Summer in France

So....it's been a while since I've last written a blog post. Maybe i'll have to go and back date a few when I get the chance! Sshhh don't tell anyone :)

I'm in France for the summer. And I've been really lucky and have really landed on my feet here. I'm living with a french family, renting a spare room. And they are the nicest people, and the nicest family I've met. And i'm not just saying that in case they read it, as they are French :p

I live with the parents and the Grandad of the family as the kids have all moved out. Although they all come by and visit several times a week. And they are all about my age, slightly younger. I feel like i'm part of the family already...well it has actually been almost 2 months! Time flies. Oh, and they have a cat called Jolie, which is even  better!!

I've also got myself a job working in the cafe at a Wakeboard Cable, TNA (www.tna-arenthon.com) I work 6 days a week, but am usually done by 3 or 4 pm which means i have the whole afternoon/evening to ride!! It's great being able to ride everyday...obviously you can't physically ride EVERYday, but it's nice to have the oportunity. Usually after a couple of days of riding your body starts screaming NO, I'M TIRED, and you hav to have a rest. Wakeboarding definitely takes a much bigger toll on your body day to day than snowboarding. Or maybe i'm just not trying hard enough snowboarding :s

  

Anyway, ridings great. It's awesome to be able to do the two sports I love. And at the same time having a break from the other. You get the same buzz from wakeboarding as from snowboarding, but it's also a change of scenery and a bit different. I think it helps you push yourself in the two sports as it doesn't get boring. After a few months the seasons change and it's time to grab the other board!

I made a little edit last week of some riding. I actually filmed it all in one set! So it was all in about 15 minutes of riding...there was a big group of beginners on at the same time so I didn't want to fall off and queue, so just stayed on until I finally fell in! Those of you who ride cable will understand!

Voila, here is the link to the edit

 http://vimeo.com/100221620

Click HERE

I'm pretty pleased with it as I did the editing and found the music...which I think is the hardest part! Let me know what you think!

So apart from that, not much else. My days are work wakeboard sleep repeat. But i'm loving it and hoping to come back next year.

Plans for the winter at the moment are to go to the States for 3 months and ride. Unfortunately without a visa its pretty impossible to work over there, so saving the pennies to make a fun trip. Hoping to get my hands on Katie Blundell and ride with her this winter!!

I've been lucky to get some cool summer wear from Westbeach and Rocket Dog so I can be fashionable down at the lake :) Thanks a lot guys!

   

That's it That's all! Peace

2014 - What's been going on and a short Edit :)

So it's 2014!! Time goes fast, the season is already wizzing by!!

So far it's been really fun, although we haven't had all that much snow :( It started off so good back in November with lots of snow down in town, and we even managed to ride some urban! But since then the 'Fern' has swept through the mountain a few times warming everything up! (Fern means hairdryer in German! And it refers to a warm wind that comes up from Italy through the valley.)

Now quite a green valley!

Although saying that, we still have had enough snow to have some fun in the park. Not everywhere has managed to get all their features in yet, but there is definitely enough to play around on. Just waiting on a few of the bigger jumps to get finished off with this last snowfall.

We managed to have a really fun pow day last week over at Zillertal Arena (by Zell an Ziller). You have to be careful as there isn't much base, but we found some pockets of decent snow in the trees. On our way home we also found an awesome tree house!!! There are lots of them around the valley, but this one was by far the best. We even hiked back up the piste after spotting it to get to it! There was a really cool cloud inversion too, so the view was amazing.

Best Tree House EVER

                       

Really nice view from up at Zillertal Arena last week

                           

We've also been heading out the valley to some of the other resorts on our Tirol snowcard. We went to Steinplatte the other week for a fun day of mellow jibs. It was crazy though, it was so slushy there as its quite a low resort, it reminded me of being back in Morzine a few years ago. Here' a little edit I made from the days adventures, with my friend Bianca.

 A Day in Steinplatte Edit

Last week we headed over to Pastcherkofel, which is near Innsbruck. We'd heard they have some fun jibs and a fairly long jib run. Although once we got there we discovered it wasn't all in yet (snow) so we hiked a little rail and then had a cruise about. It's a really funny small resort, we went up this superold  gondola to get there in the first place.

                        

And on the way back, ended up hiking through some woods to find the middle station!! haha. Fun times :)