Hello again,
This year I was supposed to be learning to snowboard........
I hired a board and boots, stood in the flat trying to work
out how to put the thing on, tried to work out how to do the boots up and then
didn’t touch it again for weeks.
Abby and Ben wanted to learn to board as well so eventually
we got ourselves organised and Rick gave a beginners guide to boarding. When skiing it is best to start on very flat
piste till you get the hang of turning and then progress to steeper runs, with
boarding it actually works better if you learn on a steep piste. So we headed off to a beginner run which was
steep but short with a button lift and started practicing heel edges and toe
edges.
The snow was getting really sketchy and we had blue skies for
weeks, so no one was really bothered about going out up the mountain and we had
quite a lot of help learning the beginnings. Jim, Chris and Rick are all
experienced boarders and kept helping, but I’m sure they came to laugh at us
falling over more than anything.
I learnt a very important lesson early on, don’t keep your
keys in your pocket, because you will fall over, and when you land on the keys
it bruises and hurts.
After being taught the basics, the boys went off and left us
to practise. After about 10 minutes on our own Abby looked at me and said “ You
know what I really fancy? A hot chocolate!” that sounded like a great idea, so
we stopped, headed to the bar and spent the rest of the afternoon gossiping and
drinking hot chocs.
The next day we were meeting up to practise again. Because
we were on the baby slopes we walked up instead of queuing for the button
because it was quicker, but after 3 runs we were both shattered and decided to
go for a Vin Chaud, that was the end of boarding for that day......
In total we were out everyday for about 2 weeks, but we
probably only did about 8 hours boarding and 30 hours nattering and drinking
hot chocolate, although the highlight for me was learning to get off a
chairlift and doing a run from the top of mountain. Admittedly it was on my
heel edge and there were no turns but I got from top to bottom so that was
cool.
Then half term happened.
The pistes were rammed with French babies learning to ski
and me learning to board, without to much control, it was too dangerous and an
accident waiting to happen so I went
back to skis and unfortunately have not boarded since. Oh well, maybe
next year.
Take care all
H xxxx
