Chamonix Training session 1-Atempting to Snowboard (Feb 25 to March 3rd 2006)

Adil Latif | Snowboarding-Mont Blanc glacier Descent | ON 25th February 2006 | 0 comments

First few days  on the slope
25/02/06 - 27/02/06
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 beginners' slope every time.
The 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).

Day 4 on the slope
28/02/06
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!

day 5 on the slope
 01/03/06
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 was not Keith with his hardcore rugged Scottish tones, but 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!

day 6 on the slope-the pinnacle
02/03/06
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 intact.

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 whiteout 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 from 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 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).

final day
03/03/06
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,
from McNab Chalet for providing my accommodation, and snowboarding instruction from 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.