KAOS relocation - the gang come together

Today’s been the first full one spent on the hill for Zinnia, James, Kris and myself. Harry joined us late morning and of course Paul, Jillian, Griffin and Luella have been living it up since Saturday.

For Kris and myself it was a pretty easy start, the blackberry has its merits, so we left Zinnia and James dutifully going through their mails in the Taverne first thing. Kris’ mood was transformed from yesterday thanks to a waxed snowboard – a happy suit.

Paul, Jillian, Kris and I spent the morning getting some mileage in. The link to Val Thorens and Mont Velais are both shut but the upside of it being so early in the season is there are barely any others competing for piste or patches of fresh (yeah there still is plenty to play with) wherever we head. Kris has decided he’s on follow cam duty so he’s been keeping hot on our heels but seems to spend more time filming himself riding. I gave it a go but retired pretty much instantly after some less than favorable reviews from the gang. I’ll keep to stills later in the week…

Knipey’s turned into even more of a powder hunting machine since I last rode with him – he’s after every bit of pow he can track down. There are more than enough rocks once you venture further afield but it keeps it interesting. Kris did a good job of spotting a line for us earlier so I owe him one now…

We linked up with Zinnia, James and Harry for lunch on the fly – Harry’s been with On The Piste helping run the University groups they had in Val T last week… and it shows. The poor guy looked a shadow of his former self when we caught up with him, sporting face paint and a haunted stare that said much about the antics he’d seen (and probably participated in) over the last week or so. All healthy stuff, I’m sure.

So, with the full complement of the senior party complete we chowed down on door-stop wedges of bread complete with ‘steak’ (forgive the editor’s cynicism but we are in France and monsiour le cow can ‘oft be found with a mane and a bigger nose over here) and enough cheese for a raclette. Fires duely stoked we set off again minus the suit who spent the better part of the afternoon wheeling and dealing on behalf of his clients – what a pro, always on call.

We hit a few of the same runs as this morning but the novelty of being able to play on our own terms, without a comp to get to or a film to shoot is yet to wear off: we’re cruising on our own schedule and it rocks. Kris and James are definitely the most tech freestylers/jibbers, although Kris comes up with stories of floated 3s continually that we’re yet to see. Funny that they’re normally told with a snowy hat perched precariously on his head – concussion can do the funniest things.

In all seriousness though, this is our chance to improve our freestyle safe from the stares of pros so we’re all getting involved without fear of ridicule beyond the wider group. Zinnia’s learned some flat land tricks and had a coaching session on how to pop from James this morning. She’s also taking on the universally labelled ‘punter kickers’ switch before stomping her 180s – next stop the TTR me thinks. James is showing off his butter skills and has been nose and trail pressing ‘til his heart’s content; he’s also been the most adventurous in picking a line through the off-piste. Harry’s been going at mach-3 all day and put us all to shame in putting in the styliest ally-oops in a naturally shaped pipe we found late afternoon. Jillian’s efforts in said pipe were hampered by her attempted front-flip stalling mid-way in the proceeding off-piste: the superman flip may need a bit more work but I dare say none of us here are qualified to give her the tuition she needs. Jillian will just have to stick to the 540 mutes until she’s found the right take-off I guess.

They’ve started shaping their park here much to our collective joy and so there will be more visits there this week, but we managed to play on the small kickers (if you can even call them that) and there was the odd boardslide on a box or two. However, the coolest feature we’ve found is a quarter-pipe with a curved box sitting on the top. The run in is super steep but the coping’s probably 12ft up so it’s more than enough to keep us entertained. First in (what a champ, we didn’t even have to ask) was James who over-cooked it and a few moments later was seen digging himself out of the powder behind the box. 10 out of 10 for commitment Bobby. Harry was next up: shortening his run-in by approximately 2 metres his eyes must have been as wide as saucers as he was spat out of the QP at a jaunty angle and fortunate that he went just wide of the box. I totally ruined my effort by claiming it at the end, but having never been able to put anything of worth down in the park I was happy just to rotate 180 and stall on the coping. I think the acrobatics of James and Harry tempered the other’s need for speed but there were some sweet air to fakies on display.

The suit joined us late in the day. He’d been riding by himself for an hour or so and had endured a close encounter with a skier that ended up pretty unpleasant for all concerned. Kris was well and truly had by some Frenchie who fortunately ended up worse off. Kris is sporting a cut lip but the guy who collected him apparently covered the front of his jacket in claret and properly opened up his nose. He (monsieur bansai) also has to endure an angry mob who were none to pleased with what they had seen – the less fun side of being on the hill.

Anyways, we’re all back in the chalet enjoying some sofa time and sampling Knipey’s playlist. There’s a rumour of profiteroles for pudding tonight, sweet. Here’s to more great days on the hill.