Day 13 - Last Day

Another sunny day, blue skies. All of this good visibility makes a nice change from some of the heavy snow and white-outs we had in the first week, but after being spoiled with fresh snow, it feels like this place could do with a top up. Ice is starting to creep in.

Actually, it's the occasional areas of ice that have highlighted a possible difference attributed to one of the two, standout design features of my new board - the Lib Tech T.Rice. My board has Lib Tech's Magne-Traction edges and Banana Technology base. To be honest, I haven't really noticed a difference.

Until now.

Of course it's difficult to provide an accurate comparison given that I've been riding this board on all conditions for around two weeks, and I don't have a regular board to strap onto and ride the same conditions. That said, the lib tech does seem to have better edge control on icy conditions as compared with conventional side-cut boards. That's interesting...

So, the day started with Ciara and I heading up to Avoriaz to leave a copy of the world snowboard guide with Jean Noel and the Tourist Office. We then went to check out the Arare Park; Avoriaz's largest park. On the way there, we stopped to take a look at the half pipe too.

Man, where does the time go? Two weeks here and I haven't taken a single run through the half-pipe!

So the Arare park isn't quite finished, but there's still a lot there, and what is there is pretty good, and pretty big. We got plenty of photos for potential use with the online guide...

After that we spent most of the day in the stash. It's pretty addictive. Lots of hits, lots of fun, and something that Ciara and I have been happy to lap again and again, just the two of us. And being serviced by a fast, 6 man chair helps too. There's a pretty long, natural log right at the entrance to Main Street, and on our last run through I just about hit the end. It's round and knobbly, so not particularly easy. I was stoked. Also, Ciara got a couple of indy grabs, the first I've seen her do. Sweet.

Those final runs through the stash, and the rather excellent home run from Avoriaz down to Prodains, Crot, made for an excellent end to our trip. I just wish we didn't have to go home. More snowboarding would be good, and I need to sort myself out hitting kickers.

The whole group was assembled at the bottom, ten of us, drinking beers in what has become our regular, La Kinkerne. The hospitality there is exceptional. We sat around talking about what we'd done that day, and over the two weeks in general. Those ice cold beers go down so well. What a great trip...

Day 12 - Main Street

After our meeting yesterday with Jean Noel, the directive today was to session the stash - Main Street.

So much fun. It's a bit of a shame that it's taken until day 12 for us to try these lines, but better late than never. We took 4 or 5 runs through, and Ciara worked some of the hits on Prolays. I had the video camera with me.

It was a good morning, I did some things that I was pleased with. I haven't gone bigger on this trip, in fact the truth might actually be the opposite, but I have progressed in other areas. I was pleased.

After a late lunch we found the Stash was a little busy in the afternoon, but it was already quite late, so we went to the Avoriaz Chapelle park instead. Ever since I hit the blue kickers there last week, they've been playing on my mind. Not good. I didn't hit them today either. I'd like to say that I'll come back tomorrow and hit that line, but to be honest, I don't think so. It's in my head now, and I'd rather not let it bother me, especially when I'm having fun shredding other parts of the mountain.

It was a great day, over too quickly, I'll address the kicker issue when I get home...

(click to enlarge)

Day 11, Jean Noel From The Stash

This morning we headed over to Crosets to ride some fast runs with the group. Sunny, early morning groomers means quiet, fast runs. Awesome. I love it when you you're going at a speed that makes you think, if I stack it now it's gonna really hurt.

I'm not totally sure where the boundary between Champery and Les Crosets is on the slopes, but we made our way towards Champery to get a good look at the infamous Swiss Wall. I guess 99% of the times it's a really steep, mogul field, and big moguls at that. The rest of the time, following a lot of snow, it might be an awesome powder run; well that's what I hear, I've never seen it like that...

I had no desire to join the 100 skiers or so and ride the moguls - not just to say I've done it. Instead we headed down a really long run, the Grand Paradis, towards a small base station (car park), sitting a little higher than the town of Champery. A note for snowboarders who find themselves in this area: don't get suckered in by the length of this red, or the top section for that matter, which you can see from the lift, and to be fair, is really nice.

The rest of it sucks. You're walking. Guaranteed. And probably more than once. Apart from the top section, which, surprise, surprise is quiet, the rest of the run is a long, flat, boring trail. And there's nothing to see at the bottom either.

Cue lunch. Yummy.

Ciara and I split from the group for the afternoon. We had two agendas: Ciara wanted to show me some of the stuff she learned on her freestyle lesson, and at 3.00pm, we had a meeting with the top guy from the Avoriaz Park Team, Jean Noel.

I watched Ciara in the park for an hour or so, but I don't think she was totally feeling it. Still, I know she's improving a lot at the moment, her freestyle basics are more solid than they've ever been.

This was the first day that I haven't put any sun cream on. First thing this morning it looked like it was going to be overcast, so I skipped the cream. Mistake. It turned out to be the hottest day so far and I could feel my face tickling. A slight goggle tan ensued...

We met Jean at 3.00pm, at the top of the stash. He took us for a couple of runs through the stash, different routes each time, explaining things along the way. That, plus to the two chair rides back to the top and we'd learned a load of interesting information. It was definitely a good idea to have this meeting.

Having spent some time prior to this meeting shredding through the stash, I was surprised to find that we'd never been through Main Street. You see, there are numerous paths through the stash, which as well as providing good variation, also allows them to grade the different runs. I'd gravitated to the area that I could see from the lift; I like the hits that I could see, and the line under the lift had some nice sections of pow.

(click to enlarge)

Main Street is awesome. Loads of natural rails and boxes, jibs, hits and hips. There are no actual kickers; there isn't really enough space or control, given that the stash is laid out as a run. And it's laid out well. It's all about providing a good lines, and it works.

The only downside is that it's placement next to regular runs can attract skiers. That's not a dig at skiers as a group. What I mean is that you get skiers passing by, thinking it looks interesting, so they ski through as they would on any other run. It's just unwanted traffic. I don't mind waiting for someone else to hit a box or a jib, but who wants to wait in a freestyle-specific area for a convoy of 6 skiers to snake their way past?

Mini rant over.

Jean Noel was excellent and I thank him for his time.

Drinks at La Kinkerne is becoming a regular deal. After taking the bus from Prodains to Morzine, we popped into Mel's Cafe, a must visit. Ciara and I spent the last of our Euros, almost to the cent. The purchase was: one cheese burger, one double cheese burger, curly fries and two large beers. It was totally worth it, the burgers here are awesome!

I guess my budget wasn't too far out given that there're only two days left. Getting a close to one euro for your pound sucks, but not enough to pass up a beer and a burger after a day on the hill.

Day 10, Les Gets Park

I set off early this morning with Emma, heading for the Les Gets park. Ciara was missing in action, 6 pints last night proved too much for cathing the first bus... and the whole morning as it turned out :)

Not knowing the bus route, we decided to use the slopes to take us from Morzine to Les Gets. Once you get up into Morzine, it's one more lift, and then a single run all the way down into Les Gets base/town. A short walk across town and then up the other side of Les Gets, towards the park.

In all, it took us around an hour to get to the top of the park, from the base of Morzine, but it could be done quicker.

I enjoyed the Les Gets park. The beginner kicker line was good: three, well shaped kickers. The landings are a little short, but I'd say the shaping of the transitions kinda makes up for it. What I liked was that the park was laid out in a line; so you could hit the three kickers and then a rail, box and jib. Six hits is pretty good for a small'ish park. There was another rail or two, a hip, and a bigger kicker, although that was closed for the majority of the day.

The park is serviced by two chairlifts, one slightly longer than the other. We used the slightly longer one, Les Planeys, is it meant we could hit the final jib in the park, which I quite liked. I think it was something like 12-13 minutes to make a lap. That's not particularly quick, but a chiar does make a nice change.

I was working the nose grab - a grab that continues to allude me - and the frontside 3. Then melon this is starting to come more easily, even if the hit is smaller.

There's a handy restaurant at the top of the park, English owned I guess, and we ate there. It wasn't a full afternoon, but we did take a few more laps before heading back to Morzine, using the slopes again, rather than the bus. All in all, a good day.

Day 9, Wsg Exploration

Ciara and Emma had booked themselves a full day lesson with Our Camp, so I decided to take the opportunity to borrow the car and go for a drive: my mission to visit the smaller towns in the Portes Du Soleil and snowboard from Chatel to La Chapelle d'Abondance. I wanted to check out the Smooth Park too.

My route was laid out for me - thanks to the us getting stranded incident on Day 6. The plan was to make the best of the conditions on hand, take a lot of photos, get a feel for the layout, try some of the quieter slopes and make it back before dark.

All in all it went pretty well. I covered a lot of ground. After taking some pictures of the smooth park (the light wasn't great), I dropped my bag with the liftie and took a few laps. I snowboarded from Chatel to Torgon and then down to La Chapelle d'Abondance, getting a good view of Lake Geneva on the way.

It's hard to know for sure based on one day only, but the slopes over that way seemed very quiet. I saw some really nice runs, and non-crowded off-piste potential too. I'm not gonna say more now because I need to write the review up in full when I get home...

On the way back I drove through Morzine and on towards Prodains, to meet up with Ciara, Emma and my dad - he'd done the camp day too. I met Gilly Seagrave from Our Camp, their coach for day. She seemed really nice, and by all accounts, the coaching was excellent. Awesome!

Right now I'm taking my first, real opportunity to connect to the Internet. Wow, 9 days in, I really miss having a connection in our accommodation. We're staying out for something to eat. Gilly reckons that the park in Les Gets is pretty good and I think the others have been there today too - so that's the plan for tomorrow...

Day 9, Quick Update

Finding an Internet connection has not been easy. There are a couple of places in Morzine where you pay to connect, but they close around 7pm, so it's not easy to get there before closing.

Right now, I'm on a free wi-fi connection, in a bar/restaurant. Unfortunately it's in Prodains, which is a drive from our chalet, so I need the car, and the motivation, to come out on an evening...

So I've been writing up some daily posts, off-line, in the chalet, to post later. I might not get another chance to post the rest of them - if not, I'll post them when I get home. I'll also check up on comments, as right now I don't have much time online.

Day 8, Not What We'd Hoped...

We woke up to a bluebird this morning, but unfortunately there was no where near as much snow as was forecast.

Yesterday was supposed to see 50cm fall during the course of day and night, followed by clear skies today. The clear sky materialised, but the snow didn't. It seems that the bulk of the snow fell on Friday evening and Saturday morning, so it was all used up yesterday. Without much falling last night, there was pretty much zero fresh today...

Still, the pistes had been topped up nicely and the grooming was tight. You gotta love fresh groomers.

We spent the morning lapping blues and reds; chilling, jibbing, having fun and filming a few things. Mike and Kay have come out to join us for the second week, so this was their first day.

We met up with them just before lunch for a run. When we got to the bottom Mike realised he'd lost his pass! No way. His pocket had split allowing the white, plastic pass to slip out. 6 of us went back to the top and re-traced our run, but I think we all knew it was a hopeless effort.

I think he took it pretty well :) They just went down and got another one. We discussed options for trying to claim a replacement, but with no receipt and a cash payment it just didn't seem likely. I hope they can claim on their insurance.

The afternoon was chilled too. This is the first time that Julie's snowboarded so I didn't see her too much in the first week. Having the full group together was pretty cool - it's good to see a beginner nailing their turns, picking up some speed and progressing.

We made our way down to Prodains, again, for some apres beers. One turned into two, and then four or five. We got the late bus back, had some late beers, and now I'm pretty merry...

Day 7, Fresh Lines

Snow was falling yesterday, both during the day and the evning, so we woke this morning to find some nice, fresh snow. It was actually still snowing in Morzine by the chalet, with a small covering on the road.

Eagre to make first lift, we were lucky, as we only just caught the bus. However, we soon found that the Super Morzine lift, a few minutes down the road from our chalet, was closed. That meant we needed to take the cable car at Prodains - so we took a second bus from Morzine to Prodains. No problems. Still fairly early on the hill.

The visibility was ok; not bad, but not good, so we stuck to the trees under the Prolays lift. There's a run that cuts through the trees, which had some nice pockets of fresh available at the sides. Then, there's the stash and all the non-groomed areas in the trees themselves. Good stuff. We took 4 or 5 laps.

We then took the Chaux Fleurie up from Lindarets base. As you look across to the right as the chair goes up, there's a big, open area of off-piste, gentle to start but then getting pretty steep.

An afternoon photo of this area; it was less tracked when we took it.

We weren't the first by a long way. But when we got to the top, we ducked under the rope, still hoping for some good lines. We weren't dissapointed. First off, the sun came out just as we started. Clear skies and fresh snow. We then found that the top 2/3 of the run had plenty of fresh areas to make your own tracks. It was awesome.

Ciara really opened up here, going much faster than normal. It was great to see her really nail some powder turns. She was stoked, so we hit it up for a second lap.

The next descent wasn't quite as good. More tracks, and the snow seemed to get a little heavier, quickly, under the full sun. Still, nice turns when we found good spots.

At this point there was only 3 in our group, Ciara, Ross and myself. The others were a little hungover, plus they'd attempted to use the car to get to Prodains and got into all kinds of trouble. As we sat down for lunch they were only just arriving. Missing the fresh, not smart!

The afternoon was less noteworthy. Fresh snow became tracked and the slopes became choppy. I spent some time this evening looking for somewhere to connect to the Internet in Morzine, but the two places I found both closed at 7. Sucky.

Ciara and I stayed in the town and ate out. We're past half way now. Another good day of shredding on the hill.

Day 6, Wsg Meeting

We'd arranged to meet the representative from the Portes Du Soleil today, for lunch. The plan was to head over to Chatel using the slopes, have something to eat while discussing the wsg review, and then head back afterwards to meet up with the group.

When we woke we found it was raining down in Morzine. Never a good sign - but rain in the valley can mean snow up on the top - so I wasn't too bothered...

And that turned out to be the case. Once we got to the top of Avoriaz, it was snowing, and there was a healthy dose of some fresh piling up in places. We only had time to make one run down towards Lindarets before going further - but it was a good one. Ciara and I had left the chalet alone and I was starting to think that the others were missing out; the visibility wasn't great, but there are plenty of trees in that area that help to keep things clear, and that's where the stash is!

You can take a bus from Pre La Joux to Chatel. It goes through Linga before reaching Chatel, and in total takes between 10 and 15 minutes. That option makes reaching Chatel from Avoriaz a small deal. However, we'd decided to use the lifts to get as far a Linga, and take the bus from there. Probably not the best choice given the weather.

Once away from the trees is was a complete white-out. We took a long red from the top of Tete du Linga down to the base, which was probably really nice, but to be honest, it was hard to see anything. Once we were around half way down, the snow gave way to rain, heavy rain, and we were subsequently drenched!

It's worth pointing out that on the lift up to the top, des combes, I thought I'd spotted a good deal of cliffs and rocks that looked good for dropping...

We arrived in Chatel, wet, and later than we'd planned. With the weather and one or two stops, the journey over there probably took twice as long. We had lunch with Cosima, from the Portes Du Soleil press office, and chatted about the reivew. All went well.

As the weather was bad we decided to head straight back. Unfortunately we were caught out. After taking the bus back to Pre La Joux, we used the first of two lifts to take us back towards Avoriaz, only to find the second lift was closed due to high winds. This was around 3 o-clock, and it was closed for the day. Not good. Stuck at the bottom of Pre La Joux, we were faced with the prospect of a long taxi ride home. Ouch.

Lesson: don't stray too far on bad weather days.

Luckily for us, we had a car in the group, and they were willing to come collect us. The journey, 45 - 50 minutes, takes you along a fairly high pass running between Montriond and Abondance (roughly) - which I decided might come in hand later for parts of the reivew.

Ciara and I did our bit for the whole skier-snowboarder divide, and offered two skiers a ride back in the car, to save them getting a taxi. It meant one of us had to sit in the boot, so there was a small sacrifice involved. I'd like to say it was me that downgraded seats, but after a quick discussion, I gave in to Ciara's logic that she's the smallest, so it was easier for her to fit...

It turned out that the rest of the group were put off by the rain and took the whole day off. I still think they missed out. Avoriaz that morning had good snow. Oh well. The played Kings instead; by time we got back, they were all pretty wasted!

Day 5, Exploration

Ciara and I decided to make our way over to Les Crosets today, with a plan to either go on towards Champery or Champoussin.

I continue to be impressed with Avoriaz and Les Crosets, which is very close by, proved to offer good snowboarding too: fast steep runs, good lifts, accessible off-piste and a well shaped park. A second blue-bird day, we were able to take some decent photos - I had the D60 with me - some of the views were incredible. On a side note, the backpack is working out well; I can fit my camcorder (plus handle) and slr in there, and there's still plenty of room for extras...

After looking around some, we decided to make our way to Champoussin: we'd check out what was on offer, have lunch and then head back.

Lunch was good...

Getting to Champoussin: not impressed.

Accessing Champoussin from Les Crosets is horrible. If you're on a snowboard, you're walking, guaranteed. And there's a good deal. Annoying. At at the end of all the walking, we ended up at a steep t-bar. They're just not comfortable for snowboarders.

I reckon you're walking along here... and around the corner too.

I won't say too much about Champoussin here - I'll be writing that up later - but the brief story is that it's quiet, there are loads of poorly connected drag lifts, and the route back to Les Crosets is almost as bad as the way there. We won't be going back.

Quiet slopes... there's still fresh around.

Before returning to Avoriaz we decided to descend on one of the off-piste runs we'd spotted earlier in the day. By mid afternoon the snow was a little heavy, but it was still fun. We were fairly tired from all of the trecking around and ready to get back.

We had some nice long runs to take us all the way back to Prodains, where we met up with the others in the bar for some well deserved beers. I've really enjoyed taking the camera up on the hill, especially as I'll be using the photos for the review. When I get back to an Internet connection (I'm writing these posts off-line, storing them up) I'll upload some of the pictures I've taken.

I'm still nursing a sore ankle. The plan for tomorrow is to head for Chatel. I'm meeting a representative from the Portes Du Soleil for lunch, and then there's the Super Chatel slopes to check up, including the Smooth Park...

Champoussin village.

Day 4, Almost A Powder Day

I was hoping for a powder day today - but it wasn't quite there. There was a small amount of fresh, but the tracks from the day before were still all there. That said, we had some awesome runs...

We started the day heading up to Avoriaz and then down into Pre La Joux. Ciara and I took a good look around the base station and the valley, making notes for the wsg review.

We headed up one side of the valley, and as we rose higher on the chairlift we discovered some accessible off-piste, still fairly fresh. A small traverse and we were ready to drop in.

Yeah there were some tracks there, but it was deep, soft and steep, with a few trees to make things interesting. We took 3 laps of this area before lunch; some of the turns were golden. To top it off, it was clear skies all the way and the sun was out. Awesome.

The lap was split into two parts. The first section dropped back onto a run, and then from there, we dropped off the run, off-piste, down towards the lift. The bottom wasn't as good as the top, but still worth shredding, with smooth turns and pockets of nice, deep snow.

We explored the area further after lunch, with one of the aims being to check out the happy park... We found that it was yet to be built, so after riding around for a while, we headed back to Avoriaz to check out the park there.

I thought the kickers looked quite whippy, although on reflection, they're not that whippy. It wasn't a good first session. My first hit, a bs 180, came up short, landing on the knuckle, crunching my ankle some, knee too, and bouncing down the landing. I followed that attempt up with much more speed, got the take off wrong and things went belly up, literally. More on that later.

Not a great ending to the day. I'd messed my goggles up nicely and my right leg was pretty tender. Still, the morning had been great, and I'm sure I can do something useful on those kickers...

Day 3, Frustration And Jubilation

We're pretty low, down in the town of Morzine. We woke to 4 or 5" of fresh snow on the ground. That meant there was going to be a good deal more up on the hill. Not completely clear, but far from a whiteout. Very excited.

We made the decision to go to Morzine rather than Avoriaz, which was a little risky given that we don't know the area at all. I don't like not knowing where to go on powder day, it's too easy to miss out on the good stuff.

However, I've been wanting to explore Morzine and Les Gets and we'd read about some areas that are good after a snow fall.

It kinda sucked. Actually it sucked. I was really frustrated.

Being new to the area, I was relying on the map, and it didn't line up too well with reality. The base station was reporting that the area we were interested in, Chamossiere, was open. After taking the first gondola up we had to wait 20 minutes for the next lift to open. Then the first run we needed to take at the top of that, was closed. We took a run down to a different chair and waited.

It opened and we headed down into the next valley - a valley with 3 possbile chairs to take you out. The lift we wanted, taking us up further towards Chamossiere, was closed. We took a different chair up and cut the almost-first lines down under the chair: short, but steep and deep. It was a little disjointed as the decent was broken up by a regular run snaking down under the chair, but good non the less.

When we got to the bottom, we found the area crowded, and with only one of the three chairs running, there was a big queue. The only fresh that we knew of was now tracked out. We didn't know where to go and the chairs we needed were closed. A good snowfall, fresh snow, and we were stuck. We took an early lunch and waited for things to open - I was frustrated and spent the time hoping we'd find something good and not end up missing out completely.

We didn't really find anything good the rest of the day. Following the piste map, we went from lift to lift, run to run, trying to get to places we thought would be good. We started with Chamossiere and that was closed. Next, we tried Nyon, and that was closed too. Incidently, this information wasn't available at the base station. By the time we got over to the Les Gets area, everything was tracked, and the visibility had gone bad.

We'd done a lot of runs, but nothing great. The collective opinion of the Morzine slopes wasn't high. Maybe that's a premature assesment, but right now I consider Avoriaz and beyond to be better. It's more interesting, there's more to do, more hits. Exploring was fun - but it was just that - exploring.

But then came the jublilation. Just as we were stopping, it started snowing. And it was snowing down in the town; pretty heavy. We stayed out for some beers and then found a restaurant. It was still snowing when we headed home. Suddenly, the 20 minute walk home, a fresh evening with soft snow falling, wasn't too bad. Very different to the first night, when we were cold and it was raining.

Spirits were high, it looks like we're getting a second bite of the cherry, another powder day. I hope it snows through the night. Maybe we were too hard on Morzine, but tomorrow we'll be heading to Avoriaz...

Day 2, Powder, Snow, Rain, Snow...

Our first day ended with snow falling on the hill. We were all pretty excited by the prospect of what was to come...

Emma, Ciara and I got the first lift up to Avoriaz and headed down towards the Prolays lift. The first run was great. The mountain was still quiet, we were ducking on and off the piste, hitting nice stretches of fresh. Playing in the soft stuff, kicking up snow. Good lines. Good times.

We met up with reinforcements after the first run, and started with a few laps around the Stash. The Stash in Avoriaz is pretty, damn impressive. As well as the natural park objects, the Stash is set amongst the trees, under the chairlift, and there are good pockets of powder on hand - after a snow fall.

As well as taking as much of the fresh as possible, and there were some good lines, if not a little short, we tried hitting a few of the obstacles. There's a good pic-nic bench setup with a steep, drop-away landing. I went pretty big off of that, from 50-50. There's good stuff there... some of it is pretty gnarly.

Following a few laps of the Stash, we tried one of the Snow Cross runs in Avoriaz. The Portes Du Soleil has a number of non-groomed, freeride runs; one such starts close to the top of the Prolays lift, and we spotted it while lapping through the Stash. My first run down was awesome. Fresh, fast, long and good turns. There was a good deal of faith involved, as the visibility wasn't great and there were a few dips, bumps and creeks that needed avoiding.

The second half of the run was more tracked, but we traversed to uncover a good strech that was steep and untouched. More great turns, all accessed by lift and on an official run. That's pretty good.

After our first run through, I spotted an area that was entirely fresh. I was picking out the route to get there as we went up on the lift, and the access was sketchy. I repeated the first half of the run and then left the trail and headed toward a bank of small cliffs/rocks. It was a short but steep face that I traversed on the heel edge, picking my way between branches and rocks, and pushing away small slides of snow as I went - nothing really. At the bottom of the bank the snow stretched out on a clear, fairly narrow, steep slope between small shrubs and trees.

Once I was half way down there was no grip left on the branches/rocks - so I just accepted it, pointed down and hit the slope with speed, then layed down some fast turns in the fresh, hoping not to hit a depression in the flat light. It was a great run - I'm glad I decided to pick my way down through the rocks...

Just before lunch, the light snow turned to soft rain. At the very top it was actually still snow, but a little bit further down, it was rain. The snow was heavy, wet and sticky, which wasn't great.

We spent the afternoon exploring a little. It was a mixed bag of horrible wind, wet snow, choppy snow, some good runs and evil chairlift rides. We ended the day completely soaked through. It's the wettest I've ever been when snowboarding. By time we got down into town, the light rain up top was regular rain. We weren't encouraged. Getting back to the chalet for a hot shower was a priority - after a few beers, of course.

...And then later on that evening, the rain turned to snow...

Day 1, PS:

I love my new boad. The T.Rice is sick!

Day 1, A Good Start

We didn't get into resort until around 11pm last night. A few beers, something to eat and time to unpack.

Sleeping wasn't easy. It was like Christmas eve when you're ten years old. I woke at 6 and couldn't get back to sleep. If I'd had an Internet connection, I could have logged on to play at my favorite online casino until my buddies woke up.

We were up for first lift this morning :) On the way up you could see that it hasn't snowed for a while... But the forecast is telling us snow is on the way.

Still, the first runs were good, and the base is good too. By mid morning our group was fully assembled... Much fun spending the first day shredding together; warming up and trying a few tricks.

It started snowing before lunch. Fairly heavy plus a strong wind. Chairlifts were brutal. As the afternoon went on, we were encouraged by the snow that was falling, but the wind was getting even stronger and it became a full on blizzard/whiteout.

We ended up coming down an hour early. That's hard for me to take, especially on the first day. But to be honest it was the right move. We couldn't see up there and the snow was biting on the face. Plus, the home run was awesome!

We're in the pub now. I'm posting from James' iPhone; hopefully I'll find out how to post some pictures from this.

When's it going to stop snowing? Will we get a bluebird? Great first day! I need to get off this phone and join the group, with the beers. Peace.

All Set: Morzine And The Portes Du Soleil

I'm all set to leave for Morzine today. I'm writing this at around 11am; we don't fly until 17.45 this afternoon. Half of the group are already there. They set off by road yesterday evening, drove through the night and arrived in resort about half and hour ago. They should be on the hill by lunch time. I want to be there!

It's been a busy week. I made the camcorder handle last weekend and shopped around for a new digital slr. I've had my birthday, a last minute trip to the physio, snowboarding dvds to watch and it finished with a full body massage last night after work - thanks Ciara!

I've been preparing for the wsg review too. I think I mentioned that I recevied some copies of the guide to hand out while I'm there, and a couple of t-shirts too. I'm loving the t-shirts!

I managed to secure a new battery for the camcorder, following the death of my old one. I did still have the original battery, but that only provides somewhere between an hour and an hour-and-a-half. That's not always enough. The new one, around 30% bigger, arrived on Thursday. Nice one.

It wasn't until last night when I packed all of my gear that I realised just how big my new Dakine bag is. For a long time on this blog I've been waxing lyrical about the benefits of having a board bag + some kind of roller, rather than a single, almighty board bag. The reason being that it distributes the weight, allowing you to check more stuff in at the airport. It's more flexible too.

Be careful what you wish for.

I've struggled to fill my new luggage setup (a photo should follow). I started off, as always, aiming to travel light. I ended up thinking of stuff to add in, to fill the bag out some more... It's all good now though.

So that's it. I've caught up on the posts I wanted to make this week, I'm packed, and there's some good snow forecast to fall this weekend and into next week. We don't have Internet access in our chalet (lame), so the posts, if any, will be light over the next couple of weeks. I'd like to put up a picture or two using Ciara's iPhone while I'm out there, but no promises.

Roll on this afternoon. Get me on the plane. Get me shredding!

That's It, That's All

My sister bought me That's It, That's All for my birthday; I've watched it twice this week. She also bought me this season's Absinthe movie, Ready, for Christmas (wow, I'm easy to buy for).

Of the two, I much prefer Travis' movie, it's pretty sick. Despite being a big Absinthe fan (futureproof, more, optimistic...), I wasn't blown away by their production this time.

I'd like to review both of these when I get back, if I can find the time. In the mean time however, if you're thinking about buying a snowboarding DVD soon, I'd recommend That's It, That's All. It is a bit different to the regular snowboarding film, but definitely worth it. The camera work is great and the riding is awesome.

I've got this season's T.Rice Lib Tech board, in the 153. I'm even more stoked to ride it now, I can't wait. I was checking out the stance options last night and pleased to find a good range. The widest is 25", then 23.5" and then 22", I won't bother with anything narrower than that. 25" is to ghetto for me, so I'll probably start out at 23.5 and see how it rides. Sick!

As an aside, That's It, That's All features MGMT's song, Kids. I was contemplating using that as the music for my Fernie footage, I'm glad I didn't now. Great song, but it's a bit of an unwritten rule not to use something someone else has already picked out.

Nikon D60: New Camera Kit

My new camera, the Nikon D60, arrived earlier this week on Tuesday. I was hoping to spend some time getting familiar with a few of the manual controls - but that didn't really happen. I've played with it some, but that's about it. I guess I'll be on full auto mode to begin with :)

I bought a pretty neat little case for it. It's got decent padding and no pockets on the front/back, which keeps it narrow for placing in my backpack. The aim being more comfortable on the hill... I picked up a filter too, to protect the lens from nasty people who think it's funny to spray someone holding a camera with snow, plus any other potential damage. Not sure it the fact that I bought I cheap one will make any difference; I'll find out soon with a couple of comparison shots, with and without the filter.

On that note, I took a photo of my new camcorder handle with both the new camera and my old compact. Take a look at the difference:

Compact.

SLR.

Probably not a great test for a number of reasons, but it's still a test. The D60 shot was taken using jpg, on normal quality (basic, normal, fine), at the medium size. The compact was on it's finest quality, at medium image size. Obvisouly I wasn't thinking too hard about doing a test here - actually, I was taking a picture of the handle and thought "I wonder what the same photo would look like on the compact"...

That said, I'd still say the Nikon kicks the compact's ass.

Of the few people-photos I've taken I'm pleased with the quality. I should have some good photos from this trip to Morzine, so right now, I'm not gonna spam my blog with photos of my mum and dad :)

One thing I have noticed whilst using the camera on auto mode is that the depth of field is really narrow... just a side thought. I'm gonna have to learn to use this camera properly, but in the mean time, the point and shoot results are great!

Camcorder Handle / Mount

Last weekend I built a handle for my video camera. The main aim of the handle is to make the camera easier to hold whilst snowboarding, for follow cam shots. So the handle needs to be above the camera, and (close to) parallel to the direction that the camera is pointing. There'll be some other benefits too: using the camara with gloves on should be easier, and passing the camera to someone else ("hey, film me hitting this") should be less drop-prone too.

This isn't anything new, there're loads of people making small, custom handles. In fact, I was actually intending to re-use the design that my dad used a week earlier...

However, when I unpacked his handle and detached the camera, I thought the handle itself was too light: he'd used rather thin, aluminium. With my dad's design, he straps the handle to the camera at the top and bottom, which keeps it securely in place. But I didn't want this. I wanted the camera to sit on the mount, attached only by the tripod interface.

So I started looking for a nice bit of steel.

Once found, it was a little harder to work with, and it needed smoothing off some at the edges. But the end result is pretty close to what I'd visualised in the first place. Here are some photos:

Nice, thick steel.

Hard to manipulate.

Not quite the right shape.

Smoothing the corners and trimming the handle width.

Just about done.

The finished product.

It's definitely a substantial handle. Besides wanting it to feel solid, I also thought that the extra weight, providing it's not too heavy to prevent use, would help to produce more stable footage.

I'm not sure whether or not opting for a heavier material will make a noticable difference, or any difference at all for that matter, but I wanted to try it out.

When I recently looked into camera stabilisation I realised that I knew nothing about it (still don't know much), given some of my naive assumptions. I quickly found though, that some of the systems are based on a pivot (or gimbal?) plus some kind of heavy pendulum. I won't try to explain it, it you're interested, look it up.

Here are some links: make one yourself, one you can buy, a youtube clip (not exactly sure what's going on here, but you can see the effect).

I also found some related material, which you may find interesting: a still camera, tripod replacement for steady shots, 14 dollar steadycam and the somewhat cheesy, Levelcam.

So I was thinking that if I'm snowboarding down a hill, moving around a lot, with a light video camera in my hand, the camera is going to shake. If I make the camera heavier, it should shake less. Will it make a difference? I don't know, I'll have to wait and see. I kinda like it though...

Busy Weekend

With less than a week before we leave for Morzine, it's been a busy weekend. I was kinda hoping to get a chance to post about some of the stuff that's been going on, but it's about midnight on Sunday evening, and I wanna go to bed.

Here's a brief run-down - maybe I'll get a chance to go into some of it some more - perhaps the most interesting is the new camcorder handle.

• On Friday, I picked up a package from the wsg at the Post Office, containing 4 copies of the latest guide book; I'll be leaving these with some of the tourist offices in the Portes Du Soleil. Tres excited!
• On Saturday, I made a handle for my camcorder. I went for solid. I'm really pleased, but it's still half through a quick paint job to cover up the bare metal...
• I also ordered a new digital SLR on Saturday - the Nikon D60
• Today, Ciara and I popped out to the beach for an hour or so to brush up on our transceiver use. We were running late all day, so got there late, and ended up leaving when it was dark.
• I also confirmed today that my primary battery for the camcorder is dead. It's gone after about 10 minutes of use. I could do with a new one, fast

Five days to go, and I'm 29 years old on Tuesday. You think I'll land a 720 before I'm 30? :)

Amazon MP3 Store

I'm an occassional music purchaser, both real CDs and the MP3 kind. I used to buy music all the time, but not so much these days. I'm an iTunes user. Like millions of people I've got an iPod, so I need it, but I kinda like the software too. I also buy music through iTunes - it's real handy, and I like that.

Not being a manic music collector (I say collector, because I do listen to music all the time), I've never felt the need to simply 'download' music. I'm quite happy to buy it.

That said, the format that iTunes uses, along with the DRM, can be annoying at times. I was looking for tracks to use with some snowboarding footage recently, and being ages since I'd bought anything from iTunes, I forgot that I was going to need to burn the music to a CD and then rip it again. Lame.

So I was really pleased when an email dropped into my inbox telling me about the Amazon MP3 Store.Official and DRM free! OK, so I know I'm way behind the times here, Play have been doing this for a while, right? There are probably loads of others too... but this was the first official, non-iTunes, MP3 store that I'd heard about. I did say I was an occassional purchaser, remember...

I like Amazon. Their mp3 store is a good addition. No doubt the selection will be growing very quickly, it's dead easy, and you end up with basic mp3 files. Flexible. Nice. I'll probably buy more music now.

New Digital SLR... Which One?

Isn't it cool how in the space of a couple of days you can drastically change your requirements, and convince yourself you need something new and bigger? :)

Here's what happened...

I've got this review for the wsg coming up soon and I want good photos. Currently I've got an old, Pentax Optio s5i, with the casing selotaped together - I've lost the tiny little screws. Outside in good light it takes an ok picture, but that's it, ok. I doesn't do a good job of people, for example. Give it a slight challange with the lighting conditions and it sucks.

Some of my friends have got similar cameras, in terms of size and price, but newer. And they're better. Not like a major leap, but good enough to make me think about replacing my camera. I want good photos. So I started to look around.

Before long, I came across a group of compact cameras targeted at the enthusiast, like the Canon PowerShot G10 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. These cameras were attractive for a few reasons. Mainly, they're gonna give me better photos than the camera I've got now. They offer more manual control, if you want it, which should help you to get the photo you want. They're still fairly small, especially the Panasonic, so I wouldn't need a backpack. They're within budget. I think they look pretty cool :)

But I started thinking about it some more. And I asked friends who know a lot more about this stuff than I do (you know who you are, thanks!). And I re-assessed my criteria.

• I want good pictures, that's most important. Not every picture I take needs to be great (I'll still have my old camera), but I want the option to get a better shot
• I want to be able to take pictures in burst mode
• I want fast response to shoot snowboarders, perhaps close up, with good results*

* especially in the UK... I'll talk more about that requirement at some point in the future...

Yes, these higher-end compacts will take a good photo, but if I'm trading off ultimate quality for camera size, and therefore mobility on the mountain, I'm probably just pointing and clicking. I think perhaps, there are other, cheaper, more basic compacts that will do just as well in this role.

But the clincher is this: these higher-end compacts won't get me near to the results of an SLR. So for those times that I do want to take the time/effort/size and mobility hit, I'll get better photos with an SLR. That's obvious, right? ;)

So I've decided to go for an entry level SLR. Besides, it's my birthday soon and I'm thinking a little self-present will go down well. But which one?

• Nikon D60
• Canon 400D
• Sony A200

My gut instinct is the Nikon, I don't know why, it just is. I think the Canon is the most expensive, whilst the Sony is temptingly cheap. I guess I like the flexibility of an SLR. It's not a huge investment if I don't do much with it. But if I want to, I can add extra capabilities with different lenses. It's exciting.

I'm gonna need a couple of extras; some kind of case in the least. I'll probably get the smallest case I can find, to make it comfortable in my back pack. But I hear that Lowepro do a range of SlingShot bags that are worth a look.

Obviously I want to get this sorted before I go away, and it would be nice to have at least a couple of days to play around with it...

Go Dad!

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I'd seen a lad at the skate park with a rather useful looking camcorder handle. I decided that something similar would be really handy for filming snowboarding, so decided that I'd sort something out before I go away.

Well my dad has gone and beat me to it :)

Check this out, simple but effective!

Not bad, eh? I'm going to be constructing one this weekend, but I won't be using an additional strap - I don't think it's needed. I'm expecting these handles to work really well... I'll review them after use.

I've done quite a bit of snowboarding with my dad - which I think is pretty cool. It's good to be able to share something like this; something I enjoy so much. We actually learned at the same time, although I'd say our respective curves were a little different :)

Some of you will know that my old man is going to be shredding with us in the Portes Du Soleil in a couple of weeks time. Well he hasn't stopped with a camera handle... fresh for this season he's hooked up a vehicle for half of the group to make the road trip from North East England to Morzine. Naturally the regular seats have been removed in favour of Recaros.

He loves snowboarding. Go dad!

Riding Footage From The 2007/2008 Season

Here's the edit from the Fernie footage, January 2008. I made a lot of posts while I was out there, so if you wanna read about the trip, use this tag.

I hope you enjoy it. The song is "Title And Registration" by Death Cab For Cutie. See below for comments...

Thoughts about this video

• Wow! I didn't land a thing. Seriously, there's way too many shots in here with me washing out on the landings. Sitting back with my weight in the wrong place. Sure, some of the landings were un-even and choppy, but I had two weeks to get it down. Oops, better luck next time!
• What's with all the frontside 3s? As I remember, I landed a few really nice, fairly big (for me) fs 3s, when we didn't have the camera out. So everytime we were filming something I had it in my head that I wanted to nail one, totally clean. Nice perseverance, but with limited filming some variety would have been cool.
• Same thing with that little road section and the 3 consecutive drops. I should have tried some straight airs, and just got something in the bag, then tried something harder.
• Not many shots of me ripping up some pow. Shame, because there was loads of it. That's how it goes though, and hey, who wants to film on a powder day?
• Frontside 3s are hard to land smooth? More and more I'm finding backside 3s much more open as you come 'round to land - it's not blind like it is with a fs 3. I'm sure that a lot of this is my own, not quite there yet, technique. So next time I'm thinking more backside 3s, and maybe try cab 5, as it's got the same final rotation as a bs 3.

Final comment: Fernie is awesome! Check out all the pow and all the natural hits. Sweet!

The Making Of...

OK, so I put some of my relaxation time in Ireland over Christmas to good use, and edited my footage from Fernie last season. I'm happy that I've done it, because had it not been done before I go to Morzine it might not have been done at all. Plus, I don't like keeping loads of huge video files hanging around on disk; 1. I've got the physical tapes as backup, and 2. In all the time I've been snowboarding, I've never gone back to the raw footage after making an edit. So now I can delete it.

But before I post the video I want to comment on the process of making it.

Movie Maker and I is starting to become a love-hate thing. I really appreciate the fact that it's free, but apart from that, I hate it. It's been a pain.

Not knowing how the Movie Maker software manages memory, I can only be angry at the net result. Once I got to the point where the sequence was getting around 2 - 3 minutes long, my laptop became unable to smoothly play it through. I was running out of memory. It was slow and frustrating, and often needed restarting.

Sure, my laptop has only 1GB of ram, but my older laptop, supposedly inferior to this one, also had 1GB of ram. I edited the last two sequences I put together on that laptop using Premier Pro, and never experienced a problem. Maybe it's just this new laptop that sucks? I don't know.

Whatever the reason, both CPU and memory were being eaten up big time during the editing process, and it sucked. I feel like I need a new laptop, or better software, or both... but then again, I think I'd rather shred for another week or two this season than buy a load of computer stuff. Bah!

With the regards to the aspect ratio issues I had last time, that's something I can't knock Movie Maker for. I recall that my camera isn't true widescreen; the chips are all actually 4:3 - the panasonic simply clips the top and bottom off. Both Movie Maker and Premier export my footage in 4:3. I guess when I tell Movie Maker that I'm working with 16:9 it does the same thing and clips the display... the frames are still 4:3 however, so after exporting, I'm stuck with black bars with either YouTube or Vimeo. No biggie.