Big Adventures, Little World

Our last day of snowboard school meant our last day of being up on the mountain by 10AM. That was a relief. Though Kate had decided to stay in bed after hurting herself the day before, so Elese and I made our way up the cable car to kick some ass on our last day. We had perfect conditions as well! The sun was shining, you could see for miles, the snow had fallen all night and there was powder everywhere. It was stunning and made for some of the most beautiful views for the whole week.

We headed straight to a blue run, but this time with a twist as we were making our way from Soldeu, across to El Tarter by board. It was a lot different run to the one we had done the last 2 days but had some stunning views and some great runs through it. The fresh powder made such a difference too giving you a lot more control over the board and making it so much easier to manoeuvre, and made it that much softer to fall on as well. The falling was definitely happening less and less though. For me, it was mainly when I built up too much speed or others got in my way that made me fall over, but the speed was also what kept me going some of the time as well.

The time between stoppages was getting longer and longer so we got great opportunity to just get out there and enjoy the snow. It was an amazing feeling with the wind blowing past you and the sun shining down, with some of the most beautiful views you’ll ever see all around. We arrived at El Tarter and then it was up the chair lift to one of the highest points of the whole mountain range. From there we could see the mountains of France one way and the mountains of the Spain the other. They were all snow capped mountains as well and it really was really was just stunning. No rest for the wicked though and off we went again, making our way back to Soldeu.

The view riding the chair lift up to one of the highest points of the mountain range

The next part of the run was great, and the fresh snow made it even better! There were some steeper parts of the mountain but now that we had the hang of it, it wasn’t too bad. I even managed to try a few little jumps, although they ended with me crashing. I was still falling down, but the falls were getting much less frequent which was a big bonus for me as my body probably couldn’t take a lot more. We made our through the run and eventually it joined back up to the run we had done the previous 2 days for the last kilometre or so. Back in familiar territory we tried a few more jumps and I even got some decent air, and promptly fell flat on my ass, which surprisingly didn’t hurt at all.

We made it to the bottom of the run much quicker than the last time, and covered much, much more ground as well. It was an amazing end to our lessons, and as we sat at the bottom of the mountain at the café, Sam gave us our Level I Snowboarding certificates for our graduation from Snowboard School. That was it for the day though as we were quite sore and just wanted to sit back and relax for a while before we went out for our free pizza and beer at Fat Albert’s that night. So off we went and made our way back to the apartment for some much deserved rest.