Snow fun anymore

now that I'm back from the Alps. Fortunately, the holiday Kicked Ass^TM, and I feel like a new snowboarder. Last year didn't really gel in terms of the boarding itself (even if the trip did include an apocalyptic night in a random club where I danced with a gay man and someone else's wife while Andy was sick over a radiator) but this year it all came together.

After a quiet first morning, I followed some of the more accomplished/reckless boarders up the Grand Motte gondola. It had started snowing at lunchtime or so, and by the time we got to the top it was entirely white - the ground might as well have been the sky, and vice versa. This was probably the freshest snow I've ever boarded on; it was literally falling as we went. I followed Maugan down the piste through a driving blizzard and couldn't wipe the grin off my frozen face. By the time we got to the bottom, 1500 metres lower, I'd already had more fun than any day from last year's trip: caning down a nigh-intangible glacier following the silhouettes of far more capable boarders than myself lent a rather zen air to the whole thing. There is no spoon, indeed.

The snow continued until Wednesday afternoon, when a few of us had booked an off-piste lesson. Our first run? An ungroomed black that was closed due to excess snow. Cedric, our devil-may-care instructor told us to "Lean back, and skim! Skim the snow!" and bombed off down the hill, dodging rocks as he went. We tried and failed to follow him, but two pistes later I'd inadvertently discovered the secret to off-piste riding: don't stop. Seriously, the only way to do it was to point the board down the hill and metaphorically speaking, just hang on. This was a bit of a revelation; previously, I'd been consistently dreadful on anything resembling powder snow - too many holidays in slushy spring conditions, I suppose - but after the lesson I was having a lot more fun even on small fields between pistes.

On the Friday I was starting to feel the burn a little (Tignes seems to be laid out such that all the traverses are on my heel edge, and my quads are still protesting a bit) but I gamely made my way over to the Vallon de Sache with Paul and Sarah to try out my mad new off-piste skillz. It was a fairly extreme Jekyll and Hyde run: the first hundred metres or so alternated between fluffy powder and skiied-out moguls, then a wobbly charge along a narrow flat section into more powder and finally into the trees where I met my terrain nemesis in the form of a 50-55° slope dropping off into a cliff.

Fortunately I stopped before the cliff part. I tried to climb back up to a higher line to follow Paul and Sarah but the snow was too deep to get any purchase. I sat there for five minutes and pondered my situation - I was genuinely starting to worry that I had bitten off more that I could chew. I strapped back in and gingerly traversed across to the left, finally getting back onto the near-vertical, icy piste. This was child's play compared to staring into the abyss, and I joyously, irresponsibly hurtled down it to await Paul and Sarah coming through the forest.

Mental, but well worth it, and an excellent holiday all round! Sitting in front of a computer all day is, at the moment, rather failing to cut it in comparison.

P.S: A special mention goes to the Alpaka Lodge for providing us with beer and quadrupedal entertainment in the form of two colossal wolfhounds and Tennessee the kitten, who was so cute I nearly barfed.