The second day of the test, and the glacier is still floating in the middle of the clouds.  A small scuffle in the car park with some russian maffia types becomes the topic of conversation as the early haze of hangovers muffles more intellectual talk.

Testing continued all day, with Ortovox running free avalanche transceiver training. Starting off with a 45 minute introduction to transceiver technology, then moving on to real world practice using a range of different transceiver types.

Monday evening is traditionally the Westbeach party night and this year they teamed up with The Reason magazine to run a pub quiz at the PfiffAlm bar.  Tim Warwood presented us with a challenging set of questions ranging from current politicians to british snowboarding trivia.  The Whitelines crew took the title, and with a little encouragement from the crowd, put their winnings behind the bar, and it was Jaggermiester all round!

Writing Reviews

Tuesady started as yet another grey day on the hill.  Visibility was at a minimum and the runs were fairly icy compared to previous days.  Board testing went on as usual, although it was hard to compare today’s boards to ones I had ridden on the slushier days.

Today was the memorial day for Keith Macintosh who unfortunately passed away during the Boardtest last year, and at two o’clock  a two hundred strong crowd of snowboarders gathered at the top of the main run, and in a huge wave, cruised down the piste.  Myself and Nade decided to hang towards the back, the thought of being in the scrum not appealing.  It was a sombre mood and served as a reminder just how dangerous snowboarding off piste can be, even the most experienced of riders can fall victim to avalanches.

In the evening the mood was more upbeat and the nights activities centred around the Analog Hawaiian themed party.  We were welcomed with brightly coloured garlands.  It wasn’t long until the bar completely filled up and spilled out onto the street.  Seb Kern threw down the tunes all night, a soundtrack to drunken debauchery and dancing.  Free beers were handed out whenever the Hawaii 5 O song on, I think they meant for one per person, but it ended  up being grab as many as you can, myself and Nade being the main culprits!

Being drunk in flipflops is never the best idea, and the next day there were alot of broken feet on show!  I managed to slice open my foot on some glass and then bend my big toe nail back on itself – yum!