Snow boarding in Chamrousse

Took a pre-Christmas snowboarding trip with the Pompey crowd.

Chamrousse is a smallish resort, near Grenoble, and we had more or less exhausted all the runs by the end of the week. We were treated to an inversion for most of the week, with a blanket of low cloud kindly blocking out Grenoble, and snow peaks poking through all around.

Chewbacca Knight and Matt "man of decisive action" Jack both caught the plague. To avoid catching this rare and destructive virus there was only one true course of action. Namely, the consumption of many thousands of little green bottles of french lager. Pints (well, 500ml) were also imbibed in the local bar, K-dox, though at 6 euros a pop our pennies didn't go far. Happy hour at the pizza joint was a bit cheaper with vin chaud for a euro.

Back on the slopes, Alan "Panache" Knight was transforming his snow-plough into passable parallel turns and Ian figured out how to make a snowboard turn. Ian's boarding prowess was eclipsed by his bright orange fish themed balaclava. One lunchtime he told us about a brief conversation he had with a french skier.

"Your hat. It is a fish, yes?" said the frenchy.
"Yes," said Ian, and the skier skied off chuckling to himself.

On one occasion Garreth and myself took an off piste shortcut between two red runs. We followed some tracks, but it was misty and we could only see a few yards ahead. Following the tracks at a fair old pace, I looked down and realised that I had caught some big air and moments later landed in a big pile of powder. I looked back at a 2 metre high cliff. Gareth nonchalantly skied around.

Another highlight was taking a few jumps with Kev. One particular jump, immortalised on video, ended in a wipe-out face-plant for the kevster. Very funny on slow-mo.