Getting Back On The Board

I was 'round at Simon and Sarah's last night, catching up and talking about Canada. We looked over some photos and video of Fernie and it just looks awesome.

Simon's got a new Rome Anthem, fresh for next years action. Every time I think about my board I conside getting a new one. Not because I don't like the T2, far from it, it's a great board. It's just that the nose profile is bugging me somewhere in the back of my head...

...A minute later and I've reminded myself that I'm just being a wuss. I don't need a new board to help me ride the pow; what I need is to simply ride more pow!

Still, it was nice checking out the brand spanking Anthem. I used to own one of them and rated it highly.

We also talked about getting in a session at Halifax - something I haven't done for a long time now. I definitely want to get at least a handful of sessions in before next January as there are tricks that I want to get more consistent, and maybe even learn some new stuff.

It looks like I've got some weekends available in the middle of September so a session or two should be on the cards. Sweet.

The Penthouse, Morzine: Accommodation Review

The Penthouse is a luxury chalet situated in Morzine, France. It's not cheap and there are one or two inconveniences inside; but the location is central, the chalet itself is excellent and the service from the owners ranks highly too.

A group of us stayed in The Penthouse, Morzine, earlier this year in January. It was a good holiday despite snow conditions and the accomodation really added to it. Here's the review.

I'm gonna start by getting the minor annoyances out of the way. To begin with, there was only one standing shower. The other three bathrooms all had the hand-held style where the water kinda goes everywhere. Secondly, there wasn't a great deal of storage in the bedrooms: only one of them had a set of wardrobes. Finally, there were only two keys for the chalet, which spread between 6 to 8 people can be a bit of a stretch...

Inside the chalet. And now the positive things. The comment about the showers should be balanced against the number of bathrooms: 4. That's right, there was one bathroom per bedroom, which is a luxury in my book. Likewise, with regards to space/storage it should be noted that the ski locker was big and there was also plenty of general space around the chalet, which is usually where you need it when in a group.

The living space was comfortable and well finished, with fire, tv and dvd player. The dining table was great, with plenty of room for all and the kitchen was fully loaded to match. The living space was all open-plan, which was good for the social atmosphere and generally pretty sweet.

Location. The chalet is situated in old Morzine, at the bottom of the hill near the church. It's a really nice area: great views from the chalet's balcony, good shops right on hand, an Internet cafe and two good bars just across the road - Robinson's (I think) and Dixie Bar, both are good hangouts.

The supermarket was within comfortable distance and, if it's your type of thing the chalet sits above a pretty good delicatessen, great for cheese and such like. There's also a bus stop right outside so if you want to head to the base of Avoriaz it's super easy - excellent! All in all the chalet has a lot of great amenities right on hand.

The only downside is that it's a ten minute walk up into the newer part of Morzine. It's here that the base ski-lifts are found: on one side of town there is the Morzine area (and Les Gets) and on the the other there's the Super Morzine lift, which takes you up towards Avoriaz. There's probably a bus that takes you up the hill, but I never used it. In this instance I don't think a walk up the hill is such a bad thing; kinda like a warmup :) That said I've got snowboard boots on - not ski boots!

As I mentioned above, if you are heading to Avoriaz there's a second option: take the free bus to the Avoriaz base area, Les Prodains. It's a quick option for getting up there and the bus stop is literally right outside the chalet.

On the evenings though, we found the main restaurant selection to be in Morzine centre, which meant a brief walk. It didn't bother us, but it's something to think about...

Price. 6 of us paid £1500 at the end of January, for one week. I think that's fairly expensive, but it should be balanced against the quality of the accommodation, which was high. What's more, if you were to look for a similar style apartment/chalet that's central in the majority of French resorts, you'd struggle to find something in this price range. If more luxurious accommodation is one of the things on your list, The Penthouse ticks a lot of boxes!

Service. The owners provided good friendly service, taking time to answer all questions before hand and the transfer from Geneva that we opted for was very smooth, with friendly local knowledge given on the way. Add in a bottle of wine as a welcome drink and it all stacks up pretty nicely.

Overall. It's not easy to find this type of accommodation in central town locations. To me, given the quality of The Penthouse, this justifies a higher price. Personally, I was most looking forward to riding in Avoriaz, but I wanted the type of accommodation on offer in Morzine. In this respect, the chalet is excellent. Given the pros and cons mentioned above I still feel the location is spot on.

For sure I don't want to spend this amount of money on all of my snowboarding trips, but for those times that you do want to spend a little more - The Penthouse is a great option.

Teaser Watch

There are three films that I'm already really excited about seeing this season. The first, which I've previously mentioned, is Absinthe's Optimistic.

The second is an all girls production by Runway Films - La La Land. I found out about La La Land on the megadasher site and was totally impressed by the riding in the teaser. It looks pretty sick! I've really enjoyed previous all-girl snowboard movies, especially DropStitch and As If. I reckon La La Land's gonna be good - here's the trailer.

The final film is the new movie shot at the DC Mountain Lab. I don't know whether there's an official trailer yet - as I read recently on (the awesome) Pierre Wikberg's blog (more on that later) that the music hasn't cleared yet - but there is something on YouTube showing a few variations. The first DC MTN.LAB was so good I've got to see this new one! Here's that YouTube video...

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Snowmotions.com

Last season I went to Flims/Laax and rented accommodation from a company called Snowmotions. As it turns out, we got much more than just accommodation: they told us all the best places to go, showed us around the place, helped out with beepers, pointed us in the direction of reduced transceiver hire and organised a guided backcountry day in Lenzerheide. Snowmotions really added to the trip.

Well, Snowmotions have updated their site fresh for next season. There's loads of good information there, and to me, the most interesting is that Arosa and Lenzerheide will be linked by a chairlift, making them a connected area. I've heard good things about the freeriding in Arosa and I was certainly impressed with what I saw of Lenzerheide the day we did the tour. It's a great option, especially if you're looking for good backcountry riding.

They have details of freeriding packages, the safari tour that we did and heliboarding packages. The whole point is that they can help tailor-make your holiday.

Of real potential interest is the resort of Flumserberg. Snowmotions can help you set up a short stay (or longer) in a resort which could be the quickest access from the UK... check it out.

Oh, and check out the review of last season: there's a cheeky photo of me in there, and one of Martin also :)

If you're considering Switzerland, or you're looking for good backcountry riding I'd definitely consider Snowmotions. My experience before, during and after the holiday has been excellent - definitely recommended!

Urban Hand Rail...

Here's another hand rail in Newcastle. I've seen this one loads of times before and although there's probably no way on earth a rider could actually hit it, I just think it looks pretty cool.

For a start, there are a pair of lamp posts at the bottom just waiting for contact. Then, unless the rider only the bottom section, the (two) corners at the top are too sharp. And finally there's the fact that the drop to the side of the stairs is really high...

Or... could you gap the top section (all of it? or just the stair part using the bush as a run-in?) and 50-50 the bottom kink, narrowly avoiding the posts?

No way :)

Interesting Fernie Photos

I've been out of touch with snowboarding over the last few weeks. I definitely haven't done any riding, but my mind has been forced elsewhere too. Well, I was looking around for general stuff about Fernie and I came across a pretty cool aerial shot of the resort on the RCR site.

The photo was taken by Robin Siggers. I like it because you can pretty much see the whole resort and overlay the piste map, or should I use trail map :) on top of it.

To be honest I'm not sure I've ever seen an aerial shot of a resort like this before... On on hand I think it makes it look kinda small, probably because you're not used to seeing everything at once; but the open bowl areas at the top look awesome (and big).

There are some other good photos there too: a mixed bag, but definitely worth a look.

Shaun White And X Games 13

So Shaun White won the gold at the X Games 13 on the vert ramp. I know it's a week or so late, but I saw his run for the first time today, it was pretty impressive. More impressive is the fact that he's so good at both skateboarding and snowboarding...

Of course it was on YouTube that I caught the action; it seems more and more that you don't really need regular television as you can find most things on the web. If you haven't seen it here it is:

Speaking of the X Games, I recently read on the web about a horrible slam that Jake Brown had. I don't really follow skateboarding but I have heard of Jake Brown... he was at the LG Tour event that I watched last year. I liked his style.

If you were watching the games or at least keeping tabs on them, this is probably old news... but I read about it a short while after it happened and then (again) viewed the action on YouTube. It's an insane slam; it's great that he's ok. While I was looking around I checked out some other clips if Jake Brown and I think I like watching this one better than a 40' crash!