Off piste paradise!

Ben and Dave hiking an unnamed peak in Greenland. I'll be running another BC explorer trip to Greenland next winter! Check out the frozen sea in the background.

No rest for the wicked and its pretty wicked out there at the moment, cold conditions have kept the snow fresh and light and after a 6 day tech clinic I'm now straight into a 3 day Off piste clinic.

The guys on the course last week came on great, I showed them some video from the first day and then we looked at the riding video from the last day and the changes where pretty amazing. All can now go and work on the techniques we covered and their progression will simply continue for as long as they continue to ride! 3 of the group will be back before long for other courses with Rob and Sara joining me for a BC Intro in a few weeks time and Steve joining me on a 6 day Off Piste clinic. Steve has already done both the Tech clinic and the Off piste clinic before but I think this time through he is getting a lot more from it as he's now working at a really high level and it'll be good to see his progression on the Off piste clinic later this season. By the end of the week I was pretty impressed with everyone's progression, Leo and Andy were completely different riders by the end of the week, its great to see and makes running these Tech clinics really rewarding.

Today we headed up to Le Tour for the first of the 3 day Off piste clinic. We started with a few runs for warm up and worked through the science behind good snowboard technique looking at the control of line and speed which is essential for Off piste riding. We then looked at the mechanics of board design and how to turn the board by design rather than force, finishing with looking at the bio mechanics of the stance in order for us to be able to apply pressure to the right points on the board at the right moment and the right amount in order to make it turn for us rather than us having to rotate and turn it. A lot to fit in only a mornings session but its only a 3 day course and the Off piste was beckoning!

We then went on to Transceiver and Avalanche search and rescue training before lunch with single and multiple burial scenarios.

We followed this up with a great descent of the Possettes Couloir in the afternoon, great snow and some nice turns for all!

Tomorrow I'm thinking we'll go through to Courmayeur for some big Off piste runs off the Youla, should be good, I've not been off the top there yet this season and it looks pretty nice.

I'm only a few days away from my Kashmir trip to Gulmarg so I hope the airports are open so that we can all get there!

All is good!

Neil.