Last Day

  The last day dawned clear and sunny.  In fact the skies were probably clear for most of the night because the snow was frozen corduroy this morning.  I went snowboarding again, although I didn’t join the lesson as I wanted to practice linking shorter turns at my own pace.

  When I got it right it felt good and the horrendous scraping noise that the board was making on the icy surface lessened somewhat.  When I got it wrong the noises were more ‘thud’ and ‘Ow !’, despite the padded shorts I was wearing.

   After a couple of hours the slopes became crowded and the constant jarring had left me quite weary so I stopped for a quick coffee before boarding back to the chalet and then taking the snowboard back to the hire shop.

   Then all that remained to do was pack and, finally, at 6pm, attend a 2 hour Child Protection workshop !

Weather !

  It didn’t snow last night but the weather closed right in so visibility was pretty poor and then it started snowing as we went out.  It wasn’t snowing heavily but the flakes themselves were wet and heavy and the temperature was minus 2° C.

  We went to the top of the Tougnete gondola in search of better snow and found that the visibility was even worse although the snow was marginally better.  We came down Crêtes and then Choucas; the visibility was so poor I didn’t even realise that we were on Choucas until we got to the bottom.

  Then we tried to get on the Cherferie button lift.  Most of us managed to get on it, only one of us stayed on it to the top (wasn’t me).  There was another drag lift nearby - the much shorter and easier Caves, so I decided to practice on that for a while Guilliam went and rounded up the rest of the class.

  Having done a couple of runs around Caves I stopped and waited for the class.  Trouble was that by this time the visibility was so poor I couldn’t see across the piste… I assume they passed me in the mist and I eventually decided to board down Escargot; not the simplest blue run but one I am familiar with so I got back to the Chaudanne just before Noon and found Guilliam arriving with the class from the opposite direction.

  Didn’t bother going out in the afternoon as the snow was very slushy and although it was still snowing it was beginning to turn to rain with the rising temperature.  Instead I took my all mountain skis for a full service (mostly to get the base ground) and then went back to the chalet to fill the holes in the base of my race skis.

It’s nothing like surfing, but anyway…

  I had the Hawaii Five-0 theme tune running through my head for most of the morning as we learnt to link turns.  For the first hour or so I would do a frontside turn, followed by a backside turn, another frontside turn and then I’d have picked up too much speed and I’d fall attempting the next backside turn.

  I finally cracked it; I simply slowed down after each turn and managed to link 18 turns (yes, I counted !) before the morning was out - well pleased.

   After lunch I went back up to the Altiport where we’d had our lesson this morning and carried on linking turns and making them quicker, shorter and faster.  Inevitably this led to several falls and a decision to call it a day after ‘just one more run’.

  By this time the snow was pretty soft and scraped into lumps on the steeper sections.  I would regularly catch one of these ‘waves’ of snow with the downhill edge of the board and, instead of ‘surfing’ over it I’d dive head-first down the slope and pick up yet another bruise.

   Peter was having the same problem and as he’s an ex-copper every time he did fell I couldn’t resist saying “Book ‘em, Danno” (maybe you had to be there – it kept me amused).

   Great fun.

Snowboarding lesson

  I had a go at Snowboarding 4 or 5 years ago in Zermatt.  We had a 2 hour private lesson, after which we were exhausted and spent the afternoon in a bar drinking vodka feige’s.  We may have had another crack the next morning because I remember trying to use a button lift - our instructor’s last words were ‘just watch what everyone else does and copy them’ - needless to say we were less than successful and I haven’t been snowboarding since.

  Although there is normally a ‘second discipline’ on a GAP course, this was dropped from our course because of the focus on slalom but 3 of us were still interested in doing snowboarding and BASI have arranged for our equipment hire to be paid for as well as the lessons.

  So this morning I was standing on a big slippery plank of wood that seemed to have a mind of it’s own at the top of a run that was clearly far far steeper than it was yesterday when I skied down it without turning or picking up any speed.  This is what it feels like to be a beginner; I’d forgotten, so I’ll try and capture the feeling and recall it when I’m unsympathetic instructor.

  We started with just one foot strapped into a binding and practised stopping on the back edge and then the front edge.  Fortunately I’d bought some padded shorts, because the snow was bum-bruisingly hard.

  Then we tried sliding down on the back edge, followed by a ‘falling leaf’ exercise where we still slid down but started to steer left and right.

  Having managed a couple of runs on the back edge we repeated the same on the front edge which seemed harder because we were balanced on our toes rather than our heels and because we were travelling backwards so we couldn’t see where we were going.  Fortunately I was wearing my helmet because the snow was brain-bruisingly hard.

  To turn right around you have to let the board go flat on the snow and allow it to run straight down the hill.  In fact it requires even more commitment than that because you have to put more of your weight on the end of the board that’s heading directly down the fall line.  Another feeling to try and capture - just how hard it is to throw yourself down a hill when you’re not at all sure you can make that slippery thing under your feet turn, let alone stop, without falling over (on knee-knackering snow).

  So we tried some turns, first from the front side to the back and then from the back to the front.  On my final run I managed to link two turns and felt inordinately pleased with myself.

  After just a couple of hours I was completely drenched and muscles that I didn’t even know existed were protesting of overwork - and I’ve been unusually active for the past 3 months.  Something else to remember when I’m in front of a class.

  Fortunately a bath and a good lunch restored my body and a couple of beers didn’t hurt either.