See You On the Flipside

Another year down. 2011, challenging and ultimatly rewarding, and stoaked to be seeing in the new year in Verbier!

Back yesterday from 10 day galivanting around England, Scotland and elsewhere in Switzerland, catching up with good mates, celebrating christmas with fam, and drinking bucket-loads of good wine, beer and Scotch Whiskey.

Heres some snaps...

Braveheart (me) - Edinburgh

Dog eats Mole - takes massive poo

Used to live here back in the day... more or less.

Chez les bond's. Jenkinson Place, The lake district northern England. White Christmas.

Million dollar View from Chez les Bond's. Loweswater, cockermouth, Cumbria, England.

Loweswater. Cold.

Almost as old as me. Dissappered all too quickly.

Marty, Me, and Paola. Keep your tounge in your mouth Paooola - Eddy, Scotland.

Spengler Cup, Davos vs Team Canada. Davos, Switzerland. Drank beers and couldn't see the puck. Tickets costed 200CHF, butt me and matt got pissed in the beer tent then snaked some freebies for the second half. happy.

Back in the Game! Ian and me. Mt Gélé again. Nice photo Vinny.

Yeeeeeah Ian.

Yeeeeeeeah ME! look a bit spaz.

Happy New Year! Bonne Année!

May the powder gods bless 2011.

Verbier - A drinkers resort with a ski problem

...and a mecca for snowboarding!

Verbier 50 Chamonix 40. Verbier wins?

Splash!

Despite the variable freeriding conditions over the last week with super low there temps has meant  there has always been stashes of pow to be found around town. However somedays we have had to pay for it with burning legs and exploding lungs after long traverses and a few hikes. In the last couple of days we have had a bit of new snow to play with, but being slightly wind affected and only having had windows of good light, we haven't had many opportunities to really open up. Still it has been loads of fun and I couldn't of asked for a better start to the season having already more or less payed off the price of my season pass with the number of days I have been up riding after the first 3 weeks.

Same same but different

Now it's off-skis to the UK for a week or so to catch up with some mates from NZ and spend Christmas with family. Obviously gutted to miss out on snowboarding for 10 days but on the flipside I will miss the Christmas rush of long lift queues and crowds of lethal punters on the hill. I'm obviously hoping the whole time I'm away it snows so there's a nice full snowpack ready to ride in the new year.

SBB CFF FFS - à l'heure.

Dan and Ian conquer Mt Gélé

Down but not out...

Bout to Drop in on a Skate Banana.

Today is offically the my first downday that I have had in Verbier this season. Finally after another week of mayhem, ie. some sweeeet days up the hill with the boys (and girls) generally followed by some crazy nights in town, including one particularly impresive apres ski perfomance. A much needed rest up, and also as it is -11 in town today its too cold for snowboarding anyway. Instead, today I have got a few things done like help out one of the boys im staying with, Ian sort out some winter tyres for his car and equally importantly, try and work out a bit of a comptition scheldule for Jan/Feb. All going well, I will be registered for some FWQ comps in France, Austria, Switzerland and mabey even get out to Jasna in Slovakia before heading back to NZ in mid feb. Looking foward to the roadtrips, goodtimes, new mountains and catching up with some of the competition crowd. Can't wait!

Sending it. Yeeooow...!

When I first got back from France last week I was delighted to find that all the rain we had been having as I left, had provided a nicely topped up layer of snow up the hill above about 2000m. As we are still waiting for the full lift system to open up, Ian, Vinny, myself and a bunch of the local boys spent a couple of days sessioning a few of the cliffs that are close by to verbier and ended up with one or two sweet early season snaps. In last few days, since the snow is getting a bit tracked out and stale, we have started to hike out a bit further a field to find some powder.

Steep and deep!

Theres a bit more snow on the way, so hoping to catch some more freshies, and mabey take some more photos before christmas week when I'm off to the UK. The immediate plan however is to enjoy the best of verbiers early season nightlife tonight (its awsome!), then drag myself out of bed in the morning and go riding again.

Boom.

Yeaaah Vinny... flex

Sweet line except for the shark I found that chomped my brand new board.

Hiking to score the score the first lines of the season down Mont Gélé with Martin and Matt Buddy.

So far this morning:

Christchurch - Geneva with all I need for 11 weeks in Winter wonderland!

0700: Breakfast (Tarte au pomme)
0805: Flight (Not so Easyjet: Nice - Geneva)
0912: Chill in Geneva airport (15mins: Coffee, baguette, chat with plug on skype)
0927: Train (Geneva - Verbier)

Somedays life sucks, not today. Writing from the train along lake geneva, heading back up the to the hills after two days chillaxing down in the south of France catching up with a good mate. Two days of remembering french, eating cheese, chocolate, hiking, sleeping, pizza, tartiflette, jacuzzi and great hospitality means I'm more than recovered from last weeks excitement and still amped from my first week back up in Verbier. Despite wearing the daily hangover, my first 8 days back were by far the best 8 days snowboardig I have had this early in a season. There's not many better feelings in the world than being back riding a fresh pocket of champagne pow, then looking back and seeing your boys shredding it behind you. Should be back in Verbier now for the next couple weeks with snow on the brain. A few too many après ski pints and late nights are sure to follow some great days freeriding. Thanks to the boys at the Dragons Den for putting up with me/putting me up for the time being. Can't wait to drag your hungover asses out of bed to go ride some more pow. So far we have been blessed with some great early season snow, and praying that it doesn't stop. Got bits and pieces coming up in the way of work, which this early in the season is good, but I hope for more to come when things pick up.

Plan for this afternoon:

1200: Go snowboarding (yeeeeeeeow new snowboard! finally snapped the old dog)
1530: Beer in the pub mont fort
1600: Another beer in the pub mont-fort (happy-hour!)
1800: Eat, shower
2000: Mabey another beer (don't normally plan this far ahead)
2030: Probably another beer, and mabey a shot of mintu (an educated guess...)
...

Tomorrow: Go snowboarding again in some shape or form.

Loving it.

Verbier pub run

St Jennet - South of France

Dan and Olivia - South of France

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