Morzine Day 7: Tried Going Up

Yesterday, I tried going up on the mountain. There were two reasons: first off, I wanted to see how well the ankle would hold up; second, following a series of dull days it was blue skies all the way, and I thought that even if I don't move around too much I can still take some photos.

So in the morning I got a lift down to the chemists and picked up some athletic-tape. A long time ago, I used to tape up my ankle(s) when playing basketball. I decided I'd try to strap it up for support. I don't know whether that's a good idea for snowboarding? But I did it anyway. I took a quick look on YouTube for a guide, found one, and although it was hard taping my own ankle, I got it done.

I went up at lunch time with one of the chalet hosts, Steve, and we took a couple of runs to meet up with the others. Riding regular runs seemed ok, but I didn't put any aggressive toe turns on, none at all. The strapping within the boot also seemed ok. I didn't really notice it once I was going and my toes didn't go numb or anything like that. Bonus.

In terms of pain, the lifts were the worst. Getting off actually. Lining up on a full chair means a certain twisting of your leg; that hurt. Once, I was kinda squashed, didn't like the pain and almost ended up "staying on". LOL. The ankle ached sometimes on the chairs too.

So I spent a bunch of time taking some photos. My quick investigation into setting the exposure definitely worked. Most of the photos I took kept the detail in the bright areas, rather than being over-exposed. I took raws too. I've gotta say that the current version of the Windows picture viewer does a good job, mostly, of rendering the raws. I need to look into this more, later, and get something where I can adjust the images myself...

Anyhow, here are some of the photos I took:

Ciara's started to get more air this week, nice:

A few indys and the occasional mute too, although this isn't the best example:

Some dude with smooth style:

This was almost a really cool photo, but it happened right after the one above and I didn't have time to adjust the zoom. Sweet method on the hip:

Some dude on the rainbow rail:

So after having something to eat, we took a few runs before coming down. I got a little more confident with the ankle, but still held off anything hard on the toes, and played it safe around the less-flat terrain.

It felt good to be out on the hill, but I was worried that I was either setting myself back, or slightly less bad, holding up the recovery. We got dropped off in town for a few happy hour beers. Yum.

It came to taking the tape off before getting in the hot tub. I couldn't get hold of any pre-wrap, or at least couldn't communicate what I was after, so the tape was straight on to the skin. Ouch. Like an insight into having your legs waxed. Ciara was loving this; told me I was a wuss (or similar adjective). She was probably right - haha. I'm sure she enjoyed stepping in to rip the last bit off in one go :)