I arose early to check on the snow condition, I immediately discerned that it was white and falling from the sky and also lying on the floor. A glance over to the Telegraphique De Nyon confirmed that the cable car was operational and moving up and down the mountain and the little black stick men moving down the slope indicated that fellow skiers and boarders were already hitting the piste.
My board was waxed and waiting downstairs in the equipment room. I donned my boarding apparel; warm thermal breathable micropore underwear, breathable waterproof salopettes complete with natty braces, breathable fleece secondary layer and tertiary fleecy bodywarmer. The only fly in the ointment was the disappearance of my specialist over-the-glasses orange ski goggles which I assumed I must have left in some bar or other during the previous couple of days. This was not a major problem since as soon as I put the mask on my glasses would generally instantly steam up followed thirty seconds later by the non-fog lens of the goggles themselves.
Finally I pulled on my boarding boots and donned my ski jacket and we leapt in the car and drove once more down to the Telegraphique De Nyon for round two with the slopes of the Point De Nyon.
This time the cable car was empty of screaming 5 year olds and I was studying the map with interest looking for nice blue runs which would preferably end somewhere near the proper cable car should a similar situation as developed last time decide to develop again.
I strode off the cable car in the powdery white snow of the piste. The weather conditions were if anything slightly worse than my previous visit with a fairly strong wind and reasonably heavy snow but the snow, being powdery, was, in parts, a lot softer and more conducive to boarding than it had been. Confidently I reached down and strapped the board to my feet.
"Right, let's get this show on the road. Which run do y'all think you'll be doing ?"
"We were going to do some nice easy blue ones so you can come with us if you like" they replied.
"OK, lead on my snow loving brethren" I boomed.
The first run was the same run I had done first last time with them, it was the rather narrow run down the road between the trees and the big drop. Towards the end of the run it widens out and go downs a fairly steep slope where there is a junction between it and a red run cutting across it at right angles.
"Here I go !" I cried, stood confidently on the board and bounced myself onto the piste proper. The board began to pick up speed and I steered it towards the centre of the road. A simple toe side turn to negotiate the corner and I'd be into the main slope. I landed on my arms avoiding doing any damage to my head at all and tried to work out what had gone wrong. I couldn't decide but assumed it had something to do with the complex profile of the slope and, to probably a far lesser degree, me missing out some crucial element of the turning process.
I bounced immediately back to my feet and paused to let a few skiers whizz past me before positioning myself for a heel side turn at the the first bend 20 or so metres in front of me. Once again the board began to pick up speed and I was able to keep it on it's edge and steer a reasonably straight course into the bend, putting my weight onto the front foot and
leaned forward to raise my heels slightly. Something went wrong and the board actually turned the corner successfully, this couldn't last I thought I'm going to fall off when I try to straighten up for sure. I straightened up and the board continued it's smooth glide through the bend and into the straight. I remained standing and looked around me, slightly amazed.
Behind me I heard a crash as Paul ran off the side of the bend into the trees.
"I always fall off when I'm going slowly" he said. Slowly ? this seemed pretty quick to me and it was getting quicker as I set myself up for another heel side turn around the next, slightly shallower bend.
I was going a little too fast for comfort now so I decided I need to bring the board into something more like a side slip and which should slow me down sufficiently to slip through the corner and straighten out and gain speed for the junction and steeper slope beyond.
No sooner had I decided on my plan of action but my legs and feet moved into action gently changing the angle of the board to knock off some speed and then slipping smoothly to the right across the apex of the bend before once again shifting the weight to my front foot and raising my heels to straighten out the board and bring it down on the correct path to take the right piste over the steep section.
I overshot my mark slightly and ended up on the wrong side of the steep section but I avoided sliding on and over the slope to head down the red run away from our intended destination.
The others were waiting at the top of the slope and they all commented how much improved, good and controlled I had looked coming towards them which I was modestly pleased to accept and to some extent agree with.
The steep slope still looked a little steep to head straight down so I side slipped down it and then cruised down to where the others had relocated themselves to near one of the lifts. I unclipped my back foot and said
"Wow, I enjoyed that it was great much better than last time I think I could really get to like this it's wonderful I only fell over once but then I got straight back up again and it all just seemed to work and it's almost like I know what I'm doing and wow that was great I enjoyed it I could do that for most of the day did you see that I had to side slip down the last bit but then I didn't fall over and came straight over to you I enjoyed that it was great much better than last time wow brilliant I really enjoyed it. Er, are we standing here waiting for this lift ?"
It turned out they were, I wasn't sure but this looked very similar to the lift which had thrown me over the fence previously. I nervously made my way to the gate making sure to stay in line with Matt & Paul on either side. I was a bit behind them going down the slipway but I managed to anticipate the lift coming up behind me and landed fairly inelegantly but safely in the seat.
During the journey the snow began to assume the proportions of a blizzard and the chair stopped for some inexplicable reason for a good couple of minutes at some point in the middle of the ride. I began to wonder why it might be stopped but had to stop this train of thought as I pictured the lift attendant wiping the chair clean of matted hair and blood and ambulance man shaking their heads, tutting and saying there was nothing they could do here but maybe they could stay and pick up some of the pieces. Instead I contemplated the level of injury you might sustain if you were to jump or fall from the lift. I determined that if the snow was a deep as it looked you'd still probably injur yourself pretty badly.
We lifted the barrier and readied ourselves for the exit from the lift, my board swished gently across the snow, I stood up and began to gently glide down the slipway to the exit. I think I felt a slight bump on my back and began to wobble and shortly fell over off the side of the slipway. I saw Matt bursting through the centre having smashed Dom ( who now lay opposite me on the other side of Matt ) out of his way and possibly having contributed to my own tumble. At least I could claim this fall may not have been entirely down to my own incompetance.
The next slope was brilliant, it was pretty long and there were some steep bits coupled with some long more gradual slopes on straights and around corners. I think at one stage I managed to stay on the board for over 4 minutes without falling off anywhere.
There was just one problem. I was now managing a better than 50% success ratio at heel side turns but every time I attempted a toe side turn I would without fail end up landing head first on my head which really hurt quite a lot. This happened a few times on this run and since I was going a bit faster than I had been now it seemed to hurt exponentially more.
At the bottom of this slope after a particulary painful fall on my head we arrived at a trio of lifts and some cafes, bars and restaurants. Apart from Paul ( who was kindly hanging around for company ) the others had beaten me down by some time and gone off on another run so I decided to have a break, have a coffee and wait for them to get back for a little lunch.
The wind was really ripping it up now but all the restaurants, bars and cafes and were packed to the rafters so I had a coffee, a mars bar and a cigarette huddled outside in the most sheltered corner of the building I could find. By and by the others turned up and had some drinks and food.
During the afternoon we did some more runs all of which I managed to get down in a reasonable style, and more importantly enjoyably, but the knocks to the head were building up and had given me a low level permanent ringing in my ears and a headache so I left the others halfway down the Point De Nyon and headed back to the chalet.
It was quite a tiring walk up the hill to the chalet and by the time I got back I was utterly exhausted, I had to sit outside for 10mins having a smoke before I got up the energy to put my board away and take my boots up. After a quick shower some of the others turned up and I think I spent the rest of the day chilling out. I was feeling quite pleased with myself for first of all actually improving, secondly for enjoying the boarding and thirdly for remembering to quit whilst I was ahead and leave myself wanting more.
Once we'd all showered and rested we hired a taxi to take us into town for a meal, we had a bit of trouble finding anywhere with space for the 9 of us but persistance paid off and eventually we found a restaurant with a pretty comprehensive looking menu and enough room to accomodate us. The food was quite nice and I discovered most of Matts friends had been under the impression that Rob & I were some kind of brothers, an impression which both myself and Rob were keen to deny.
After the meal we hit the bar and amused ourselves laughing at the assorted muppetry on the dance floor and Paul decided to give some impromptu snowboarding lessons to whoever was listening.
At some point the girls decided they'd had enough drinking and said they wanted to go home, Paul also was mentioning he wanted to get an early night and as soon as he'd downed his pint of lager and cognac chaser they left to find the taxi home.
The rest of us stayed for a few more beers until the bar shut around 2:30 and then wandered out into the main square to look for taxis. The snow had turned to torrential rain and there wasn't a taxi to be seen so we decided to walk back to the chalet. I quite enjoyed the walk even though it was virtually all uphill and took us around an hour. The road we walked up had pretty much turned into river and by the time we arrived back at the chalet we were all very wet and cold.
It turned out Paul & the girls had walked home too and Paul was still up in the lounge even though he didn't appear to be making much sense and was asking people to check out his amazing tea. We all had tea and Matt created a minor inferno in the log burner when we discovered a turbo charging air vent you could crank open. I think I went to bed around half four in the morning.
In the morning it was still raining torrentially and I was feeling a bit tired, Rob & Caroline had left for the slopes quite a bit before I woke up. I didn't much fancy boarding in the rain and as I was making my mind up whether or not to join the others Rob & Caroline came back and said it was awful up on the mountain and they had left as soon as they could. This convinced me to spend the rest of the day lounging around the chalet.
The next day it was time to leave, we all got up at 5AM ( I think I got to bed around 2AM the night before ) to find the previous days rain had turned back into very heavy snow. The car doors were totally frozen shut and it took 4 or 5 big kettles full of hot water to open the drivers side door and a lot longer to open the other doors and the boot. Whilst we were doing this the snow in my hair froze solid, it was very cold.
Luckily we had kept the snowchains on the car, the road was covered with a thick blanket of snow and we were out and about before the normally very efficient snow clearing tractors had got going properly. It was quite an exciting journey, the car did an almost 360 degree skid before Matt regained control of it at one point but as we got out of the Alps and lower down the snow tailed off a little and the conditions improved to be simply bad.
On the way back down the motorway we passed an accident which must only have happened 10 or 15 minutes previously and looked like it involved a car and a bus. The car was completely flattened, all you could make out was the shape of the boot because the rest of car was compressed into around 10inches of twisted metal and was scattered all over the road. I don't think anyone in the car could have possibly survived a crash like that. The wreckage stretched for at least 200M down the road and it looked like the car had originally been travelling on the opposite carriageway.
Due to the time it took to get down the mountain we almost missed the plane and would have certainly missed it if it hadn't been delayed. In the event we didn't so all was well.
Would I go snowboarding again ? Yes, I would but I am going to go to the snowdome for quite a lot more practice before next year !
