In the past, I have spent my February Ski Breaks inactive in Paris. This year, I travelled to Chamonix Mont-Blanc in the Alps to learn how to snowboard! I have never snowboarded (or skiied!) before so this 'winter sport' is one that is really new to me. With the help of a friend, he taught me how to snowboard during the week we spent there. I decided to count this aquiring a new skill as part of my CAS programme, under Action.
On the first day, we spent the afternoon on very small slopes so that I could understand how to maneouvre and steer the snowboard where I wanted to go, as well as break! - which of course was beneficial to me. After falling a few hundred times that day, I was able to finally do it on my own, slowly.
The next day, again in the afternoon, we returned to the same area but pursued the larger (real!) slopes and pistes. We descended very slowly, with my friend holding my hand as I was terrified that I would go too fast! This was good because I could see how others were doing it and try to reenact what they were doing. We tried several times until I was able to do a large portion of the piste by myself. I was then used to the steepness of the pistes.
The following day, we were able to meet with a few more friends who were in the same area, and we all agreed to go to Les Grands Montets, which was one of the largest skiing areas in the vicinity. We descended many slopes, stopping at intervals for a rest. We went down a couple of 'red' pistes (which are one of the hardest ones) which was a real challenge because they were very long with many curves and drops. I was managing very well, in my opinion, for keeping up with my friends who had done it for several weeks already until I had a pretty bad fall. While descending a slope which was practically vertical, I had gained too much speed, snow had collected on my board and I toppled over, hurting both my back and head. Before calling it a day because I was in so much pain, my friend and I snowboarded down a few easier slopes at a manageable pace (i.e. not very fast!) and then we rested the next day.
Before leaving, I returned to the large slopes (the same as I had snowboarded down on the second day!) for a few final runs.
Although I was not able to snowboard as much as I had wanted, I'm really proud of what I have achieved because I was able to learn how to snowboard fairly well in a matter of days. It was a really great, fun, new and painful learning experience but it was well-worth the trip and I would love to do it again in the future. Below are a few photos, in order of progress. :)
Total no. of hours completed for this activity? 10 hours. (Action)
