Sunday 11 December 2011

First ride of the season

On Saturday I dragged myself out of bed bright and early...was extremely excited but not being much of a morning person getting out of bed was still a struggle.  After getting dressed and ready and with some weetabix in my tummy we were set to go. My bindings were not on my board...but it was fine we were going down in our minibus so I sat in the back and was set to put them on as we where headed to the lift. Half way down the road (and after starting at my board and bindings for a few mins wondering what to do next) I realised I hadnt brought the bolts to attach them to my board....panic! After a quick trip back and many apologies later, we sat on a lift headed up the mountain :)
What an awesome day! I was thrilled to discover I haven't forgotten how to snowboard, but I was definitely more wobbly. I have a complete inability to keep any kind of speed up on flats atm, but hopefully that will rectify itself over time. Considering I went boarding with 3 other people that have done a hell of a lot of snow seasons before I didn't do too badly keeping up :) in a few weeks I'll be well away!:D 
We had a quick stop in the morning to get a crepe and a hot chocolate which was very well received. Then we were off. A run or two later I was already feeling the burn on my legs....definitely had't done enough squats and lunges to prepare. Have to say very few falls but then a quick off piste attempt had me tumbling down the hill and getting stuck in the snow. 
Notice anything missing from this picture.....yes my toe strap. Managed to lose the screw from my toe strap as I was getting out of a lift bubble. Short of searching all of the pods I didn't have much luck finding it in the snow around me. So then began an interesting journey down to Avoriaz on my own to find a shop that might have some lying around. Being the complete plonker with no sense of direction that I am, I managed to miss Avoriaz completely and came 
out of one run to find that I was now below it. But luckily I had stumbled on some kind of snow gear makes event. every snow gear make you can think of had a tent thing up or a stall, so I wondered around found the Burton one and managed to get a new screw :) by this point I had no idea where anyone else had gone and hadn't yet bought a phone, but had a nice few runs on my own and then decided to head back down to Morzine...So using a piste map I made my way down. I maneged to end up on a closed slope. I did wonder why there had been a fence across the top :/ there wasn't much snow and there were a hell of a lot of rocks, I did okay to begin with just dodging rocks, but there where some severe ridges that caught me out and then there were more rocks than snows so the last bit I had to take off my board and walk. It was an interesting ride down.
Two hours later the others turned up :/ but all in all was a good day of riding :) with many more to follow I hope...