Tag: snowboard

London Metro Ski and Snowboard Show 2006

We spent this afternoon at the London Metro Ski and Snowboard Show 2006 at Kensington Olympia. We didn’t have much to do today, so thought we’d go and take a look at the show. Overall, I’m glad we did. At £14 per adult, it wasn’t the cheapest day out, especially when you add the £12 parking, but we got some great ideas for trips for our next few years. We found out more about snowboarding in Japan (apparently February is the best time to go as it is the time of the snow festival, and there are lots of ice sculptures and ice caves created), and also another company (dreamski) offering guided trips to Chile and another company offering ski weekends.

ice climbing

Ice climbing at the show

The Skill Slope

The Skill Slope did great business today, lots of skiers – no snowboarding today though 🙁

upside down skiers

boarder

another boarder

Skiers and snowboarders performing on the Quarter Pipe

We also found the SportsDo gps system, making use of a java enabled or windows mobile phone using a bluetooth connection to an external gps unit to record journeys of all kind – drive, walk, run, ski, cycle etc. Sounds like a great idea, now to see if it works!

We joined ski safari

We joined ski safari at Alfresco’s last night for their start of Season party. We’ve been on two excellent trips with them, to BC, Canada and to Colorado over the past couple of years, and so it was good to go and meet the people behind the trips. The evening was sponsored by Vail Resorts, and so I’ve brought my Vail Resorts pen and Vail Resorts post-its into the office, and we managed to have some tasty canapes and beer too. We discussed our next snowboarding trip ideas with them, and also learnt more about their new offerings – weekends in Switzerland! At one point Richard was getting advice (and olympic anecdotes) about Utah from Graham Bell (former British Olympic Skier) which was kind of fun (especially as Richard didn’t realise who he was and wondered why he was so obsessed with the olympics).

After the excitement of looking at ski brochures, trail maps and talking to people about alternative snow trips – like Chile in summer, we headed off to the Black Horse Inn to meet up with the Sussex Geek Dinner. We missed Tristan‘s talk about plone, but did get to meet some interesting people. Nice organisation Simon!.

Whilst we were snowboarding

Whilst we were snowboarding in Colorado recently, we hired some demo kit to see what, if any, a difference it made.

The first board I hired was a Ride Kashmir 151 which I loved. I kept my own bindings as Breckenridge Sports only had standard Burton bindings. The board suited me well, and I found it a lot less shaky on flats. It didn’t take long to adjust to and I had great fun with it.

The second board was a Salomon Ivy 151 with some Burton Mission bindings. The girl in Breeze rentals recommended the Ivy as a great rental board, but didn’t think it would make a good board to buy as they’ve seen a lot of damaged returns. Apparently the Ivy is due for a re-release next year and it might be worth following up on then. The bindings were great and the board felt really responsive.

Looks like I’m in the market for a Ride Kashmir then…

Colorado

Colorado 2005

A snowboarding trip in Colorado, 10 nights spent at the lovely Four Peaks Inn in Breckenridge staying in the Gold Nugget room. Breckenridge was a great place to base ourselves, with loads of bars and restaurants to chose from. I’d return to Colorado, and to Breckenridge and would definitely spent time on Breckenridge mountain, at A-basin and at Keystone.

Resort review

Breckenridge
Ride time: 4 days
Favourite run: Crystal or Centennial on Peak 10
Ranked: 2 – lots of different terrain to chose from

A-Basin
Ride time: 1 day
Favourite run: Humbug, Falcon and Cabin Glades
Ranked: 1 – our favourite resort because it was challenging, quiet and fun

Vail
Ride time: 1 day
Favourite run: Expresso and Cappucino
Ranked: 4 – a busy resort, with quite a few flat traverses which make it hard work for snowboarders

Keystone
Ride time: 1 night
Favourite run: Spring Dipper
Ranked: 3 – excellent night riding, lots of runs on offer, nice resort

Copper Mountain
Ride time: 1 day
Favourite run: Union Park (primarily because it had trees and was quiet)
Ranked: 5 – too busy by far, most of the runs return you to the bottom of the mountain and there were huge lift queues. Offers the slopetracker service though which is an interesting and fun service.

Take a look at the photos

Meribel for New Year

We spent a few days in Les Allues, France over New Year with Jeremy and Kirsty and spent the time snowboarding in Les 3 Vallees. We made use of our lift tickets and spent some time in each of the other 2 valleys, but spent most of our time in Meribel and Meribel Mottaret. We were really fortunate and had 2 powder days – New Years Eve and New Years Day – what an amazing way to start a new year.

We spent New Years Eve (and in fact most other evenings) at La Tsaretta in the village.

A great break, and Meribel and the surrounding area is definitely a resort I could return to.

The other week we

The other week we were back snowboarding at Milton Keynes. Should have taken goggles with us, because they turned on the snow making equipment while we were on the slope, reducing visibility somewhat…

Canada

March 2005

2 weeks in Canada snowboarding. We did 4 days snowboarding in Fernie, then 2 in Kimberley. We then had a day off and drove to Nelson (which was mostly shut) before catching the Lake Kootenay Ferry. We then moved on to Panorama and did 2 days snowboarding, with a day off for exploring other resorts, and another day snowboarding. Our final day was spent at Kicking Horse enjoying a powder bowl at the top.
A great trip, a beautiful part of the world. Shame about the lack of snow – Fernie and Panorama look like they’d be excellent when the snow is better.

Whilst we were in

Whilst we were in Canada last week we picked up a copy of Frequency snowboard magazine, which is along the same lines as The snowboard Journal which we have a subscription for. It’s another beautiful coffee-table type magazine and the issue we have (4.2) includes an interesting “UnResort” guide – heli and cat access etc.