There are moments in life that really make you stop in your tracks and think “wow life is amazing, THIS is what it’s all about”. It doesn’t have to be an earth-shattering thing. It can be anything from watching a sunset in a tropical country, finding the perfect dress that you’ve been looking for for ages, or watching your child take their first steps. They’re moments that stick in your mind and bring you that warm happy feeling when you think about them.
These are some of my snowboarding ones…
1. The Moment I Fell In Love With Snowboarding
This seems the best place to start: the day that I decided to sack off the skis for the foreseeable future and do as much snowboarding as was humanly possible.
I was still very much a beginner. I had only been dabbling with the “new” sport for a few weeks. At the time, I saved the snowboard for the bad weather days/ chilled days and it was on one of those days that I fell in love with it.
I was in Tignes for my first season and I was working a chalet girl (not as glam as the movie). It was toward the end of the season and the resort was pretty quiet. I was hungover and the weather was grotty; it was windy and there was bad visibility. Fortunately, it had been snowing for a couple of days, leaving plenty of wet spring snow.
My season boyfriend (now husband), also a snowboard instructor, had dragged me out onto the mountain with my snowboard and last night’s makeup smeared down my face. We did a couple of slow runs and I was not fairing well. I was just about to give up and go home but I had decided to do “one more run”.
We got to the top of the run and my man said he thought it might be clearing. He suggested we just nip off the side of the piste and try and score some fresh pow. I was hesitant, making all the excuses, but he was insistent and I figured he knew what he was doing (and I wanted to impress him).
So, I pulled myself together and followed him to the top of the slope. As we got there, the clouds cleared and it went from rubbish to bluebird in under 5 seconds. There was no one else around and there was a B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L face of untouched fresh powder. It was almost like it was meant to be. It wasn’t a steep slope by any means, but to me it was the most exciting thing ever- I’d never ridden powder on a snowboard before.
The sound of just my board cutting through the snow with a swoosh, the feeling of gliding through the powder like surfing a huge white wave, the snow billowing out around me, the breeze rushing passed me and the feeling that no one else was there and that I was totally free… that was the moment.
I had no idea that snowboarding could feel so effortless and perfect, it was like I was bouncing around in my own little playground of white cotton wool! Plus it was much easier than riding powder on skis.
When I got to the bottom and lifted my goggles, my hangover had totally disappeared. In that moment, I felt so amazing and so happy. Finally, snowboarding clicked. I realised what it was all about.
2. Learning To Snowboard
Not all my snowboarding memories are happy and filled with roses. I also want to tell you about a more frustrating moment (that I can laugh about now) that sticks out in my mind.
Anyone that is a snowboarder will know that you have to go through the awful stage of learning to snowboard. It’s painful, it’s tiring and it’s embarrassing. You feel pretty cool carrying your new snowboard down to the slope, but as soon as you strap in, you become Bambi on ice.
You can’t do what you wan to do or what you envision in your head. Eventually, you lose count of the number of times you drag yourself off the ground, catch an edge, face plant in the snow and throw your gloves away in anger.
By the evening you can barely put one foot in front of the other to get to the bar to drown your sorrows. You are even contemplating stuffing one of the chalet cushions down the back of your pants the next morning to help soften the inevitable falls. To be honest, you don’t really like snowboarding. Beach holidays from now on.
This was totally me.
Once again it was my first season and I’d been spending way too long on the nursery slope. The same patient season boyfriend was teaching me to snowboard- I wouldn’t normally advise partners teaching one another (can lead to divorce) but we were still in the honeymoon period, desperately wanting to impress one another.
One day I got impatient on the nursery slope. I announced that I was now ready to go to the top of the mountain. I couldn’t turn, couldn’t stop, couldn’t even point my snowboard directly down the hill, but I would be fine. After all, I could do it on skis no problem. Off I went. Once I got to the top, the run did look a lot steeper than it did when I was on my skis, but I wasn’t going to give up now!
Obviously, it was a totally different kettle of fish to the nursery slope. People were fast, the snow was lumpy, my goggles were steamed up from where I’d been crying. I was battered, bruised and oh so totally over it. My rental boots also didn’t fit properly so my feet kept cramping. I was in agony.
I did the only thing I could think of in this situation; unstrap my snowboard, take my boots off (yes on the snow), grab my snowboard and proceed to walk down the mountain. I didn’t care what I looked like, I didn’t care what anyone thought, I didn’t care that my feet were like wet swollen kippers. Anything was better than snowboarding down. I told my boyfriend he could do laps and I would meet him at the bottom.
It took me 2 hours to walk down the mountain.
Fast forward a few weeks and a new pair of boots later, it was a different story. This is why I always say that your boots are the most important part of your set up, and the first thing you should get. Boots can seriously make or break snowboarding.
3. First Competition
We decided to spend our first season in America in Tahoe, and then to fly back for the British Championships in Laax at the end of March. It was going to be my first proper competition and I was nervous, to say the least. My boyfriend knew quite a few riders from the British scene but I was a complete newbie. I remember walking past people and being like “wow that’s so and so”, totally star struck with people that I had been admiring from a far.
I’d entered 2 events, Big Air and Slopestyle. I was focusing on slope-style as I really liked rails and wasn’t so good at jumping, while Big Air was “for the experience”.
Big Air was first. I was petrified. There was a big jump and a little jump to choose from, and I’d chickened out of spinning from the big jump as I was still a pretty sketchy snowboarder. My plan was straight airs and grabs off the big one, and back 3s off the little one. Then Aimee Fuller arrived and went straight into doing MASSIVE backflips off the big dog, I was literally in awe. I had to keep pinching myself that I was riding in the same contest as Aimee Fuller!
We all warmed up. I puked a bit, and was huddling at the top with my good pal Sophie Addison. We both still hadn’t hit the big jump yet and it was time to start the comp.
None of the other girls were really hitting it apart from Aimee so we kind of knew that if we even just attempted it then that would be a good thing. Poor Sophie ended up with something she liked to call “Sloth Face” (battered swollen face) and I wasn’t much better off after my attempt. We had one more go. Both of us managed to land- somehow!
Even though Aimee had nailed every single backflip previously, she unfortunately fell on her comp runs. It was over anyway, and I was so relieved to be (almost) in one piece. At the time, I was seriously considering pulling out of slopestyle to just drink for the rest of the week! To be honest, I had no idea how the judges scored the runs, or that they were looking for.
We rode down to the bottom and waited for the presentation. They called out the girls: 3rd place, then 2nd, then “Katie Blundell” for 1st! I couldn’t believe and this it must have been a massive mistake?! Everyone was looking at me, my boyfriend was pushing me up to the podium, everyone was cheering.
I was so shaky, I couldn’t even clamber up onto the podium. Once I was up there I just looked out at everyone, I didn’t know what to do with myself! What do I do with my arms, how should I stand, where do I look, should I smile, or clap, shake the other girls hands?! It felt like I was in a dream. I’d like to say that this was my moment, but it wasn’t, that came later.
I got the hotel lift back up to my room later on. There were 2 random boys in there that I’d never met before. It was very quiet in the lift, then when the doors opened for me to get out, I overheard them say “That was her, that was Katie Blundell, she’s just won the Big Air”. THAT was my moment!
…Oh, and the slopestyle didn’t go so well, I spun out of control off the slopestyle course, took out the photographer, had to unstrap and walk back up to course, by which point I had missed most of the obstacles. I came last.
4. Girls Magazine Trip To Bear Mountain
A few years into riding, I set off on my first official all girls magazine shoot with my friends Orla Doolin and Isabel Jones to Bear Mountain. James North from The Reason Magazine was the photographer and we had all spent a long time organizing it, with plans changing constantly.
As with any snowboarding trip, plans had only come together at the very last moment. Orla and Izzy were spending the season in Bear anyway and I was in Breckenridge so I flew from Denver to LA to meet Northy at the airport. Our great friend Si Belson tagged along for the trip too. Northy and Belson are two of my favourite guys in the British snowboard industry, I was stoked to be greeted by them at the arrival gates.
The actual shoot was some of the best few days I’ve had on a snowboard. It was my first time in Bear Mountain and it was so different to Breck. So warm (25 degrees), mega slushy and mega fun. We were all having a ball, playing around in the park, doing some filming, just getting stuff done! It was awesome to ride with the girls too after having not seen them for a while.
One moment that particularly stands out for me is before we had even got to Bear Mountain. I don’t know if any of you have driven up to the resort from LAX, but the drive is beautiful. The views are breath-taking, and coming from freezing cold Breckenridge, the air was warm and lovely.
It was my first taste of spring. The windows were down, the snowboards were packed, anticipation was high. My two faves were up front, I was in the back and the sun was streaming through the windows. Then an amazing, chilled song came on, Mazy Star “fade into you” and it fit the moment perfectly.
In that moment I was happy, content and loving my life. I was completely content with what I was doing and who I was with and the lifestyle decisions I had made, I felt so lucky. Now anytime I hear that song it takes me back to that moment. It was the song that played as I walked back up the aisle when I got married a couple of years later.
5. Landing A Rodeo 7
The Rodeo was a trick that I had put blood, sweat, and tears into learning. I started off doing them on the trampolines at Woodward in Colorado, then I took them to the ramps into the foam pits. When I felt ready (never) I decided I wanted to take them to snow.
I thought going upside-down would come more naturally to me because of my gymnastics background, but it really didn’t. Trying that first inverted trick off a park jump was the scariest thing ever. I obviously didn’t land it first time. So I tried, over and over and over again. I’m pretty stubborn sometimes, which is good for snowboarding I guess, but maybe not so good for your body.
I was so sore and so battered from trying to land those bloody rodeos! Soon, I got to a point where I didn’t think my body could take any more crazy falls. But I told myself I wasn’t going to leave Breck until I had landed one.
I didn’t land one and I left Breck.
I’d headed home to Tignes to see my boyfriend. Naturally, I had really wanted to impress him with my new trick that I had learned riding in America so I was gutted. I was frustrated with myself and with snowboarding.
But, luckily for me there was another perfect jump in Tignes Park to try them on. A second chance for my Rodeos. We were riding with our good mate Les Norris who was coincidently known as the rodeo king! If there was anyone that was going to sort me out it would be him. I was actually over-rotating so he suggested I try a rodeo 7 as I could land back in regular. But I still couldn’t quite get it. Then Les just said one simple thing: just try and do a Melon Grab with it. So I tried it.
I LANDED IT! Rodeo 7 Melon Grab. I cried! THAT was my moment. That feeling of landing something that you have been trying for so long is one of the best feelings you can ever have. Anyone would have thought I had just landed a triple cork by the amount I was smiling. When I landed on my feet and rode away for the first time, I felt like I could give up snowboarding then and there because I had achieved such a big personal goal for me. Plus, we had got it on camera so I never had to do it again. I could retire now!
They made me do it again, just to make sure.
Then I went to the pub.
@katieblundell
