Coldcat
02-05-2005, 05:05 AM
Hey guys! How's winter in your neck o'the woods?
Over here, it is raging. Or at least, about 1500 kms south of me it is raging, as I am back in the low lands from a week of snowboarding.
A week is always so short.
I have no pics, as we came there just as a cold spell started, and with -25 degrees celcius up on the mountain, the battery of our digicams instantly went into strike.
But it was GREAT! It was so good to stand on a board again! (MY legs hurt so much!)
It was snowing when we arrived at the little italian resort my dad mostly goes to (and coincidentally the resort I stayed for two months three years ago) It snowed still our first day, and only half of the runs were open, with poor visibility, so we rode the many treeruns with heavenly kneedeep, someplaces thigh deep, powder. The next days were bluebird, the wind died down (wich is a rare thing in that resort) and temperatures plummeted.
Sadly, during the storm the wind had come from a totally different direction then usual, and had reshaped the resort completely. There could be few to almost no snow in places, whereas other places one could almost drown in the stuff. Under layer was also not good, so my brother broke his board again (for the eigth time in a row) and we both had some nice ragdoll timbles from hitting an unsuspected lurking stone. (tricky *******s!) Luckily, aside from scratches and gouches and bruises, not major damage was done.
On the french side of the resort, however, the snow had piled evenly, leaving trees as white sculpture between twinkling powder layers (it was so cold the air looked like it was loaded with flying diamonds.) and we tracked and trashed as much as we could the first two days, then focused on hiking.
Did an incredible run on the northern side of the Chaz Dura, a run one would normally take over its western flank, but since that was completely cleared by the wind (It is eerie to see what one actually snowboards upon when its covered!) we took another ridge to clamber to our take off point. Brother dubbed it "concentration ridge" and that it was, as it was narrow, riddled with loose stones, steeply going down, and with a ravine on one side, and on the other side, a 50-something degree slope which is usually snow, but now just stonecrust. A ridge where you repeat that mantra in your head: "Do not loose foothold, do not loose foothold, do not..." While you have a board in one hand, so just one other to hold on with, and old very stiff snowboard boots on. (you'll rarely, if ever, see skiing tracks down that slope for that very reason)
But then..at the end of a 20 minute climb (over..what? a 100 meters? 150 at most?)...pure heaven! Knee deep, stable, wide open (with just one narrow spot to jump over or weasel through) powder. Perfect for wide, wide, wide powder turns at mach 3, and yelling.
And to fall down backwards at the end of the run, when youre back at the bullied piste, to grin immensely and exclaim: OMG! Who needs orgasms when you can have THIS?
Not me! :D
Over here, it is raging. Or at least, about 1500 kms south of me it is raging, as I am back in the low lands from a week of snowboarding.
A week is always so short.
I have no pics, as we came there just as a cold spell started, and with -25 degrees celcius up on the mountain, the battery of our digicams instantly went into strike.
But it was GREAT! It was so good to stand on a board again! (MY legs hurt so much!)
It was snowing when we arrived at the little italian resort my dad mostly goes to (and coincidentally the resort I stayed for two months three years ago) It snowed still our first day, and only half of the runs were open, with poor visibility, so we rode the many treeruns with heavenly kneedeep, someplaces thigh deep, powder. The next days were bluebird, the wind died down (wich is a rare thing in that resort) and temperatures plummeted.
Sadly, during the storm the wind had come from a totally different direction then usual, and had reshaped the resort completely. There could be few to almost no snow in places, whereas other places one could almost drown in the stuff. Under layer was also not good, so my brother broke his board again (for the eigth time in a row) and we both had some nice ragdoll timbles from hitting an unsuspected lurking stone. (tricky *******s!) Luckily, aside from scratches and gouches and bruises, not major damage was done.
On the french side of the resort, however, the snow had piled evenly, leaving trees as white sculpture between twinkling powder layers (it was so cold the air looked like it was loaded with flying diamonds.) and we tracked and trashed as much as we could the first two days, then focused on hiking.
Did an incredible run on the northern side of the Chaz Dura, a run one would normally take over its western flank, but since that was completely cleared by the wind (It is eerie to see what one actually snowboards upon when its covered!) we took another ridge to clamber to our take off point. Brother dubbed it "concentration ridge" and that it was, as it was narrow, riddled with loose stones, steeply going down, and with a ravine on one side, and on the other side, a 50-something degree slope which is usually snow, but now just stonecrust. A ridge where you repeat that mantra in your head: "Do not loose foothold, do not loose foothold, do not..." While you have a board in one hand, so just one other to hold on with, and old very stiff snowboard boots on. (you'll rarely, if ever, see skiing tracks down that slope for that very reason)
But then..at the end of a 20 minute climb (over..what? a 100 meters? 150 at most?)...pure heaven! Knee deep, stable, wide open (with just one narrow spot to jump over or weasel through) powder. Perfect for wide, wide, wide powder turns at mach 3, and yelling.
And to fall down backwards at the end of the run, when youre back at the bullied piste, to grin immensely and exclaim: OMG! Who needs orgasms when you can have THIS?
Not me! :D