The Forecast Ahead

My first season here in Åre I had accepted the fact that I would need to do my time with kids ski groups even though I had already had a solid dose of them in Norway. A combination of babysitting and tricking kids into having better technique: it wasn´t exactly where my heart lay but I knew it had to be done. Now here I am 2 years later and through a series of misunderstandings and poor communication I have ended up back where I started. Awesome. It´s not so bad: but this isn´t exactly a job you drudge through just to get the fat paycheck at the end if you know my meaning. Neither should the work be drudging nor should one expect the paycheck to be fat.

I looked at my schedule 2 weeks in advance and in seeing snöbollar, snögubbar and still more snögubbar (the 2 youngest beginner groups) I decided to take a week off instead: I needed a break from the little ones and to finally get a chance to do some snowboarding myself.

The week started out less than ideally: rain, wind and poor visability made for a depressing choice of week that many people took it upon themselves to point out - ad nauseam. In the early days of the week I still managed to get in the park and make some progress in my riding. Out riding with Jimmy on Tuesday got me fired up and I made some nice progress all round: towards the end of the day I was nailing various kinds of boxes with confidence and with some egging on from Jimmy; finally had a crack at a C-Box. Lacking in rotation I slid out and landed on my hip and chest. The damage? At first I thought it was just a massive bruise on my thigh but eventually disovered that I had a cracked rib and a broken camera in my shiny new phone. The rib will heal in 3 - 4 weeks and the camera still works: everything is just a bit blurry.

By Wednesday a massive storm had hit and it was absolutely crapping down snow. Strong winds meant that much of the resort was closed but for those of us who knew; this was paradise. We sought out waist-deep powder in the trees and at times were hit with face shots with every turn. While I was in too much pain to hit any jumps or rails: my rib didn´t bother my freeriding so I was happy. The doctor said to just keep on going as usual as long as I avoided any direct impact.

That weekend 30 ski instructors from Åre hit the road for 7 hours to take us down to the Skidlärare SM (National Ski Instructors´ Masters) in Sälen. All the ski instructors in Sweden get to gether for the weekend to have various races and slopestyle competitions, I would like to say that I had to stay out of the comp because of my injury, and while that is true - I am just too crap to go up against the big dogs.

That night we hit it hard for one of the biggest parties of the year: The Skidlärare SM Banquet. The highlight of the evening was the upkeep of Åre´s arrogant image. As the biggest resort in the country: Åre is usually regarded as cocky, arrogant and all-too self aware in the grand scheme of things. In all honesty the reputation is deserved but we spared no expense in living up to that reputation and quite possibly surpassing it. We came up with the cockiest of provocative chants and rhymes: very commonplace at these things but our edge was in our numbers- every time another resort tried to pipe up we overpowered them with brute force. The next day everyone staggered down to the taco bar in a haze to load up for the long drive ahead. Our departure was a little delayed because one of our drivers was no where to be found... Sparing the details all was well a few hours later and we set out on our way.

Now the weather has turned and while it is nice to have over 10 degrees and brilliant sunshine through clear-blue skies while surfing through slush... It is sad to see the snow melt away at an alarming rate. Everyone is getting ridiculous tans and enjoying the sun while it lasts. Rain is predicted and with it the inevitable end of the season looms ahead.