Chamonix training session 1 - a big thank you

03/03/06 final day
Didn't end up going out as the avalanche risk was too high. Instead, I made good use of the hot tub and began packing my bags.

In the evening we had our final dinner. I also realised that Neil McNab (4 times British snowboarding champion and the owner of the McNab Chalet) had a shaved head and was not, as I mistakenly thought, permanently wearing a white hat!
At the end of the dinner I handed out small business cards to everyone which had information on the sponsored heliboard so that they could spread the word back in their homelands.

I will be returning to Chamonix for further training taking place over 2 long weekends before the end of April.

I would just like to thank all the people who crossed my path during my first training week in Chamonix from 24th February to 4th March 2006.
Especially would like to thank Easy Jet - who paid for the flights
McNab Chalet for providing my accommodation and snowboarding instruction
Keith McIntosh- my instructor who gave me the regular motivational kicks to keep me going and skilfully adapted his training so I could fully benefit.

Chamonix training session 1 - the pinnacle

02/03/06 day 6
Reaching the pinnacle of my trip. I was to go to the top of Le Tour.
I was so excited as there was going to be no poma lift. I took a cabin lift followed by a 4-man chairlift which got me to the top of the mountain and the highest I had been so far.

However all the way up I was slightly concerned for 2 reasons:
1) It was very cold and it was a whiteout which meant the visibility was bad.
2) The night before the other people staying in the chalet on hearing my anticipated ride up the cabin and chair lifts decided to share some of the misfortunes of others on similar forms of transportation, which included some guy unfortunately getting killed by catching his head in the automated doors of the cabin.
Nevertheless I made it to the top with my head in tact.

Keith decided that he would hold my hands and take me down the first stretch as it would give me a good feel of the type of slope we were on. I can still remember the first thing he said soon after we began the dissent "Adi I feel a bit like you at this moment as I can't see shit myself" this was due to the white out we were in!

It was important I get experience of snowboarding on powder as this would be the type of snow I would face when I do the helidrop. So we ventured off the main slope time to time and I had my first taste of amazingly soft powder snow which made falling a pleasure however getting up was the antonym, as any attempt of pushing off the snow to stand resulted in digging down to my elbows in soft snow. Once we left the powder things got bad. I hit a section of slope which felt like solid ice. I Unfortunately fell while on this section and slid on my bottom uncontrollably. It felt like being on the world’s biggest slide. I thought I was going to slide all the way down the mountain into the car park. However I manage to cut into the ice with the edge of my snowboard, which slowed me down and the ice patch wasn't in fact very long however as I wasn't able to see how long it was made it quite a scary experience, especially as it was quite steep.

The Crowne Plaza in Leeds had provided me free access to their gym, however it was evident that I hadn't really frequented it, as every 3 minutes I was asking Keith if I could sit down. He finally had lost it with me and said that I should go to the gym more often. As it happened my back was turned towards Keith at the point so I took the opportunity to facetiously say that I couldn't hear him. This was a bad move as Keith responded by shouting at the top of his Scottish lungs "Adi you have legs like a woman!" (obviously he was joking as most snowboarding females have very strong legs).

Chamonix training session 1 - attempting to snowboard

01/03/06 day 5
Didn’t break anything yet. Today's slope was beautiful with trees on either side. The trees provided good contrast with the snow, which allowed me to roughly see the direction in which the slope was going.

I went up the poma lift no problem for the first 4 times, the 5th time I was feeling like a pro, I reached out for the pomo all by myself. However my legs just packed in and I had to let go quarter of the way up!

Today was also the day I committed one of the most horrific falls which every snowboarder dreads...I caught an edge!!! It feels a bit like whiplash, not fun.

Soon after another incident occurs, I was on my edge and going across the slope and had picked up some speed. I was waiting for Keith to give me the signal so I could turn on to my other edge and traverse across the other way. However my earpiece went quiet and then I heard someone who did not have the hardcore rugged Scottish tones of Keith, it was a French woman (or possibly Spanish) saying something in her sweet accent but obviously unrelated to my plight! I was getting faster and faster, no Keith, and a French/ Spanish woman in my ear!!! Out of desperation I make the decision to turn. Straight after my turn I hear Keith in my ear calling me a tree hugger as I had just come quite close to the only tree that was in the middle of the slope we were riding on!

28/02/06 day 4
Still not broke anything yet. Eventually was eligible to use the poma lift!!! Yippee!!! However, not too sure why I am so excited as it was quite a painful experience. I fell off and had only travelled about 40 feet up the slope!

26/02/06 & 27/02/06 day 2 & day 3
Didn’t break anything yet, apart from sweat. I'm not yet ready to go up the poma lift so have to resort to a hike up the beginner's' slope every time.
--poma lift is basically a pole, the top end of which is attached to a cable and the bottom has a plastic plate attached to it. You place the plate between your legs and squeeze your thighs and you get pulled up the slope--

Biggest problem when I snowboard is that when I attempt to turn, my board just ends up sliding straight down the fall line as apposed to carving across the slope.
--Fall line is the route a ball would take if dropped on the slope--

Chamonix training session 1 - McNab chalet

25/02/06 day 1
At breakfast I got talking to a guy lying on the couch. When I asked him what was up, his reply made me choke on my toast - he went through an avalanche yesterday! It just brought home the risks of snowboarding off-piste in the back country!

-Definition- off-piste is snowboarding/ skiing in areas that haven't been groomed for public pleasure -

Thankfully his story was funny. He explained how he was thrown around and towards the end of the ordeal he managed to keep his hand sticking out of the snow, thinking it would help someone spot him. A while later, he came to realise that as his hand was poking out the top of the snow, he mustn’t be buried to deep. All he had to do was sit up!

I was staying in the McNab Chalet which is a traditional three floor wood frame chalet. I had it described to me as "a big triangle, I think it’s an isosceles, oh wait it may be an equilateral” said Keith. As you look up it, each floor gets narrower as you are reaching the peak of the triangle. Each floor has a balcony going around it. On either sides of the chalet there were connecting garages

Breakfast was served between 8 and 8:30 but the earliest I ever made it was 8:45. We would have a pack lunch to take on the slope. The best part was on returning from the slope there would be cakes and juice waiting on the table in front of the log fire! Dinner was the responsibility of our very own master chef, Martin. Every evening, he would serve us up an array of culinary delights.

However, what got me the most excited was not the anticipation of the snowboarding, not the beautiful mountainous surroundings in the valley, but the wireless internet and the hot-tub!

24/02/06
My first night I shared a room with Tony who was totally inspirational, he was 54 years young and was ready for 3 weeks of 'back country riding that is, snowboarding in mountainous terrain that the usual people don't take. He told me he had done a heliboard in the past so I kept him up most of the night asking him of the finer details.

Chamonix training session 1 - Leeds-London-Geneva-Chamonix

24/02/06 - the journey
18:25 Five minutes before check-in was going to close, and the shuttle bus that was going to take me from Luton Park Station to Luton Airport hadn't yet arrived. I ask the gently spoken Scottish woman who had guided me off the Train how long the bus would be. 5 minutes she replied. I followed up by asking how long will it take to get to the airport once on the bus, 5 minutes she replied again. So a quick calculation 5 minute wait + 5 minute on bus= 10 minutes in total which meant I would be 5 minutes late for check-in.

Can’t we just take a taxi I groaned? Amazingly enough there was one standing 30 seconds away which got me there within seconds of check-in and also cost me dinner for that night £7 for a 4 minute run!

19:00 - Low fare-high care on the plane
Lovely smooth flight for a low cost airline I even had a lovely air stewardess asking me if I wanted a feel around of her equipment, yes please I said, then she pulled out the life jackets and the oxygen masks.

While on the flight I thought I would do a good deed for the day, spending half the flight time in attempting to convert the gentleman sitting next to me, clearly a avid skier, to the enlightened world of snowboarding...to no avail though. He did however make a donation on the justgiving.com/adil website.

22:00 Before arriving in Geneva, I recalled the one piece of advice I was given by a friend - not to end up with Swiss franks because after this brief trip through Switzerland they would be useless for the rest of the journey. I appreciated this fact, however I got off the plane and wasn't able to find a cash exchange anywhere. The ATM was my only bet of obtaining some Euros to pay the bus driver for the transfer. In a state of panic on realising that the machine didn't deal in euros, I asked the Airport assistant who had helped me off the plane to help me pull out 100 Swiss franks instead! Incidentally the bus driver didn't take the franks.

1.5 hours later I was in Chamonix with 100 Swiss franks in my pocket and a feeling that it’s only going to get easier from now on!