"All aboard the good ship pow-pow!" Shouts the captain in my head. I'm staring down a near pitch perfect powder field, it's been snowing heavily for a good 24 hours and everything is primed. I drop into my line, two epic turns and the amount of sluff is now enough to take me for a short ride. All expected on this angle, with the amount of snow we've had, so my line had no major obstacles to hazard me. Gotta love the core work-out when you wiggle and wiggle, to shake off all that snow, trying to get going again.
Normal cruising speeds resume. Until all of a sudden your board starts to sink, then your knees go under, your thighs disappear and then the rest. From a bystanders point of view, I imagine, I look some what like a submarine diving to the deep. In some respects I am.These last few days, I've been forcing my board further into the unknown depths. Trying to avoid shredding my hull on any hidden rock bombs. I never found the bottom and I avoided all those nasty, jaggy buggers! My final likening to the maritime form, sticks with the submarine class.
You enter the white room, consequently clip something, eat it and become ensconced in snow. You lie there for a second or two, getting your gyro settled. Then it's 'up periscope' to see just how far you tumbled and who caught it on camera! Snorkeling around in the deep stuff can only mean one thing; we've had a classic Gulmarg storm.
It rolled in last Sunday. The week previous to that was fairly relaxed. I took out my brand new stick, for this season, and rode the one groomer we have here. Finally, making it over the two flat spots without any issue. After a month of riding two, frankly, broken boards, in an attempt to preserve my new ones, beyond one season, which would be a four season first for me, was an absolute pleasure! She reminded me of playing with a six month old puppy. So full of spring and bounce, excited to explore new places, ever attentive to my instructions. Really just a load of innocent fun. Having spent a day becoming acquainted with her I spent
another with a pack of lads.
As so few people ever really ride the groomer here, there isn't an abundance of side hits. We chose a lazy sunny lunchtime to head up. Roaming around, sniffing out possible spots to do our business. We laid our marks and charged around. Yelping when distressed, howling with happiness and just being a bit barking mad! Look what happens when an animal is forced out of it's natural habitat. Lucky for this animal, he can look at a weather forecast and could stave of becoming a totally feral, snow-starved, beast.
When the long-term forecast gives you a week of snow, you know it's going to be a great time here in Gulmarg. We were gifted with over 2m of lovely, lovely fresh white yumminess. Enough to feed the powder hounds here. We took bites out of the trees, the chairlift and eventually the upper reaches of the mountains. Being early Feb the wildest animal behaviour was in the queues! I could go off right now and describe the differing shred species that inhabit this zoo. Some with their slithering, slick, snaking shenanigans. Others with their down right pig headed attitudes. But that is a whole other blog.
I don't have time for that right now as digging begins on the first ever Himalayan Banked Slalom course soon. More on that to come very shortly.............................
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| Sandy is quite the tall scotsman. |
You enter the white room, consequently clip something, eat it and become ensconced in snow. You lie there for a second or two, getting your gyro settled. Then it's 'up periscope' to see just how far you tumbled and who caught it on camera! Snorkeling around in the deep stuff can only mean one thing; we've had a classic Gulmarg storm.
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| The storm left 210cm of Himalayan white gold! |
another with a pack of lads.
As so few people ever really ride the groomer here, there isn't an abundance of side hits. We chose a lazy sunny lunchtime to head up. Roaming around, sniffing out possible spots to do our business. We laid our marks and charged around. Yelping when distressed, howling with happiness and just being a bit barking mad! Look what happens when an animal is forced out of it's natural habitat. Lucky for this animal, he can look at a weather forecast and could stave of becoming a totally feral, snow-starved, beast.
When the long-term forecast gives you a week of snow, you know it's going to be a great time here in Gulmarg. We were gifted with over 2m of lovely, lovely fresh white yumminess. Enough to feed the powder hounds here. We took bites out of the trees, the chairlift and eventually the upper reaches of the mountains. Being early Feb the wildest animal behaviour was in the queues! I could go off right now and describe the differing shred species that inhabit this zoo. Some with their slithering, slick, snaking shenanigans. Others with their down right pig headed attitudes. But that is a whole other blog.
I don't have time for that right now as digging begins on the first ever Himalayan Banked Slalom course soon. More on that to come very shortly.............................
