Epic Up-date Part 1: The dump.....continued!

I don't really have that much more to add to the dump section of the epic-update....just a few more funny photos. So, where was I? Oh yeah, so there was about a metre and a bit of fresh pow, and we were ripping it around for a few days....there weren't really any pistes per se, just bits you should ski, and bits your teachers advised you not to ski. Herein lies the problem you can see below - Tety, my rather attractive (though unfortunately married to a rather butch mountain rescue dude with one kid) teacher for a couple of weeks, let us loose down a wicked valley full of fresh deep stuff, with the rather sound advice that you should stay to the far right, in the trees. And that if you go out of the trees, into the bamboo stuff, you might have problems geting back onto the piste. Did I listen.....ummmm, no:



So, I got a little stuck, but wasn't phased, since the worst that could really happen in that kind of snow was that I'd fall on my head, loose both my skis rather dramatically, and look like a bit of a willy. As it happens (and even though you can't see it in the action shot, I can asure you it is true), I landed it like the god I am!!!



Well, I could go on like this for ages, but there are too many photos to put up, and it takes FOR EVER to upload them from here. But here is another nice shot of Benji and Tety (after they sent me down to take pictures, the bastards) coming out of the trees on Secondo Lomo (Emma, you should remember that)......and the shot below that portrays Benji, hidden by the snow explosion, stacking it about 3/4 of the way down. Love it.





Ok.....so I've got to go to a meeting now to go over snow-plough and other such activities - but I'll be putting up loads more photos and stories very soon. Still to come.....loads of sick park piccies, night skiing, and our trip to Esquel x x x

Epic Up-date Part 1: The dump.....of snow, not the other stuff

So, three weeks.....you've heard nothing.....you're probably pissed off by now that I haven't posted any photographs, or written of any amazing adventures [nodding all-round]. I thought so. Well, I've got a couple of days off for reasons I shant reveal for fear that my mother will freak out and try to fly all the way to Bariloche just to give me a hug and say everything will be alright (I love you mom!). I'm going to try to catch up on as much of the past three weeks as possible.....and I'm going to split this massive bit of info up into different parts, just in case the internet crashes (which it does frequently, usually when a local duck sneezes 300 meters out on the lake) mid-writting.

Well, this one time, in Bariloche, they had a meter and half of snow fall in three days....in fact, it was the largest dump of snow that had fallen on record since 1986. This happened three weeks ago.....and I skied every single day of it, hahahahahahah.

This is what it looked like the day after the evening it started snowing (see below, fig. 3a)......we were allowed up the mountain, but only the mini-gondola was open.....all the other lifts we were snowed in, and would remain so for the next three days.



This is the same day.....a couple of groups met up and ripped it around the lower half of the mountain.....we were tree-skiing the majority of the day, but amazingly this is actually one of the main piste areas, rather than off-piste which it more or less resembles:



This is the same "piste" but a bit further down...a group of us try to do some skiing in unison, but clearly no-one could keep up with the legend that is me!! The group is as follows (from left to right): Stuwie, with Phil just behind, then me at the front (naturally), Max, Chris, and then Joe on the far right.....



As soon as it actually stopped shitting it down with the good stuff, we were able to safely ski the trees that litter the lower half of the resort....there are some areas were they are perfectly spaced - not so tight that you slam into them or get stuck if you're a bit of a fatty, but spaced nicely so that loads of snow gets in while still feeling like you are skiing in an enclosed forest!! Anyway, here's a selection of picies from that day, with a few modeling shots thrown in for the ladies!!

This first one is a view through the beautiful trees, with the snow pre-shreddage......you can't really tell, but there's about a meter of the fluffy stuff just waiting to be massacred, or carressed depending on your attitude to skiing powder!!





Yep, I know what you're thinking......hot! And you're not wrong



TITLE: Boys in 'da Wood (From Left: Flange, Stewart the Great, King Louis)

This is another photo of my good pal Benji.....he was the dude trecking up to the top of the mountain (with the pretty blue sky background) in the photos from the Avalanche rescue trip



Right......got to go to bed now, but will pick up where I left off tomorrow x x

Happy days.....

So, it's been two weeks since I last put anything up......I know, I'm lame and pathetic and lazy.......and skiing everyday, and having way to much fun in the evenings to write anything hahahahahahahhhahaha!!! Hope I didn't make you jealous. Well, I've decided to make an attempt to catch up on the last two weeks. I don't know how far I'm going to get now, since we're all leaving in about two hours to go to another ski resort for one week for our freestyle/slopestyle and race clinics. I'm going to go out for a cigarette now, but in the time that I'm gone, I hope that these two wicked photos I took will have uploaded!!

Ok, so they're done!!

The first one is a dual effort by me (the photo is taken of the reflection in my goggles and "directed" by me!), and Benji, my room-mate, who actually took the photo. Anyway, in the background is the rest of the group chilling while we stopped for lunch at the top of Laguna (or something that sounds like that) during our avalanche safety training day.





This is a photo of Benji himself, in the middle of hiking up to the top of Laguna after the training finished, and just before we were allowed to rip it back down to the bottom.

Oh, and the trip is now up to three casualities, in order of occurance: Ryan - cracked heel-bone on day three (!) resulting in surgery and a flight home two days ago....Ally - broken fibia, hard cast, no surgery, still here, and will be swimming soon.....and most recently, Jo - broke two small bones in the top of her hand yesterday when hitting a tree, returned with cast yesterday evening, and still really pissed off (understandably so)....but should be skiing soon.....apparently. I'm am only reporting all of these injuries because they haven't happened to me, and I wish there to be a record that this kind of stuff does happen to other people.....I feel really sorry for them though :-(


In the words of Chris Geddes, 'Peace Out'......I'll put more stuff up soon.....still to come - the story of the meter and a half of snow that fell in 3 days, night skiing, on becoming a park monkey, midnight swimming in 2 degree water, and many more crazy adventures!!

Emma - this last photo is for you, I though you might appreciate the mountain, silhouette, mist, water style you love so much x x x x x

I'm back...

Right, sorry about ending so abrubtly last time....as I said, a few of us were going into town to check out some local shops, etc. We managed to grab a hangover-recovery pizza and then, unfortunately for the other guys, I found the local guitar shop!! Eventually I was dragged kicking and screaming from the store, and we spent the entire afternoon in a seriously cheap and amazing pool hall.

Anyway, back to the whole skiing thing. We arrived in the evening on Sunday, before skiing on the monday morning, so had very little idea of what our surroundings were like. We all got a massive shock when we arose to one of the most incredible views I've ever stood in front of (I hope you like the arty shot with the geese taking off!). The resort is not really walking distance, we get a mini-bus from the hostel El Returno at 8.15 every morning (after getting up at 7.00 and going for a run and a stretch followed by a massive breaky - I know, it's worse than university!), and jump on the first lift from the lift base, which is about a 15 minute death-defying drive away.



We've had mixed weather so far, mostly cloudy, except for the first day (please see amazing mountains above cloud-line photo), and saturday afternoon, when we did our avalanche training - I never realised probing was so much fun - with some stupidly hard-core mountain-guide dudes. Pictured here is Niko, probe in hand....apparently he is a bit of a Bariloche legend, and once spent a whole week living in the mountains living off nothing but snow and his own urine....apparently.





So, up until now we've been finding our feet, and learning our way around the mountain. All the skiers have been split up into four groups...luckily I've been put into the top one (no surprises there then), and our teacher is an ex-olympic downhill skier, and even more of a legen than the yellow-snow-cone-eating-mountian-dude I mentioned earlier. His name is Ivan, he skies with his boots undone most of the time, never wears goggles, regardless of how hard it is snowing, and has a massive squint.....which is a little off-putting to say the least.

Weeeell, I'm getting kind of sleepy now - very long days don't you know - but I'll leave you all (especially Miss Boon) with the knowledge that it's now been dumping solidly for two days and two nights now, and I had the best day of skiing ever today.....tree skiing and even piste skiing in three and a half foot of powder - that's waist deep kiddies.....you know, the kind of snow that hits you in the face on every turn. Apparently we've been very lucky with the snow!!

I've also been getting back into some photography, and I'm going to wack up another post straight after this one with a couple of my favourites.

Goodbye for now, beunos noches - L x x x



p.s. I promise to a) put up some more skiing photos (especially from our mega-pow day today.....and b) start writing on a regular basis about stuff as it happens - there's only so long I can keep up this "I'm too busy settling in" bullshit!!

Hello from Argentina!!

Basically I've now been in Argentina for a week, but I've been so busy getting started over here, and travelling around, that I haven't had a chance to post anything. Soooo, I'm going to do a kind of back-dated diary of events from the last few days. We flew into BA on a friday morning after leaving Gatwick the afternoon before. Unfortunately our flight from London was delayed so that when we arrived in Madrid for our change-over, we had to run to catch the plane. Sadly, our luggage didn't make it. So, on arriving in BA, we left the airport armed only with our hand luggage, and no spare change of clothes. Luckily this wasn't a problem for me, and even when our bags did turn up, I continued to wear the same trousers and t-shirt for the next three days.

Anyway, we did a bit of sight seeing in the old port of BA, known as La Boca......there was quite an interesting moment when I was chased around the streets by a scary transvestite. Even though he wasn't in drag at the time, he had some very fetching painted on eyebrows - and he kept insisting that I come to a private viewing of a rehearsal for his "show".

We had a few huge nights out when we were in BA - luckily for us the exchange rate is such that we are all basically minted....last saturday I drank champagne the entire night and barely spent £30 the entire night. It's easy being pimp here.....even for someone like me!! We also went out to some traditonal flamenco restaurant, and had the challenge of eating huge amounts of tapas while drooling over the dancers.

Ummm, even though I said I would fill you in on everything up to this moment in time, I can't finish writing it at present, as we're all about to go into Bariloche to look at some shops and get some lunch, but I'll finish the rest off this evening.

Beunos dias - L x

Just a quick hello....I've set up this blog in a vain attempt to record my trip to Argentina this summer. I've tried to keep diaries before, and, well, they've only ever lasted a couple of days. So, by doing this, I hope to force myself to keep a diary of events not just for myself, but for you - for, as those of you who already know me might be aware of, weird and stupid things have a tendency to 'happen' to me fairly often, I'm sure you will all just love reading about my everyday experiences. Yes, I know, you are all very luck people. Anyway, I'm not actually leaving until the end of July, so unless I get really bored, this will be the first and only installment until that time.

Crap...I forgot to mention what I'm actually doing. Basically I'm going skiing in Argentina for two months with a group called Peak Leaders, who mainly do outrageous and silly stuff involving snow and jumping off of mountains, but they also help people get very respectable teaching qualifications. Anyway, more of that to come...for now, just enjoy the season commonly referred to as summer.

L