Welcome to my blog!

Hello, my name is Adil and I have been slowly losing my eyesight from the age of 14. I am now 25 and near blind. In April 2007, I performed a helidrop which involved me snowboarding down the Trient Glacier in Switzerland. To read more on the day I descended down the glacier you can read the post The Big Day.

Alternatively you can watch a short video.
of the day I snowboarded down the glacier.


The rest of this site will give you insight into my learning how to snowboard and in general, the ramblings of a blind snowboarder.

Why did I do it?

A simple message that can be taken from my challenge is that if a blind person can be guided through deadly crevices on a glacier, then what ever challenge or problems (crevices) you have in your life, there is a strong possibility you can overcome them. At times, this may require some guidance and help from people around you; however never be scared in living up to the challenge.

There is a charitable aspect to my snowboarding also, it is to bring light to the great challenge ahead for the child survivors of the Asian earthquake of 2005. These children survived the earthquake but lost their families and communities. Its important that these children don't lose hope. The children need to live up to the challenge facing them and they can do this through our help. this site has commited to helping 300 of the children by providing them with Action Aid's Child Friendly Schools. To equip one building into a school cost £1,400 and the hope is to have 10 schools at a total cost of £14,000. more information can be obtained by visiting the post:
Charity Update
Please reward my snowboarding efforts by supporting the children!

If you only have 30 seconds to make a donation:

text the word:

SNOWBLIND


to the number:

85222
by doing this you will have made a one-off donation of £1.50, you will be charged a one-off charge of £1.50 pluss any standard network charges you usually pay for sending a text.

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To make an online donation please visit www.justgiving.com/nextgeneration

Making an online donation takes less than 5 minutes.

Thanks to everyone who send comments and messages of support. They are greatly appreciated. Please continue sending your comments and questions to
twistedkilt@hotmail.com.

Gallery from the big day

Photos by Keith McIntosh and Neil McNab

To watch the video Click here

The Big Day!

Feeling relieved and extremely happy as I’m in one piece! The heli-drop was very successful, not to mention enjoyable. The day started with an 8 a.m. pickup in Keith’s car. We drove over the boarder from France into Switzerland and parked in a lay-by as we got our kit together and waited for the helicopter to pick us up. There were 5 of us in total, Myself, Keith McIntosh, Neil McNab, James Vernon, and Georgia Merton. James and Georgia were going to be filming the event. Neil was the High Mountain Guide and Keith was my guide! We had to sit crouched as the heli dropped down. It was very noisy and I was extremely nervous. It was as if the sound of the helicopter just made me realise what I was about to do. Because of the noise all my other senses were blinded. I had to rely on someone guiding me to the first step of the heli, ensuring our heads were down to keep safe from the propellers. I climbed in first and got comfortable for a 10 minute flight which flew us over a breathtaking mountainous terrain and at one point our pilot even flew us through a massive crevice. It was an amazing ride and Georgia sitting next to me described the journey to me so that I never missed a bit. The little sight I have remaining allowed me to see the darkness of the mountain walls as we flew near to them. We were dropped off on the Trient glacier.

We left our kit and walked up a little bank to a vantage point from where many peeks were visible. Neil described to me from this point the route we would be taking.
It was like being in another world, so quiet and surreal.

Keith and I did a little sound check to ensure our walky-talkys were working. The Starcom1 walky-talky system meant that Keith could have a wire down his arm with a button he could press to talk into a wind-proof mic attached to his goggles. I had a set of headphones attached to the inside of my helmet so I could hear Keith very clear at even high speeds.

We began the descent. The snow was quite crunchy and really bumpy to begin with and this meant I really had to keep my legs really relaxed and springy. I had a fall in the first minute or so, as I got use to the terrain. It was smooth sailing after that. We hit the flat section and this is where the hard work started. We had to hike! We took off our boards and attached them to our bags. We then put on some snow shoes which would give us more surface area and reduce the chance of poking through the glacier. We also had to attach ourselves to a rope and walk behind one another. We had to keep enough distance between ourselves to have some tension for the rope. If one of us was to unfortunately fall into a crevice, having the rest of us on the rope would stop the person from falling far as the rest of us would be effectively the deadweight on the rope!

We arrived at a section which had a big crevice and had a bridge of snow over it. We had to ensure that the snow was safe to hold our weight. Fortunately, all of us were in perfect shape not one inch of excess fat on us (haha). I got a little worried at this point. James, our cameraman, went over it first. James made it safely, so we slowly began the walk over the snow. I was very careful to ensure that I followed the exact line of the rope I was attached to and that I didn’t venture too much to either side. We all made it safely. We continued the hike for another 15 minutes. At the end of it, we were totally exhausted.

We clipped into our boards and began the second descent. However, after I made my first turn I couldn’t hear Keith in my ear anymore. ‘Oh dear’ I thought, that wasn’t good news. I called out to him, thinking something had happened to him. I heard his voice in the distance. He was still alive, however the batteries on his walky-talky were not! Thankfully I had spares and we were on the road, or should I say glacier, before long.

The weather had been perfect up to now. However, it was beginning to get cloudy and the weather forecast for the late afternoon had been bad.
There was the possibility that if the weather were too bad, the Heli wouldn’t come and we would either have to spend the night on the glacier in a small hut or attempt to walk down. However, due to the snow melting away lower down the mountain, this would have been a long walk and probably not the safest.

The cloud held back the poor weather a little longer. We got to another flat section and removed our boards. We began the final 30 minute hike to the spot where the heli was to meet us. On hearing the Helicopter we got our stuff close together and sat on the ground in a huddle.

The helicopter Landed a few meters away. Once again, it blinded all my senses. However, it wasn’t able to blind the feeling of the amazing relief on surviving one of the toughest challenges I had done in my life and demonstrating we can push the limits when it comes towards ourselves. With that thought, I climbed into the helicopter with the rest of the team.

I’ll place some of the pictures and a video clip from the descent on this site over the next day or so.

I still can’t believe it’s over. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of countless people. People who I trained with, my sponsors who covered most of my costs to ensure that every penny that people donated would go towards the charity, my family as I haven’t being seeing them much and all the people who have been reading my blog and sending kind emails and making donations towards the charity. I’m not going to provide am exhaustive list here as you would be exhausted reading it!

My descent down the glacier is over. I guess however the challenge has just begun for the children who survived the Asian earthquake of 2005 to begin building their lives. Your donations will help them as per every £1,400 we raise will equip one school assisting 30 children to receive an education and trauma support. So please don’t stop your donation from coming in if you haven’t donated already: www.justgiving.com/nextgeneration

Warm Regards


Adi

Final Count Down

The heli drop has been scheduled for this coming Saturday, 28th April. However, this could change depending on the weather, and if I change my mind and go home to my mum :)

It’s Wednesday night and I have just arrived in Chamonix. It’s midnight, and I'm sitting in my dorm in the Chalet ski Station.

The next two days before the drop will be for Keith McIntosh and I to have some intimate time on the snow together to ensure that we have good communication between one another. It’s important for Keith to communicate with me the type of snow coming up, in addition to the steepness and the width of the section of the mountain in the least amount of words possible. He also has to give directions to navigate me away from dangers on the mountain. The communication with Keith will be my eyes on the mountain.

The Bucket!

Thursday 19th April

Did a dreaded street collection on Fulham Broadway. We started about 5:30 and were out there till 9. There was such diversity in people on the street. Some of them were not interested and others were so interested that they requested photos next to us

I’m not sure why, though. Haven’t they ever seen a blind guy with a white stick standing on a snowboard on the pavement with balloons and a bucket in his hands?

One of the best was a lady who tried to sound really interested, but was only concerned with wanting to take one of our helium-filled red balloons for her wee one.

Rob Drake was amazing at pulling people towards me begging them for pennies. He was scarily good at that. Not sure if he had been between jobs for a while☺

Bilal was amazing at enticing people my way with the majority of them being outstandingly pretty girls. I’m sure he appreciated his legitimacy in being able to talk to random strangers on the street.

Elizna was absolutely dedicated to the cause by building rapport and selling the project to the people she met. Rob H. ensured that the people who were having a nice, peaceful dinner at the street side cafes would have to eat their food while looking at a flyer of me, which he would then deposit on their tables.

Jun was the most smartly dressed in his suit straight from work and enticed people with his Japanese charm. Megan was a star at organising the event and talked Borders into allowing us to tape some posters to the outside of their window during our street collection! Georgia was the official camera woman on the day and caught us all picking our nose and rolling our eyes.

Afterwards, we went for a round of free drinks, courtesy of TGI Friday in Fulham and another free round courtesy of David Lloyd.

Knuckles up to all the shops in Fulham Broadway who allowed us to drop flyers.
Borders bookshop was awesome as they allowed us to park a table outside their window looking onto Fulham Road.

Thanks to Mo from David Lloyd health club in Fulham Broadway for providing the table and for charming Clintons into filling up our balloons!

Friday the 13th - How Lucky

Friday, April 13

Lucky for me, my plane was delayed by 15 minutes which gave me time to check-in. I bought a drink for the flight attendant; which I promised to myself I would do if I made the easyJet flight.

As usual, the flight was a joy and the helpful staff members gave me a personal one-to-one with their safety equipment.

I was heading to France again, this time accompanied by Bilal, who is a cool South Affrican lad I met in London. Also along was his friend, Jun, who is the funniest Japanese lad I have ever met.

On the plane, Jun taught Bilal and I a few phrases in Japanese such as ‘how are you’ ‘thank you’ and a few others which are probably not appropriate to mention here.
The next day, Saturday morning, Jun was dressed sooner than Bilal and I, and was attempting to say ‘I am ready’. However, within his excitement and lovely Japanese accent, he proclaimed what sounded like ‘I am Lady’. We obviously never let him forget that phrase throughout our time there and at home☺

Jun was my guide for the first couple of runs when we got on the slope, as Bilal was still learning how to snowboard. It was interesting when I insisted Jun give me directions in Japanese. When he began to shout out directions in English, I would pretend to not hear him.

After Bilal got up to speed with his snowboarding (remarkably within a couple of hours of being on the slope) all three of us went cruising on Le Toure. It was the quietest I’ve ever experienced. We actually didn’t use the walky-talkies and I resorted to a combination of listening to Bilal’s board in front of me and Bilal shouting out my name. I would know to stop when I couldn’t hear his board any more, as that would be the point when he would have face-planted (fallen). He didn’t fall enough for my liking for a beginner.

Saturday afternoon on the slope, we met two lovely girls, Alisha and Esther, both of them teaching English in France. Esther was an Ausy on skis for the first time and she was brave enough to come up the chair lift with Jun and I. She was quite nervous; however, she persevered and the next day it was hard to get her off the slope as she was loving it. Alisha was an unforgettable Canadian skier. She enjoyed the snow and was the only person I’ve ever seen who can laugh after falling and sliding down the mountain for 20 meters!

Thanks go out to the lovely lady at Chalet Ski Station in Chamonix who donated the money I paid for my stay to the charity.

Knuckles up to Tom Wilson at Zeroº were great for providing Bilal a nice discount off his snowboard rental and gave me some love in the form of wrist guards at cost price.

My Ears are My Eyes on the Slope

Wednesday, 11th April

Imagine you are driving, and you are picking up some speed and you know there is a corner coming up…then suddenly, someone places a French newspaper in front of your eyes and you are forced to read its contents while your car is dangerously heading towards the corner! A similar thing happens to me on the slope. The car is my snowboard, the corner is a cliff and the French newspaper is a French girl’s voice. She has gotten onto the same walky-talky channel and has interrupted my guide’s instructions.

As my ears are my eyes on the slope, it is vital that I can constantly listen to my guide. So far, I’ve been using some basic Motorala walky-talkies which have a wire with a mic and earpiece attached. The problem with this set up is that the walky-talkies don’t have enough channels, so it is easy for the French girl to get on the same channel. Also the mic is not really wind proof, so when we are going fast, it is really difficult to hear my guide. After some investigation and some advice from Kev Alderton (fastest blind skier in the world) I have a better setup now. The equipment has been provided by Starcom1 http://www.starcom1.com and consists of a powerful Kenwood walky-talky which my guide and I keep tucked away in our pockets. The new Kenwood walky-talkys, Kenwood UBZ-LJ8, are clearer and have more channels, which results in less of the French girl! Connected to this walky-talky are two cables. One of them leads to an earpiece with a wind-proof microphone. The other cable leads to an activation switch which can be attached to our thumbs so we can press the button with our gloves over top. This is better then before, where my guide would have to hold the walky-talky (in the cold) and try to press the button with a gloved-hand. This wasn’t the easiest task, as it would require the dexterity levels of a bird’s claw!

On the Board with Blair

06 April 2007

I arrived in France on Friday night for a quick weekend on the snow with Chris Blair, my friend from Oxford. I mean to say my friend who studied at Oxford, not implying in any way that that I went to Oxford. Chris doesn’t like it when I tell people he went to Oxford, so I won't. Personally, I was over qualified and had to attend the Strathclyde University Business School instead.☺

We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so I must admit we savoured the cafés and street-side stalls more than we actually spent time on the snow. However, when we did make it on the snow, it was quite rewarding. My snowboarding skills are picking up quite well. Chris was very good at providing essential information such as the steepness of the slope, the width of the slope, and most interestingly, if there were any ‘baskets’ near by. A ‘basket’ is someone who is all over the place (someone I have to be really careful around).

The link below will take you to a clip of Chris giving me directions. Click on the link, and you will be 100 feet above me and looking through Chris's camera as he talks into his walky-talky. Essentially, what you will hear is the same as I hear when I am coming down the slope, which acts as my eyes.

http://video.google.co.uk/
videoplay?docid=1990960984574865415&hl=en-GB


One of our favourite hangouts in Chamonix was a street-side stall which made fresh waffles with a toffee centre. Chris spotted this place whilst sitting in a café, which quite disappointedly had to stop serving food around 11:00 a.m. This was quite a common feature. Sometimes we would be too early for food, and other times we would be too late.

Although we had no major incidents on the slope, we did get my phantom French girl on the walky-talkies who would every so often disturb the directions I would get from Chris. 'Phantom French girl' refers to someone else using the same walky-talky channel as us, which results in Chris cutting out and the random person in my ear. In all cases, in all of my trips to France, the random person has been a French girl!

A Hard Day's Riding

16/02: Les Houches:
Caught the last Easyjet flight on Friday evening from Gatwick. Flying out with Grant Gallacher to have a full days of riding in Less Houches in Chamonix. I’m always impressed with the service I get with Easyjet. However this time round I had a little disagreement with the lady at check-in. She was insisting on informing me on what kind of assistance I required. I had informed that I only needed help up to the security desk as I would meet Grant on the other side, she insisted on getting me assistance up to the plane, and more annoyingly so, she insisted I wait for an hour before the assistance is provided as the flight was delayed. Eventually a much more flexible Easyjet member of staff understood the situation and walked with me to security. On arriving to security I realized I had Nigel in my pocket (Nigel is my tool which I use to adjust the bindings on my board) I declared it and quickly ran with my new found Easyjet friend to where I had left my snowboard, unfortunately it was to late and my snowboard had already been sent on the plane. Having only my laptop bag on my back I decided to put Nigel in my laptop bag and check the bag in. However not having the heart to put my poor delicate laptop through check-in, I decided to take it out of the bag and carry it through security!

Easyjet air stewards are always extremely helpful on the plane, to the extent that Grant thought the male steward had a crush on me when he asked Grant to step a side while he (the male steward) sat next to me and helped me remove my jacket, and then began to take me through the safety procedures.

17/02: Les Houches:
Went to sleep quite late and awoke to the ringing of my phone. Oh dear… it would be Keith and Grant and I had slept in. I answered, trying to sound as awake as one could with 5 hours sleep. I got ready in record time grabbed my board (forgot my gloves) and ran to the door only to stand there for about 5 minutes struggling to open it as the key didn’t work too well from the inside.

17/02: 9:30 am: Showing a bit of leg
Grant and I began climbing the 2 set of stairs which would take us up to the first chairlift. We went as high up the mountain as the 3 chairlifts would take us. It was the first time Grant had been with me outside the indoor slope in Milton Keynes. It was quite momentous. The first couple of runs were quite nice. I was wearing the bright yellow bib I had got made recently. It says on it ‘blind rider’. I had a similar bib in the just as fashionable bright orange for Grant saying ‘rider’s guide’. Grant for some strange reason preferred his Scottish Instructors jacket over the bright orange bib so didn’t wear it. However, if Grant was trying to not attract attention he failed dramatically. As half way down our first run he realized that the zip which goes down his leg burst open revealing his sexy leg to the unprotected eyes of the bystanders! However to give him credit I think he got the situation under control fast.

17/02: 7pm: Hotel Room, Les Houches

Just had an amazing sleep but have slept through my dinner date with Grant and Keith. I feel so refreshed, body is still feeling quite harassed but now the need for some food is high. I’m sitting in a nice cosy room at the back of a building site as this hotel is slowly being converted into apartments.

Its dark and I suffer from night blindness which means that I would be totally useless in finding any food. I made a cup of coffee, had some chocolate and sent Keith a text informing him I was going back into hibernation. I decided not to ride on the Sunday as my body was still recovering and I grabbed an early flight back to good old London town.

Festive Fun!

’Tis the Eve before Christmas...

24/12/2006 : 2am London :
Haven't still finished packing. Spent most of the day travelling round the UK trying to pick up a set of Motorola walkie-talkies, eventually picked them up at Ellis Brigham in Tamworth (who kindly provided them for free together with some base layers.)

My snowboard is sitting on the bed looking irresistible.

It is a pure white Icon Wallpaper edition, with the board make stencilled in an overlapping fashion across the middle between the bindings and rapping around the bottom of the board.
However there is a big scratch on the top surface which I’m sure was my cleaner bashing the vacuum into it. There are some little knocks round the edges which I have a suspicion are the war wounds of carrying it through the London underground!

My snowboard bag is full. I have crammed everything down to my aftershave in there due to the new hand luggage restrictions at the UK airports. Any ideas on where I could put the snowboard?

7am London:
I think I must have fallen asleep about 3am after packing my bags and while listening back to the advice which Keith was giving me on the recording I had of him. Then something vibrated, just in time for me to wake up and not miss my flight! There was another vibration: my phone was ringing. It was my housemate wanting in. He was apologetic for waking me totally oblivious of the fact he had potentially saved me from missing a flight.

I grabbed a taxi to pick me up. You would imagine that after prancing around the UK yesterday to find the walkie-talkies that I wouldn't leave them all nicely charged on my bed! Flight or no flight I went back for them

Christmas in Argentiere

25/12/07: Argentiere:

Just got back from my first day on the slope. Ben (A friend I made in the Belvadere bunk house) came up with me. We struggled at the beginning a little as Ben, as a skier would be facing down the slope at all times however when on a snowboard if I was to be on my toe-side I would be facing up the hill so we really had to think about our lefts and rights!

I crashed into a number of Piste marker poles with one of them lodging itself under my board resulting in me riding over it as if I meant to perform a fancy trick! The culmination of that run was my board and me attached to it heading quite fast toward a go slow sign and stopping inches from it.

Ben’s friend Neil accompanied us and Neil’s ski poles came in handy on the flat sections of the slope as he would pull me till I had enough momentum. When snowboarding its crucial to have enough speed when approaching a flat section to ensure you don’t stop. If you stop it is hard to get going as unlike skiing, you are attached to the one platform so you can’t independently push out using your legs.
If there is no kind hearted skier around you usually have to take out one foot and use it to push off, similar to what you would do while skateboarding.


26/12/06 Argentere:
Sitting on my top bunk at the belvedere about to head for a sauna down stairs. Every single part in my body is aching. I hit some more piste markers today. Stopped in time to prevent a collision with a skier. I was quite excited as it gave me a chance to try out my newly acquire phrase informing them that I couldn’t see in French. He turned out to be German and didn’t understand a word I said and asked if I spoke English!

27/12/2006 Argentere:
Went for 1 run in the morning and now I feel pain all over. It was long, steep and icy! Basically it was as if all the ice rinks in London had been joined together and then tilted up at a slant. Falling on ice can be quite terrifying for most average boarders, in my case it’s slightly more so as I am not able to see where the next patch of snow is which will break my fall and bring my sliding to an end.

28/12/06 Argentere:
Didn’t do anything in the morning as Ben was Ice climbing. It gave me a chance to write out some emails which I had to send. The afternoon came and we decided that the ice conditions would warrant the purchasing of a helmet. Was fortunate the expensive French branded one didn’t fit so purchased a slightly cheaper but equally as good if not more better fit K2 version.

Caught some Air from the Chair:
Was waiting at the bottom of one of the runs for the 2 man chair lift which would take us up the mountain. I stood at the bottom with Ben. We were reasonably well positioned however the chair collided with the back of my rucksack throwing me off balance resulting in me half on half off. The longer I stayed in this position the higher the chairlift was going.
I took the decision to jump woohooing on my way down as I landed on the slope below. Thankfully it was not high with about a 2 meter fall.
Ben asked me later on if I knew how high it was before I jumped, I answered in the negative. At times you have to take the risk and go with instinct. I knew if I had jumped later it would have been higher so I cut my losses!

Riding with Ben was great. He looked out for me all the time in the slope. The incident on the chair was not avoidable. It was the first time I was taking a rucksack with me and next time I will be more prepared for the chair approaching.

I think the best point on the slope was when I was really tired as I had not been performing that well on the ice and instead of things getting better the slope got a lot worse as we were going to have to navigate through some rocks. Ben kept calm and had total confidence in me and guided me through with great skill. I felt amazing at the bottom because we had made it down in one piece!

We soon realized that I was performing better during the times Ben would continuously talk over the walky talky. Previously I had asked him to provide directions, so when to turn for example. However providing ongoing information such as:
slope direction (that is which direction is the piste marked)
camber (the slant of the slope, for example, the direction of the slope may be straight in front however the slope may be silted so that the left hand side is higher than the right hand side) that is, the slope may be marked
width of the slope
Condition of the slope (ice, rocky, grass/ mud!)
people traffic

These were all really useful bits of information and made me feel safer and more confident in my riding.

Later on that day I had dinner with Keith McIntosh and Neil McNab. Over dinner we discussed possible routes of the helidrop and possible dates. Neil offered to take me out the next morning for a run just to see how I was getting along.

30/12/06 Les Houches:
Neil came and picked me up in the morning. We drove for about 30 minutes coming nearer to where he stayed and to where we would be riding for the day. After a couple of runs on slopes which were not far off horizontal I convinced Neil to take me on the types of runs I had been accustomed to. Riding with Neil was good as it really helped to tie up areas in my technique which had been taught to me by Keith (in France) Daniel Lloyd and Grant Gallacher (in the UK).

Neil speaks about that day in an article in Whitelines (a snowboarding mag) we made it into.

I stayed at Neil’s house that day and had some amazing food cooked by Neil’s wife Ruth. I also made a new friend, Manon, who was a very pretty and intelligent girl. She drew a lovely picture of a snail and then asked me to draw a picture of a sun above the snail, I was terrified as I hadn’t ever drawn anything since I started losing my sight. However she was very generous and accepted my addition of a sun in her drawing! We watched Toy Story together and I gave her a crash course on how a blind person uses a white stick to learn of dangers such as steps and curbs, she was fascinated. Manon was Neil’s 2 year old daughter!