India

15/04/2010

I had to take a sleeping pill last night because I was very excited to snowboard again but regardless I still got up much earlier than I needed to to pack my things and get to where I was getting picked up. All the sizing of our gear was done yesterday so we could get an early start and get to the base camp situated 3500m about 40km from Manali.

In our group of all guys we had 3 Isrealies, 2 French Canadians, 2 Germans, a Japanese guy, Jack and myself. Our crew was great and we set off in 2 jeeps stopping for breakfast on the drive.

We had to hike 2km from where we were dropped off to get to camp thankfully having the porters carry out heavy belongings, these guys carrying our stuff were machines, having to carry at least 50kg of weight 2km up a 25-30 degree slope.

It was a bit of a tedious walk up obviously good for our fitness and when we reached camp the camp cook made us up lunch that was delicious before we put on our boarding gear and set off for more of a hike to reach more snow.

To be honest I was a little disappointed with the amount of snow (that was incredible slushy) that was even questionable to ride on as there were rocks poking up all over the place.

The experienced of us did this hike whilst the beginners hit a simpler slope closer to camp. We hiked for about an hour and a half up the mountain to 3700m were we only had a few minutes of riding downhill having to stop now and then to find another patch of rid able snow. It was very disappointing although the views from the top were breathtaking.

We headed over to the beginners slope where I built a small kicker that I only hit a few times before being completely exhausted from the days activities then headed back to camp and munched on dinner, sat by the fire and went to bed in the tent (I was sharing with Jake.)