Scottish Winter Park Time

March 23, 2009 on 10:25 pm | In Snowboarding, Uncategorized |

As Easter gets closer and the Easter storms are coming in I am looking forward to getting in the park and riding in the longer hours of sun light and hopefully also getting out into the Scottish wilderness for a bit of spring touring. I am still hopeful of a big dump so that the big lines are doable but even if it just snows a little bit in the next week, which it is doing right now, the touring will be great and the park is already pretty good on Cairngorm at least. 

I just got back to Scotland from the World Cup finals in Italy where I was competing in the pipe with the other GB team members, Kate Foster, Ben Kilner and Dom Harrington. Banchory local Ben Kilner came of best of the bunch in Italy with a personal best 9th place putting him in strong contention for an Olympic place next year.

I did not fare so well in Italy falling in one run and not really laying down a smooth run in the second to come in 16h but I was 10th in the penultimate competition the week before in Spain, also meaning I am in a strong position to go to the Olympics for a third time!!I now have a much needed few days at home before making another trip to Europe to go to the British Snowboard Championships in Laax in Switzerland.

The Brits, as it is known, is celebrating it’s 20th Birthday this year, making it one of the oldest snowboard national championships out there. The first ever Brits were held on Cairngorm in 1989 on the fiacaill ridge, the half pipe being dug by hand by the keen group of competitors before the comp. I remember it distinctly as the snowboarders kept getting in the way of our little race course.

I was training with the Cairngorm Ski Club at the time. The half pipe is now a 22ft monster pipe cut with a state of the art machine and prepared throughout the season by the Laax resort. Things have changed a lot in the world of snowboarding in the last 20 years!As well as half pipe there will be slopestyle, big air and boarder X events at the Brits. Many of the riders competing there will then head back to Scotland in time for the Highlander event on Cairngorm on the 10 April. 

Lesley McKenna
http://www.chunkyknit.com
Professional snowboarder, film maker and ambassador for Visitscotland. All sorts of outdoor sports from skiing to mountain biking and now mixes her time on the Snowboard World Cup Tour with time in Scotland doing these sports.