The rest of the season...

Hola mis chicos!

Umm...sorry its been such a long time, i kinda forgot to write on the blog for the last 2 months :( But im now gonna update on all that in a few posts and try and keep it a bit more up to date.

So...the rest of the season! In August be had a lot of snowfall, which meant lots of powder riding. It was snowing at least every week, if not twice a week. And the great thing about El Colorado is that when it snows, itll snow a lot all day, and you wake up the next day to blue skies and sunshine with perfect visability! One week we had a metre of snow fall in a day and a bit, which left us with several days of new lines. (During the week the resort isnt that busy so theres lots of new lines to be had).

For my birthday we had un asado (BBQ) in monte blanco, the building i was living in. by the time i arrived after happy hour i was already pretty drunk...and the night kinda gets a bit blurry, but gav managed to take like 200 photos. We were planning on going out afterwards but i dont think anyone made it past 2 o clock as we started drinking at 5 after a day of riding!

There was a really big off piste line you could ski called Santa Terez, between El Colorado and Valle Nevado (the neighbouring resort). The first time i did it i was pretty scared, but Marko (a quebecan who stayed for the season) took me and Jeff from Australia on a reasonably easy line. We then had to hitch hike twice to get back up to resort, but it was definately worth it! A bit later on in the season we paid a few quid to get a guy to pick us up and drop us to the top, so we did 3 different runs. Although i fell over and tomahoged (no idea how to spell that, but basically flipped over and over and over) down the mountain and actually was thinking ahhhh im gonna die...i didnt die i was absolutely fine, but it scared me a bit for the rest of the day. Luckily it was on a nice big (but steep) open bit without and rocks or cliff drops...pretty lucky really.

After one of the big storms i went with Gav and Blake (from England and the US) and dropped off my first cornice. They told me it was kinda big but not too high, and that id be fine. The thing is when ur above it you cant tell how big it is...plus in different parts it can range from a couple of foot, to like 20ft! So the first time i let out a blood curdling scream that i didnt know was humanly possibly as it turned out to be pretty big! I somehow landed though so it was all good. As the day went on i stopped screaming...but it was pretty scary!!

In general, as i said, the weeks were pretty quiet and all the chilleans and students came up at the weekends to ski and party. The end of July and beginning of August were holidays, so lots of Chillean students came up the for 2 weeks or so. There was a club called ´powder´in la parva, the resort next to us which we went to qute often, which closed at like 4 or 5...you then had to hitchhike home, which never seemed to be too much of a problem. It was nice getting to know some chileans my age, and hopefully when im back in Santiago we can all hang out together.

So, August was all about the powder pretty much, and then as september came in we saw spring conditions. I dont think there was any more snow,and it was getting warmer by the day. The snow was beginning to melt which meant it was nice and soft in the afternoons to be learning new tricks and things. We had a really good long day were we rode from 10am til about 7.30pm. At 5o clock after riding the park in the afternoon we decided to hike the box for a bit. This little bit turned into 2 or 3 hours, as we decided it would be really cool to get some sunset shots. We got some raly nice photos, most are on facebook, and ill add one onto here.

I managed to get a tiny winey bit of work two days. there were some ski races (ugh) going on for some chileans and they needed people to go up and check they were going through the post properly. A tenner for 2 hours, so i did that. The first day was fine, warm and easy. But the next morning we were there at 8.30 am, it was all icy, and it took forever and got a bit boring...just a normal ski race i guess! But i made 20 quid and got a nice lunch.

I did one of the last competitions of the season, called ´El Rey del Park´ (King of the park) in El Colorado. i won myself some goggles and a tshirt for 2nd place...princesa del park :) There were quite a few competitions through the season but i only did one other one as during august the park was barely open as there was so much snow.

As the season was coming to an end the pistes became pretty much empty. Happy hour wasnt as happy anymore and it was obviously time to go. Just a few of us seasonaires around to drink the last few beers. The season ended on the 28th September. I didnt have any more major injuries which was cool, and in general the season was great, and i met some really great people from all around the world who im sure ill keep in touch with. Id really like to come back next year and do the season again....we´ll see!

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