The Last day of the Season
May 7, 2008 on 11:02 am | In Snowboarding, Skiing |
The last day of the season at Cairngorm Mountain was Monday the 5th of May, which is one day later that the last day in Zermatt, Switzerland! I was in Zermatt for three weeks to do my BASI qualifications and was well aware that I was missing some great on snow action back home in Scotland as I had spent the previous week shredding some great home grown powder on Cairngorm.
Although Zermatt also had a lot of great snow, I was pretty sad that I could not make the most of the home snow. I was happy however, that I had managed to persuade the largest snowboard magazine in Europe to go and check out the great conditions, at last!!
They arrived in Aviemore to bad weather and mist but the boys up the hill had been busy with the cat and they soon had a monster booter built for the two European pro riders who they had taken over to shoot with. Joining the Euros were our very own Angus Leith and Ben Kilner.
They managed to build a 18m kicker, the largest ever built on Cairngorm and got some amazing pictures of the boys. Keep a look out for them in the first issue of Onboard next season! As well as getting some great riding in the Onboard crew did all the great tourist things you can do from Nessie spotting to Whiskey drinking and all in all had a ball.Meanwhile, back in Zermatt I was hoping the snow lasted at least a few days past my due arrival date home.
My patience was rewarded and the snow lasted long enough for me to get in a couple of great days over the weekend and into bank holiday Monday. The atmosphere up the mountain was amazing and everyone was telling stories of the great couple of months of Scottish ski-ing they had just had and all the adventures they had been on.
There were many very happy faces around and a lot of great tricks going down in the park on the jibs and the somewhat melted down Onboard jump. It was great to see the locals ripping it up though and very impressive to see Mike Jahtzy and Chris Mitchell, the local ski club coaches, throwing huge back flips and corked spins off the big jump while the snowboarders also span and flipped themselves well into the evening.
On the Monday night the lifts ran until 8pm and we watched a beautiful sunset growing over the Spey Valley to end what has been one of the best snow seasons I can remember in Scotland, ever. I for one have never ridden such great powder in Scotland as I was lucky enough to ride at the start of April this year. I hope that you all found some too and had as much fun as I did.
I am now very happy to hang up my snowboard for a while and dig out my surf board! Bring on the waves I say!!! See you in the sea.
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.
