Castleford

As I mentioned Jamie and I went to Castleford on Friday afternoon to sample some real snow before Morzine. Got there about 2pm and hoped to get on for 2 hours before they shut the slope down for maintenance for an hour.

The place was choc-a-bloc, in fact when we got to the front of the queue we were told that the earlist we could get on was 5pm because it was fully booked! Jamie used some of his charm and we managed to get on but only for an hour from 3pm until 4pm and spent most of the time queuing for the lifts.

I think we managed to get about 6 or 7 runs in, which is a bit expensive bearing in mind it was £21 to get in, plus the petrol to get there.

I did managed to get my linked turns sorted and was very happy with the new board and bindings and even managed to get on the rail for my last run but took a tumble off the end, Jamie was having lift problems until he realised that he should have been using the right hand side lift. All in all I think it was a good crack and might try and get down again when it's not so busy.

Castleford?

Looking to get to Castleford next Friday with Jamie. Real snow, bring it on!

The Big Man is in

Bigmanoutashape (aka Jamie) has confirmed he's going and has got the nod from his missus but only until Monday, which is better than nowt. Just Geordie Git to confirm and that's everyone.

All set

Paid the money to Purple Goat so we're all set. Manage to get my insurance sorted for about £18, not sure if that's good but it's the best I could find.

Whickham Thorns

2nd lesson done last night and finally managed to get the toe edge turns going although still having a slight problem linking toe and heal turns. The guy says it's because I'm twisting my body and not flexing my knees enough. I'll remember that point.

No kids there last night to heckle me, which was good so I quite enjoyed it. Ricky (the instructor) said that I should go along to the snowboard club, which is on a Thursday but I'm not sure if I want to do that; a) I'm most likely going to show my self up and b) I'm not really that sociable to be honest. Anyway, I might try and rope Jamie into going before Christmas just to see what the crack is.

New board

Decided to treat myself for Christmas and get a new board and bindings. Because I've got big feet I went for a wide board, the Burton Baron and a set of Ride SPi bindings.

I'm using my old board for the lessons but will have to get on the dry slope before I go to Morzine in January.

Lessons Learnt

Way back in 2004 I had 2 snowboarding lessons, which taught me the basics. Had a gap of about 9 months then went to Morzine. The problem I had was that I was fine turning on my heal edge but couldn't get the toe edge turns right, so this time I decided to book a couple of one to one lessons to sort it out. My first one was last night, second one tonight.

I managed to get the turns in but still not really confident on the toe each. The instructor recons that I'm twisting my body in the direction of travel too much and not putting enough bend in the knees. Hopefully I will get it sorted, practice makes perfect.

It also didn't help that I was being heckled by a bunch of 9 year old's, I just can perform in front of a crowd.

Date set

Everyone has confirmed, expect Jamie coz his wife has just had a baby. We fly on 25th Jan from Newcastle and return on 31st Jan. Staying a bit longer than last year this time.

We're booked into a Chalet in Morzine run by Purple Goat, looks okay. They run to chalets and looks like we've got the older of the 2. There right in the middle of the town which is good and saves us having to worry about taxi's back (I think there is only 1 taxi in the whole of Morzine).

Next step is to collect all the monies and pay Purple Goat.

Getting numbers

In February this year 6 of us went on a long weekend to Morzine, 3 snowboarders and 3 skiers. Had a great time and said we would do the same thing the next year.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked what we where we were going snowboarding/skiing so I thought I'd start to organise something. Morzine was good and the flight to Geneva are cheap from Newcastle.

Here are some photo's from the last trip.

This time there's 8 of us going. Should be fun!