If you ever wondered what happens on an Our Camp snowboarding summer camp, wonder no longer, we've got the low down straight from the horses mouth. Well, the campers mouths...
Alena is from Stuttgart, in Germany; this is her fourth Our Camp. With her friend Simone, from Cologne, she drove over from Germany to Les Deux Alpes on Saturday, in blisteringly hot weather and heavy-as, start of Les Grandes Vacances, traffic. They arrived at camp base, the charmingly-named Sick and Mental hostel, on Saturday night, in time for some home cooking from the Sick and Mental boys and the Our Camp welcome meeting. “Normally in summertime in Germany everybody’s going to the beach and at work they all ask me, Why are you going to the snow? And I’m just - I just love it. They are calling me crazy but I work in a bank: I sit in an office all the time and it’s so amazing to be out in the fresh air all day with friends. It’s worth driving fifteen hours; we’d drive even longer to come here and have a cool week and meet other girls who are snowboarding...
When we arrived, we had a really good meal and a great tarte au framboises – oh yes, and amazing goody bags with goggles and a hoody and a tshirt. The bags were Animal backpacks and vanity cases, all different. Simone and I knew which bags we’d really like, but to make it fair we each had to pick a lottery ticket that matched a bag. The funny thing was that everybody on the camp got the bag that they had secretly wanted – it was like destiny! We played pool and bowling on the Wii and it felt like we were already in our holiday, straight away. Even though we didn’t know the other girls it was as if we were already all part of the same group, like we’d all known each other for a long time.
This morning Simone and I woke up really early; we wanted to be the first because we were so excited about going up. We were so early that breakfast wasn’t out yet! It takes about 35 minutes to get up to the glacier from Les Deux Alpes village. We were up the mountain by 9.30am; it was already really hot and slushy. We stretched and warmed up, which is really important and an Our Camp tradition. Then we did a few warm up runs to get used to being on our boards again after three months, cruising around on the piste and practising our 180s.
Then we headed to the park. We started with a line of four 3m kickers; because the snow was so slushy you had to take a lot of speed. Next was the pipe. It was so slushy and so easy to get high up the walls that I loved it, but they closed it at 11 because it was getting so slow. We’re going to go there earlier tomorrow. Then we did smaller kickers to practise different grabs: my aim this week is to get a high 180 with a solid grab – I didn’t make it today but I’m getting closer.
We ended the day with backside and frontside boardslides on the boxes. Usually I 50-50 on and then turn, but this time I finally made myself jump straight into the slide, because I saw Katie do it first. She fell, but she was fine, so I thought, okay, I want to do it too. First time I fell and it didn’t hurt, second time I didn’t fall but wasn’t satisfied, third time I fell again and the forth time I made it and came out switch. That’s the thing about the camp: everybody is trying new stuff, so it’s easier to convince yourself to go for it: you always think, okay, I want to do it too.”
Want to go on camp? Visit Our Camp to find out more.
Like that? Read this: Nitika Chiquitas Girls Skateboarding Camp in Pardubice, Czech | Girlie Camp Prague Skateboard Video
