Snowgo

Andorra weekends

Easyjet are now flying between Gatwick and Toulouse with a schedule that would make a weekend trip to the Pyrenees viable. One could leave Gatwick at 18:20 on Friday and return from Toulouse at 21:40 on Sunday. This is much better than Ryanair's daily middle of the day flight to Carcasonne.

Everest attempt

So, Stephen Koch and Jimmy Chin did not make it to the top but at least they did ride Everest.

For the descent I took advantage of the deep powder conditions and enjoyed some great turns on my snowboard down the north face.

Nokia Game 2003

Nokia Game 2003 registration opened yesterday. This year's game has a strong snowboarding theme and there is a PC demo boardercross game to download as well as a multiplayer online (via GPRS) version for the Nokia N-Gage and 3650. Neat.

About this site

This site is a weblog, or blog, dedicated to chronicling my thoughts, ideas and experience as they relate to snowboarding (some of it may also be of interest to skiers).

Unfortunately, for a snowboarder, I live miles from the mountains in London, so a lot of my posts will focus on getting to the snow (hence "Snowgo"). I hope to share some of the neat travel tricks I have picked up over the years to help other unfortunates make the most of any opportunity to spend time in the mountains. I will also be gloating with reports and photos whenever I get back from a trip.

Additionally, you will find the odd kit review and pointers to sites that may be of interest to snowboarders for whatever reason.

Extreme carving

extremecarving.com has some new pictures up from last season. Its a very alternative style of riding and well worth a look. The site also puts forward the manifesto and philosophy of extreme carving in rather charming franglais.

More on McNab

I just rediscovered this old Guardian article. It was published a few weeks before I went on a similar McNab camp last year and re-reading it now it sounds very familiar.

There are some good riding tips and, of course, Neil's pet theory which I find very encouraging:

"Snowboarding's dead easy," Neil says, "but 95% of snowboarders don't know how to do it properly. The other 5% are all sponsored pro riders."

Although I am not actively seeking sponsorship, I am still working on what I learned and aiming for that top 5%!

Budget airline price comparisons

openjet.com provides a price comparison service for low cost operators including Ryanair and Easyjet. You specify an itinerary and the site shows what is available from the various carriers. Currently they have some usability issues which they tell me they are working on but it could be a useful resource, especially for getting alternative routings on multi-sector trips from regional (UK and Ireland) airports.

Stance angles

For years I fiddled around with stance angles trying to get comfy, trying not to get toe drag and never really succeeding on either count. Then I went on a Neil McNab Kommunity camp in Chamonix and was enlightened.

Correcting my stance has yielded the biggest single improvement in my riding since I started and it was easy!