I was hoping for some powder riding today – but it wasn’t quite there. There was a small amount of fresh, but the tracks from the day before were still all there. That said, we had some awesome runs…
We started the day heading up to Avoriaz and then down into Pre La Joux. Ciara and I took a good look around the base station and the valley, making notes for the wsg review.
We headed up one side of the valley, and as we rose higher on the chairlift we discovered some accessible off-piste, still fairly fresh. A small traverse and we were ready to drop in.
Yeah there were some tracks there, but it was deep, soft and steep, with a few trees to make things interesting. We took 3 laps of this area before lunch; some of the turns were golden. To top it off, it was clear skies all the way and the sun was out. Awesome.
The lap was split into two parts. The first section dropped back onto a run, and then from there, we dropped off the run, off-piste, down towards the lift. The bottom wasn’t as good as the top, but still worth shredding, with smooth turns and pockets of nice, deep snow.
We explored the area further after lunch, with one of the aims being to check out the happy park… We found that it was yet to be built, so after riding around for a while, we headed back to Avoriaz to check out the park there.
I thought the kickers looked quite whippy, although on reflection, they’re not that whippy. It wasn’t a good first session. My first hit, a bs 180, came up short, landing on the knuckle, crunching my ankle some, knee too, and bouncing down the landing. I followed that attempt up with much more speed, got the take off wrong and things went belly up, literally. More on that later.
Not a great ending to the day. I’d messed my goggles up nicely and my right leg was pretty tender. Still, the morning had been great, and I’m sure I can do something useful on those kickers…