"Worse things happen at sea"

Well this will probably be the final entry. It's my last night and I leave for Geneva around 9am tmrw. By the time most of you read this I'll be home and midway through a mammoth washing session.

Just to underline the fact that it really is time to go home I punched a hole in the base of my new (and now only) board on the last pitch of the last run of the season (the face). BOLLOCKS!

Still look on the bright side, I have my BASI 3 qualification and I have all my limbs and ligaments intact. "Worse things happen at sea" my gran always said. Not entirely sure about the relvance of that to snowboarding. Suppose I could have had my board bitten in half by a great white or been dragged to my doom by a giant squid so maybe gran was right.

The big question now is : what next?

Well, now I'm qualified I could potentially work next season or even over the summer (in exotic locations such as NZ, S.America or Milton Keynes). i'm not sure the life of an instructor is the one for me. At the moment I'm enjoying my "real" job too much. Of course that may all change after i go back to the "PROJECT FROM HELL"(tm).

Anyway, It's been fun over here, hard work, harder than most of you could imagine. A seson sounds fun but 7 hours a day, 5 days a week plus weekends is pretty tiring. I'm looking forward to a nice comfy bed, mum bringing me cups of tea and a telly that has stuff in english.

See you all soon.

No, It really is over...

...

Well just when you think things are going well fate and human stupidity kick you in the spuds.

Having applied for the "Italian Job" as a snowboard instructor and being told that I had the job if I passed my BASI a small flaw in the plan has emerged.

Despite them being told that I was a snowboarder, the job that was mine if I passed was as a ski instructor. Can anyone see whats wrong with this picture?

Apparently they couldn't until I checked up with them yesterday.

So with no job and nowhere to live I am heading back home on Sat. Still the snow is disappearing fast over here, It was 17C in the village yesterday.

And just to cap everything off, I went to my board locker this morning to pick up my old board etc so I could pack it for my trip. At some time in the last month some pikey mo'fo' has broken into my locker and nicked it!

BASTARDS! I know it wasn't the greatest board but it was good for powder. I was trying to build up a stock of boards so I could match the board to the conditions. Now I'm left with my Squad which is a great board but at 159cm long it's not grreat in powder or slush for that matter.

I hope the fockers bust themselves up real good on MY board. Something requiring uninsured long term medical tratment would be good.

Anyway i'm off to get my passport so I can report the theft to the Police (who despite working in a resort with a large UK presence don't appear to have anyone who can speak english)

See you all soon...

They think it's all over.....

It is now,

I'VE PASSED!!

That's right folks! Muggins over here is now a qualified snowboard instructor (except in france where I am merely a legal grey area). That means I can rip your riding styles to shreds with authority.

I have to say it was a pretty stressful last day with me having to show all the elements that I was weak on. We had a mere 4 hours to strut our stuff. After 3hours 40 mins I was told that I had passed. If you think that's cutting it fine poor Gary was made to do the face twice to prove his ability on steep terrain. Apparently his legs were like jelly afterwards.

This is the final week i'm in Val and I have to say the weather is not great. The temperature is now touching double figures and the slopes have turned to mush. Added to this the fact that it's raining below 2500m and it's getting pretty mucky. Still I'm not ;etting it get me down this week is all about chilling out and relaxing. And that's what I'm doing.

Sarah has popped over for a holiday with her sister, Jen and I'm whipping them all over the mountain to get their techniques up to scratch. Having Sarah over here means that for the first time in over 10 weeks I can get what only a woman can give a man..... a decent meal. I know I've mentioned this before but I think i've forgotten what good food is like. Say food to me and I conjour up images of burnt lasagne and flacid chips garnished with a bill for E15. Considering the French laugh at us English based on our supposed ineptitude in the kitchen they are skating on pretty thin ice up here.

Now that I am the proud owner of a new instructor licence I may well head over to italy to the resort of Aosta/Pila for two weeks. I guess that I'll be helping out with the Easter rush so my days will probably consist of herding sugar crazed kiddies around the mountain or hauling overweight city boys of their arses so they can get "extreme". Still it will be a change of scenery and some experience plus they will pay for my ticket home On the minus side the snow there is 40/30cm and most of it man made apparently.

After the two weeks I'll probably head back to Blighty to chill and gorge myself on over boiled veggies and lumpy custard and all foods english.

Lord of the Runs - Return of the thing

Another brusing day on the slopes with our trainer, today we worked on central theme stuff in the morning (side slipping, falling leaf and all that gubbins) plus some carving.

Then in the afternoon we met up with the other board group to do some steep and bumpy stuff. For once I had some good runs with it all coming together so I put in some pretty good perfomances and was nice and happy.

Tomorrow is the final day and i have to pull everything together. I've been given a hit list

a) Side slipping - More flexing
b) Carving - Finish my heel side turns off more (I would if some prick on blades would stop getting in my way - they really are a plauge on the slopes, they breed like rats)
c) My fugging arms! - Christ, how tired am I getting of this one? I've solved the robot arms problem but now the trecherous bastards are crossing my body and getting in the way of my rythym (is that how you spell it?)- if they weren't so damn useful for other things, like opening doors and carrying boards, I'd get rid of them.

On other matters I ripped my bloody trousers on wednesday on some shoddy french lift equipiment (a sharp corner at shin level, wonder how many unsuspecting victims that ones had?).

No biggy, I have some spare trousers and the repair would only be E15. So I get home, empty my pockets and take my trousers to the shop to get them repaired. |The one small wrinkle in my plan was I forgot to take my pass out of the trousers!. So next day I had to get a day pass so I could have my lesson. E41 for one day!!! For fugs sake, I only wanted to ride up a lift not buy a bit of one! For that price I expect lie flat seats, complimentary drinks and a head massage not surley lift attendents and germans farting in gondala cars (it's the bratwurst i think).

So all in that little sharp corner cost me E55 and a bunch of agro.

Anyway I'm off to get a good nights sleep ready to tear that side slipping demonstration a new arsehole.

Ray Charles on ice....

....well slush really....spring has finally arrived with temperatures soaring into positive figures.

Considering last week we were still below -10 and two weeks ago we were hovering around -25 this is a pretty big temperature rise and I'm feeling it.

So too are the pistes with slush everywhere and some worrying brown patches appearing. We could really do with one more dump of snow before the real thaw sets in.

On the plus side our BASI course is going well with us working on our feel for the board today.

There are a number of ways of feeling the forces acting on a board all varying in difficulty. One of the more difficult ways of "feeling the force" involved riding down a green piste doing smooth linked turns. No problem there you might think but just to add a bit to the difficulty we had to DO IT WITH OUR EYES CLOSED! Obi Wan eat your feckin' heart out!

All we had between us and certain disaster were the shouts of other members of the group (those with their eyes open) and, surprisingly, despite half a dozen blind snowboarders heading down a crowded piste there were no major incidents. Except when one of us got entangled in the guide dogs leash.

I'm proud to say that I only caught an edge twice.

Anyway now i'm off to plan for the lesson i've got to take tomorrow.

Long & Hard....

...is the best way of describing my week. It's been the first week of our 2 week BASI assesment and boy is it tough!

We are (obviously) required to reach a certain level of riding in order to pass as instructors. This week has been focused on bringing our riding up to that standard. As of right now I am pretty close to the mark, I just need to sort out a few niggling issues, namely my fucking arms - I'm bumbling down the piste and things start to get a bit steep or bumpy and my bloody arms either pop out into my classic robot pose or start crossing my body and generally getting in the way, Bastards.

Anyhow I'm going to be working on those puppies this weekend and by the time most of you read this I hope to have properly nailed the buggers and will have a super smooth style.

If I pass I may well go over to italy for two weeks where there is a possible job teaching. it will probably involve baby sitting screaming spoilt brats all day but what the heck.

If I don't pass I may well hang out here for a couple more weeks and work on my freestyle.

Either way I have to be back in blighty for May. Bugger that depresses me thinking about it. :-(

A Grand Day Out....

...was had by all. The XBox Big Day Out(tm) circus has just left town leaving behind hangovers and memories.

They built a custom park at the base of the face run then shoved loads of skiers and riders down it for the entertainment of the masses. The skiers undoubtedly had the edge on tech tricks with one guy landing a 1260 but the snowboarders held their own with some nice stylish 5's, 7's and 9's plus some front flips from the brightly clad Tyler Choltern.

Some of the hits off the hip at the base of the course were HUGE. This blurry photo doesn't do justice to the size of this guys jump...



The blurry lines in the background are the lift cables from the chair that runs up the side of the face. THat should give you an idea of the size. The hip was eventually closed by the pisteurs who were getting a bit jumpy about the possibilty of someone overjunping and hurting themselves or landing in the crowd.

So in true safety fashion the wall was set on fire and riders given a E50 incentive for hitting it.





Burn Skier, Burn!

Yesterday we said goodbye to Amelia who is off home to Oz after braking her ankle in a crash a week or so ago. Also going home is Rosie who managed to break her kneecap in two (wtf?!) on thursday. These two bring the total of season killer injuries to 6 out of some 40 odd who started (about 15%) plus all the other more minor injuries such as mere broken wrists, fingers and cracked ribs. Dangerous game this.

So to take our minds off the danger here's a nice piccy of Val at night

CentreArcs

I went on a little tour on Sat to go and see Steve n Jen who were staying in Les Arcs. It wasn't too bad a journey taking about 90mins and it was good to catch up with SnJ.

For thoses of you who haven't seen Les Arcs 2000 it is one of the ugliest places on the face of the earth. Only the french (or possibly the russians) could even think it was a good idea. It's like some 60's tower block like Hulme was plonked down in the middle of a fantastic alpine valley. Arc2000 is one massive building and it feels alot like one of those Butlins holiday camps. Not nice. To compensate the snow was good and the (natural) views were fantastic.

Since then I've spent my days with a mix of BASI and french instructors all working to get me up to scratch for my BASI and I've improved alot, still not as fast as I would like and my freestyle is pretty thin (just a few 180's and some nose presses) but I'm pretty happy with my steeps and slope style (the face holds no fear for me any more)

In the mean time the XBox Big Day Out is in town (technically speaking it should be big days out as it covers 3 days but there we go). They've built an enourmous park at the bottom of the face and various pros from all around the world have been taking turns to hurl themselves off the massive kicker for the crowds amusement. It's all a little bit gladiator really.

It all finishes tomorrow with the grand final then a massive party in the evening. I'll take my trusty camera and go pro stalking.

my nemisis...

... les petite chien (small dogs) have struck again!

I came back to my apartment this afternoon to find a fresh steaming turd in the corridor, in the god damned corridor for christs sake!

France is the only nation in the world where this could happen, The streets and pavements of Val are littered with dogs eggs. Because of the sub zero temperatures and lack of rain they just sit there frozen until the next snow when they get buried, like bloody land mines only to emerge in the thaw. Come the spring Val is literally going to go to shit.

I also saw the little dog that Ed and me scared the living daylights out of. It obviously has a good memory 'cos it was bounding along the snow apron in front of the lifts (an area where dogs are banned, incidently) being it's usual obnoxious yappy self when it spied me and immendiatly ran off to cower behind it's owner. he he he, tremble little dogs of the world for I will lay my vengence upon thee....

Anyway, part from being plauged by tiny french dogs the BASI coaching stuff seems to be going well, I'm off in a minute to get some feedback on how I'm doing (fingers crossed).

the best things in life....

.....are free, or so it's said.

Bollocks! The best things in life (cars, holidays and women) cost a packet!

I should know, I'm know skint after spanking an obscene amount of cash on a new board.

How did this happen?

Well.....

After the affair with the ESF I was left with a few days to kill. So I thought I'd try some new boards out.

I thought I could do with a more free style board to help me jump around a bit more.

So off to the local shop I went to try:

Burton "Dominant" - good all rounder, pity it looks like you're riding a handbag
K2 "Darkstar" - alot of board for your money
Volkl "Squad Flex 3" - R.A.F (Guy will know what this is), awesome board

To cut a long story short I went for the squad. I haven't had so much fun on a board for years! And as a bonus it's loads easier to do my instructor demos on.

The first time I tried it I was in a lift queue and thought I'd have a go at a tail press to pass the time. So, used to the rather stiff nature of my old board, I wound up, rocked back and flexed on to the tail, and just a little bit beyond, ending up falling over the tail and looking like a right prat, nice one Brian!

On the piste it's really soft and allows you to get away with murder on the landings.

The upshot of all this is I'm now a little skint...boo!

European Cooperation

Today is an unexpected day of rest. I was supposed to be continuing with my "shadowing" of french instructors in order to learn more about the wonderful methods of french teaching, but it appears our activites have not gone unnoticed....

The ESF, the guardian of the high quality of french snowsport instruction, have been taking a keen interest in our shadowing.

It appears that tere are numerous rules governing the teaching of skiing/riding in france. These are all hangovers from the glory days of french ski instruction where the primary skill a potential instructor had to demonstrate was french nationality (the ability to put kids off skiing for life and make grown men cry were merely skils that were thought useful).

Anyway the ESF have complained that the ski schools were are shadowing are employing unqualified and, more seriously, english instructors.

The basis of this accusation is we are seen hanging around the back of children's classes picking up fallen children, rounding up strays and generally looking after them whilst the instructor(s) piss off and have a good time.

Possibly the ESF were merely confused and thought we were a pedophile ring as the concept of assisting young children seem alien to them.

Anyone cynical would say that ESF are unhappy that brit instrucors working for private ski schools are starting to poach customers as word spreads that it is that their instructors have not learnt their teaching methods from "Full Metal Jacket".

Anyway the long and the short is that the police were called in (I said this was serious) and the frightners applied to the ski schools involved. The end result is everyone is to scared to let us shadow them. This obviously makes it exceedingly difficult for us to get our required hours of shadowing in. At the moment we are talking with BASI about a wavier.

The other effect is that we are at a loose end as all the instructors are booked to help in the half term rush so there are no instructors.

Just to add insult to injury our food allowance has been cut to a truly crap breakfast (it can only be described as a "continental" breakfast due to the fact it is served on the continet, everyone else would describe it as cereal, bread and jam) and a single course in the evening (last night was rice and unspecified meat in a gerkin sauce - gerkin sauce for christ's sake! who the fluck thought that one up?)

The reasons given for this are that Base Camp Group have cut the ammount of money paid for our meals. WTF? Needless to say there is some restlessness in the ranks.

And yes, I don't think much of the ESF

stupid is as stupid does

well the weather here really closed in yesterday with 100mph winds, zero vis and huge patches of ice. Only a total idiot would have gone out in those conditions, a sensible man would be sat indoors with a cup of tea and a good book (or in the bar with a pint watching us taking a beating from the french, 1 sodding point!)

Unfortunatly I am not a sensible man, I spent yesterday alternating between digging holes in the snow and riding around in conditions that could only be described as "shit". At one point the vis was so low that I couldn't see my board, thats less than 6 feet!

Still I survived (barely - I only managed to avoid a potentialy disastorous trip off piste by colliding with a piste marker.

My rather unique "robot" style came into it's own, enabling others in my group to recognize me from my silloute on the ridge line.

Today I have been shadowing a french instructor and learning the tricks of the trade.

I can now exclusivly reval some closely guarded secrets of french instructors.

a) lead the little nippers into a snow storm
b) hope the english guy you have to lug around with yopu has the sense to round up the nippers you left behind
c) when the nippers complain of being cold (usually less than an hour) head to a mountain cafe to "warm them up"
d) negotiate with the waitress a discount for your breakfast as you have brought in a large number of paying customers (less if step "b" has not gone to plan)
e) smoke a fag
f) have a hot choc
g) flirt with the waitress
h) flirt with female ESF instructor
i) have an expresso
j) repeat step "e"
k) all being well it is nearly lunchtime so head down for lunch.

soon, a Jedi I will be.......

dog tired brian

Hello one and all!

Again I have been massivly slack in the blogging dept. I have an excuse, I'm bolldy knackered! Today is the 19th day on the trot that i've been boarding and it's starting to tell. I've got avalance training this weekend (so more boarding, plus some digging) then a week of shadowing some instructors. By the end I'll have managed 26 days non stop.

Anyway we have yet another instructor. This one is Domonic and thankfully hes not a ragge ginger brummie twat. In fact........



....his nick name is "Mick" as we think he looks alot like Mick Jagger. He's been snowboarding forever. When he learnt snowboards still had fins!? So his style is a little "old school" to say the least, following him is like watching an 80's Warren Miller video. However he is pretty damn good and is totaly awesome in powder. Speaking of which, he seems to have some kind of sixth sense for finding the stuff. over 2 weeks since it last snowed and he was taking us to untracked poweder (and none of the crusty stuff either, this was silky smooth) only a few yards from the pistes.

Yesterday he took us down an untracked couloir in tignes. Admittedly the reason was that it took some serious moiuntineering to decend to it. At one point I was edging (board on) along a rock ledge with a 50 degree rock slope below me when the rock I was on decided to join it's brothers in the valley below. Thank god I ride a long board. The tip and tail kept me up but the base took a beating. Still the snow on the other side was definatly worth it.

Spotted this chap at the top of the Olymipc bubble the other day. He'd obviously lost a bet in the bar last night.......



Anyway as I mentioned before i'm pretty knackered so this morning I took in a few rund before tired legs and flat light made me decide to pull stumps and go home.

And the reson for the flat light......it's started snowing again! horray, not that I mind bluebird skies but we were starting to get to the poinbt were snow was desparately needed. It's pretty light at the mo but more is forecast and it should bring the pistes back from the icy edge that they've been on for the last couple of days.

On a sadder note we had our first major (and pretty grisley) injury on monday. Phil (who some of you have met) was hit by a skier who was jumping onto the piste. The impact wasn't too bad by all accounts, unfortunalty the skier's ski cut through Phils outer layers before neatly severing the major tendon just below the kneecap. Blood everywhere. They stitched him back together but he can't move his leg for at least 2 weeks and then he faces the prospect of a long haul back to fitness. Poor sod.

Right I'm off to get some fodder.

Later monkeys!

Photo Frenzy!

...no I'm not dead yet!

This week was a busy week, with Guy, Will,Neil and the hodge clan decending on Val. Unfortunatly I was unable to get in as much riding with them as I wanted as I had to go riding off piste with our insane french instructors (sucks to be me heh?. Anyway I got a snap of some of the boys. If they were a band this would be thier album cover, note how Will looks like he's about to go scuba diving...



I also managed to snap this great picture of the posh chalet we can see from our cramped apartment.....bastards

The lights in the background are the snow makers going full tilt, it was bloody cold that night, we were out on our "balcony" (a phone box bolted to the side of the apartment) and Jim's Fanta froze in the 10 minutes we were out there



anyway, our guides were tasked with giving us a proper going over this week. On day 1 all 16 boarders were grouped togeter and we headed off like some barbarian horde to terrorise the slopes. The froggies idea of a warm up ride is to go from the top to the bottom of the mountain as quickly as possible. The combination of hangovers, cold limbs and tight pistes resulted in carnage on an unprecedented scale with riders crashing into eachother, rocks, trees, the piste and ski schools. After that warmup we were split into two groups and sent our separate ways. Our group went to the "lost valley". Riding the lost valley is akin to caving, there are several points where the run is more rock than snow and the gaps get down to less than the length of my board making turning an interesting proposition.

Anyway on thursday we went to Les Arcs for more off piste. The day started with a leg burning hike up to 2900m



Then we decended the "Grand Col". To be honest it was a bit of a ball breaker but some of the views were amazing.



after that I hooked up with Guy and Co on the Sat for some general riding before packing them up and sending them off to Borg to catch the train home to the real world.

I like this one