we really want to reach are youth and young adults. He wanted to help those youths and it’s something he talked about as well. For us, it’s not only about avalanches, but about the big picture in the mountains. If you’re going to be skiing in Chamonix, you should know about glaciers, you should know about using ropes, having a more overall view. In that way, it represents what Andreas did.

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Purchase a poster, bid on the Safe Passions skis (until December 1) and learn more about the organization and this winter’s course at andreasfransson.se.