On Thursday I got the train from York with Hamish McKnight to Dover, we then met Dan Wakeham and got the ferry to Calais and drove over to Les Deux Alpes for the One Snowboarding summer camp. Then on the Saturday I went up to the mountain with Nelson Pratt and Jack Shackleton. We had a look at the park and rode around then went back down. On the first proper day up the mountain we rode some pipe and the slopestyle kickers, also we met Danny Kass which was amazing!!!

Tuesday we did the same thing but rode the superpipe instead of the baby pipe which was really steep but it was good fun as well. Then I hit the kickers and got back 3 to front 3 on the slopestyle kickers – check out this video:

On the Wednesday we met Tyler Chorlton which was sick and we did the same stuff again but I got bigger air out of the pipe which I was pleased about. On the Thursday I did 3 out of the 4 fives and also learnt cab 540 switch indy which I’m stoked about! Then on Friday I got the the biggest I have  ever gone out of the pipe. Also I got cab 5′s of a bigger kicker and the we sessioned a c-box which was good fun. On the afternoons we do different activities like volleyball and football and loads more also there is a swimming pool with a ledge which is good fun to do flips and spins off.

Check out this video of my cab 5

So whilst we where in Laax I competed in The Brits which was fun. We went out a week before to practice for it, whilst we where out there one of the pipe walls was cut down so I couldn’t practice pipe for a few days

First day we got our bearings back and we went to slopestyle and I got used to the kickers again then I decided to spin of the last kicker and it felt really good. Then Hamish Mcknight told me to spin of all three so I did and that was a good start to the week ! It started snowing on Monday and snowed all through the night and all day Tuesday. The next day was an amazing powder day with knee deep powder through the trees and doing some drops as well. For the rest of the week I just practised everything (during the week my mum arrived with my new board, a 2011 Stepchild Simon Chabelin which i totally love, big thanks to TSA and stepchild for sorting it so quick for me).

Monday was practise day on everything and I met Danny, Matt, Chris and Gerry Mcormick so I rode with Matt for the rest of the day which was fun, also we met the guys from Giro and have hooked me up with a helmet sponsorship ! In the evening I went to the animal house for tea (nice cooking Sonia!) and did a sticker job on my new helmet and new board. Sonia Shaw helped with my helmet and Dom Harrington helped with my board.

Tuesday was the Trespass Boardercross which was fun but I didn’t do very well in it because I fell in the semi-finals but I still enjoyed it. Then I went and practised big air and Johno Verity was filming it all, after that I rode down with Johno before we rode down he put a head cam on me and I did some drops with it on, cant wait to see the footage !

Wednesday was the Giro big air which was good to watch and compete in, the wind was quite strong but I’m used to it from Halifax. I hit the medium kicker which was still pretty big, in the comp I did back 3 and then on the second run I did back 3 mute and held the grab all the way around. After that I watched the mens big air qualifying and final which sick. Billy Morgan and Jamie Nicholls both did double cork 10′s and Sam Turnbull did well as well he did a corked back 9 and won his category. In the big air I came 2nd and Matt Mcormick came 3rd. I am stoked about getting 2nd at my first Brits.

Thursday was the Sno!Zone halfpipe which was good the pipe got a bit slushy so it was hard to get speed but i got my 5′s and 3′s in it I didn’t do very well in it but it was still fun. The mens was also good to watch Dom’s run was sick he qualified in 1st place. In the mens final Jamie (who says he doesn’t ride pipe) came 1st and he just did a back 9 from nowhere Dom came 2nd and Sam Cullum came 3rd. Also Dan Wakeham was there and he just did crippler to Mctwist all the way down the pipe as a joke and still qualified.

Friday was the last event and it was the Animal slopestyle event but it turned out to be a rail jam instead because the weather got really bad and really windy. It was still fun though I did a front board on the box and Jamie said it was the best slide of the day on it which i’m pretty pleased about. My first run was best I did front board to 50-50 board slide down on the up box then 50-50 on the step down box then stalled on the wallride. I fell on my second run which I’m a bit gutted about because if I landed I would of scored loads more than the first run. Dom did a sick double hand plant on the wall ride which look cool as well. At prize giving I came 1st which I’m super stoked about and I won a £300 K2 snowboard and I gave it to my dad.

On Saturday I went and rode some powder with Jordan Gee and Gregor Samuels. We found some little wind lips and I tried some front flips on them but I didn’t land any but Jordan landed under flips and switch front flips which is sick. Then after that it was the Red Bull Home Run which was really fun. On the way down people were slamming everywhere you looked which was funny but one guy went to hospital. Then on Sunday we drove back to Rotterdam and got the ferry home.

Now I’m back home, it really sucks because there is no snow and it’s just boring, I’ve been to the dome a couple of times and its nice to see all of my mates there, we made a little shredit to celebrate getting home

Below is a little video of Big Air day at The Brits and also the shredit from my first night back in the dome, I’ve got some amazing pics also from The Brits, will put them up later once we’ve been through them all

On Thursday I went to Laax for the first time. Whilst we were driving the car to Manchester airport we hit some black ice on the road and the spun the car and damaged it When we got to the airport we met Mark and Katie Omerod and found out our flight was cancelled! So when the plane finally came after 8 hours we went to Laax. We got there got some cars and drove to Laax.

On Friday we had a full days practice on the slopestyle course and the halfpipe. When I saw the kickers they were the biggest kickers I’d ever seen, they were huge! First practice run I landed on my shoulder on the stair set which really hurt. The kickers were the best and the biggest kickers I’d ever hit, they had a 15 metre gap! Also the rails were amazing they were really smooth. Then we went to the super pipe which was 22ft big which was the biggest and best pipe I had ever been in.

Next day was the slopestyle competition which was fun and it was a really high standard of riding. In the slopestyle I came 14th out of 20 in my group which I’m really stoked about,  I came 22nd overall in slopestyle Lewis Courtier-Jones did amazing coming 8th in the final and a big well done to Katie who stomped her back 3 in the final which put her in 4th place in the girls finals.

Next day was the halfpipe comp which was really fun, the pipe was amazing and so was the day. My 2nd run scored me my best score which was 40.60 and the run was frontside tail grab to backside grab to front 5 to backside grab to front 3 to cab 3. I came 16th out of 22 which I’m stoked about again because i have only been riding pipe for a week and also I came 25th overall in the pipe Also another well done to Lewis who came 9th in the final also he  was going huge out of the pipe and another well done to Katie who stomped her last run and came 4th again only missing 3rd by 1.6 points!

Last day we packed and had a quick shred on the mountain in the swatch park on the kickers. Then we came down got changed and drove back to Zurich airport. When we got there it was snowing heavily but we still made it back without the flight being cancelled!

It was an amazing weekend and an amazing experience and now I need to get hitting the big kickers in Avoriaz on a regular basis !!!

My dad videod a few of my runs, but his hands were shaking so much they are pretty rubbish, I will try to find the good bits and do a little shredit with them soon.

Fear of the park write up can be found here and Whitelines here.

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Just got back from another week in Morzine, I stayed with Dan Wakeham,Nadine and Parker the dog in their house for the week (check this, Shaun White and Louie Vito both love Paker !). I had another sick week and I got to ride the pipe all week which was epic and also have a play in The Stash. One of our best day was when it was raining loads in Morzine but when you got to the top of the mountain it was dumping and we got to ride powder all day long. Also one night we went to Sam and Jon’s from More Mountain for tea which was really nice and their house was amazing.

On the last day we had a late flight back so we got to ride for the day, it was a bluebird day and a powder day. I did some runs in the pipe and then went off piste with my dad. One run my dad came down a cliff one footed which was quite funny but scary for him. We then got back packed and waited for the lift to the airport, when we got there, there was a queue from one end of the airport to the other end and back due to a baggage handlers strike, my dad started to help at the baggage bit which was a bit weird but it got the job done faster and meant we go home quicker!!

So again another amazing week in Morzine and a big thanks to Dan and Nadine for letting us crash at their place and teaching me the Macarena on New Years  Eve (Video to follow ….. we’ve got so much to go through to make a little edit, its gonna take a while) !!!

I’ve got a busy few weeks coming but will keep updating the blog !!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Just to say Christmas is nearly over and I got some great gifts and had a fun time but I can’t wait to go back to Avoriaz tomorrow with my dad to ride the pipe and the park which is going to be really fun. I’m staying out there with Dan and Nadine until 2nd January! I haven’t started packing yet but pretty much know from last week what I need so I will start in the morning and should get it done in no time.

Here’s a clip from Xmas Eve of me and Jamie Nicholls playing on a street rail over in Halifax

So last Sunday me, Faye Young, Jordan Gee and my dad flew from Liverpool airport to go to Geneva. When we got to Geneva airport half of it was shut because of a bomb scare which meant we had to walk all the way around the airport to get to the taxi which was rubbish ! I fell asleep in the taxi and when i woke up the first thing I said was ‘ SNOW ‘. When we got to the chalet we met Danny McCormick, Gregor Samuels, Calum Paton, Jen, Mark Raper and Ollie Jackson. We went and unpacked in are room and had some tea (which were amazing all through the week).

Day 1 we woke up at 7:30 got ready had breakfast and met Dan Wakeham after breakfast we finished getting ready put our boots on and packed our boards into the minibus but me and my dad and some others got into the other car, I had to sit in the boot because I was the smallest ! When we got to the lift it was packed with people which made it a bit cramped. We got off the lift strapped our boards on and road down to the park chair lift. When we got ot the top of that chair we rode to the park and I was the first person to hit the boxes which felt really nice then I hit the kickers which were the best kickers I have ever hit. When I got used to the kickers I started spinning of them and got my back 5′s dialed. We rode down to a local supermarket to have lunch then in the afternoon we just rode around the mountain and did some off piste which was amazing fun. At the end of the day we got picked up went home chilled and got into the hot tub.

Day 2 was a nice bluebird day with good visibility for the park and the kickers were just as good. I rode the kickers most of the day and I got back 5′s to cab 3′s and I also got a couple of back 7′s which I am really stoked about. After we had tea that evening Dan and Hamish Mcknight (who was one of the other coaches) came and talked about bio-mechanics with us it was about the technical side of snowboarding which was very interesting and makes you think a lot more about why and how stuff happens.

Day 3 Will Nangle did a video of me we which is amazing and has been put on Whitelines !! (and is embedded at the bottom of this post), also on the same day I learnt hand-plants which were quite hard to do but fun at the same time. after doing hand plants we moved on to do a trick tip video for Mpora on how to do a front-side board-slide which was fun we used a follow cam and and some pictures which are sick.

Day 4 started well with clear skies, we went up on a chair lift and did some more off piste with Dan which was really fun . After that we went to the park which was fun again but then it started to go dull and it wasn’t  good visibility for while but it got better so I worked more on my 7′s and 5′s. After lunch we hit the rails (mostly the flat down rail) which was smooth and really nice to hit.

Day 5 we took the chair lift up again but we couldn’t go to the same off piste spot as yesterday because it was a white out which wasn’t good and meant we couldn’t spend much time in the park either. After a few runs  we went to get some lunch from a cafe called Changabang which did nice food (but was well expensive!). After that most people went down to the chalet apart from me, my dad, Gregor’s dad Mark and Gregor. We found an off piste run through knee deep powder and through trees which was really fun, also on the same run we found a log that could be used as a rail which was fun to hit. Then when we got back Mark had built a kicker up to a balcony to stall on, but I found a bomb drop of the balcony which was fun my dad got some sick pics of it and he rang Nick Atkins who came came round to take some pics of it and he got some amazing pics. Then we did another drop which was about 20ft which looked fine until you got up there to do it but when you looked at the drop it was quite scary, again Nick got some wicked pics of this that I can’t wait to share Also Dan and Hamish came round again to tell us about what judges look for and after that we made a list of what to do and Dan and Hamish would judge the runs.

Day 6 was the last day of riding which sucked because the week went so quick but it was a good day we went to the park to practise our judging runs and then we did them but the first kicker in the park had been made 6ft bigger which was annoying because we had made our runs around the kickers throughout the whole week. but we carried on with it anyway I did some 7′s of it and some 5′s. Then after we did our kicker competition runs we went back to the Changabang for lunch and then back to the park for our competition rail runs which were fun and after that the weather was getting really bad so we went back down to the chalet. That evening we built a kicker and a pole jam and we sessioned them for a while then we went back in and watched Neverland and some Family Guy.

Day 7 we went to Stew’s house (Stew did all the camp official videos) to see his video suite and some of the videos he had done of the One Snowboarding camp and the we went to town but there was nothing to buy there so we went back to the chalet and then we got picked up to be taken to Geneva airport when we were there we looked around the airport shops and we had something to eat. Then when we got onto the plane and then I remembered that we forgot to bring the gifts on with us and it was snowing so much they closed the runway for 3 hours and then they had to deice the plane which took about 45 minutes which was really annoying. When we got to Liverpool Barry took us back to his house to get our car and then went home.

Overall it was an amazing camp with amazing accommodation and it really was fun + I learnt some new tricks which is always a bonus !! The review of the camp on the One Boarding site can be found here and here on the More Mountain site.

Anyways it’s Xmas eve and I’m lucky enough to be going back out to Morzine on the 27th, so I best go chill with the family.

Happy Xmas eveyone