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| Mt Blanc, Chamonix, FranceFriday, 25 April 2003Oooo my head hurts OK, far too much to drink, but hey, it's not every day that you do a thing like that. Besides, for the rest of the week I had either had nothing, or 1/2 a glass of wine in the evening and that was it. With a sore head and dodgy stomach, we spent the last day riding around Les Grands Montets with Neil McNab. After all, how often do you get to spend the day in a resort, freeriding with a pro snowboarder? Neil's super smooth style is definitely something to aspire to, and we picked up his snippets of information on the way. I think most of us had changed our binding settings by the end of the day. In the afternoon Simon and Simon had joined up with us with the camera, and wanted to get some tricks on film. McNab was busting out real smooth backside 180's plus backside and frontside 360's. I started off doing backside 3's as well, and even landed some of them, but soon kicked myself. Here I had the opportunity to video a pro doing big smooth spins, and I was messing around. Saturday, 26 April 2003Oh joy, another early start. Up at 05:30 to get the bus to Geneva for the flight home. I got a great exit seat on the flight so was able to stretch out a bit. Upon landing at Luton, our bags were among the first out, so we were off. 20 minutes after landing we were driving out the car park, and after a welcome cuppa at Champs, I set off again and was back home at a sensible hour. EpilogueAs it turned out, climbing ability was not required. There's no climbing to do in the traditional sense of the word, certainly not on the route that we took, and as I gather, nor on the other 2 routes that we could have taken. It was merely(?) hiking, albeit with crampons over sheet ice on reasonably steep slopes. All that worrying for nothing :) I've written so much here for the trip report, and yet there is so much that I've left out. I'm glad I did the trip, it was an incredible experience. Not just the summit day, but the day before as well, with the sunrise in the mountains. Even if you are not interested in mountaineering, it would be worth considering a trip like this, just for that one time experience. The whole week was a epic week. A phenomenal week. It was the fullest of full-on weeks.
I'd like to thank: all the guys who did the week - Champ, Jon, Simon A (2xs films), Simon G, Neil and Alex; the guides - Alex Perinet, John Morgan, Dave Green and Ralf Tenbrick; and McNab Mountain Sports - Neil, Keith, Martin, Mel and Shelagh. Finally, extra thanks to Jon Regan, who was not only a top buddy for the day, he also handed me a CD with a copy of over 100 photos he'd taken, and gave me his permission to reproduce them on these web pages. Trips like this can be made or broken by the group of people you're doing it with. Our group definitely helped make the trip. I laughed so much it hurt.
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