Dominique Vallée
24.03.2009 | comments [0]
Just got back last night from a 3-week trip to beautiful Euro land. The whole trip all started in Italy for the Elan Chicas camp and once again it was just amazing.I got there a few days early since I was coming from Montreal and then the bad weather came in with lots and lots of rain but it meant lots of snow in the mountains. Alberto, the Italian Artec/Elan distributor who was putting on the entire camp had to take care of me since I was there alone till the whole crew rolled in a few days later. We had an amazing powder day discovering the mountain in almost too deep snow. By Thursday night, the girls, Sami the photographer and Dragan rolled in right on time for a massive Italian dinner at our hotel. Woke up the next morning with once again lots of snow and decided to go explore a few spots on our 4 wheels snow machine that we had for the day. The sun peaked out by early afternoon and made things picture perfect but dangerous for avalanches. We got out of the woods and decided to go hit the mountain and the girls did a wall ride in the tunnel. Made for a sweet shot with all the flashes at night.
Day 2 we went to Jurassic Park and rode with all the local Italians and started out Chicas camp with about 20 ladies and then that night we judge a rail contest and gave the sweet Elan prizes at the disco that night where more then shirts went down on the dance floor…till the wee hours of the morning for some of our crew.
Day 3 was a bit of a later start with the Chicas camp still in full effect with all the girls hitting rails and jumps. After lunch Lisa, Conny and I went to hit this church drop in one of the near by villages to get another shot. It was pretty fun and so peaceful till Lisa scared us all on her last jump. She was fine but we all decided to call it after that one. We packed all our stuff and everybody hit the road to go back home. I had one last amazing pizza with Alberto before he dropped me off for my night train for Vienna. I was sad to leave everybody again and already thinking about next year’s reunion.
Off to Vienna for 2 days, then took a plane to Barcelona to go up to La Molina for a Half Pipe World Cup. Got there 2 days later because of so many plane delays but the weather was perfect and the pipe was soft even at 8 in the morning. Had fun riding the slush and the contest went ok, 11th, but still I wanted to do better. That afternoon we took the train back to Barcelona to go stay with friends. That night I realized how little the Spanish eat and they mostly drink. I didn’t feel that good the next morning but only remembered I had an amazing night. We toured around for 3 amazing days.
Tuesday morning we took a flight to Milan, rented a car and off to Portofino for a day to see the Italian coast. Wow!!!!!! And it was dead season so it was even better. The next day we drove up to Valmalenco in the middle of crazy Milan traffic that never ends and went back for the World Cup Finals. This time it was a bit colder then the past few days so the whole mountain was just really icy. I had a hard time in this pipe with the backside not having enough vert. I feel so hard about 10 times, decking every time I would do a backside trick. I finished 10th this time which puts me in a good spot for the Olympics for next year.
Once again we left that afternoon and decided to go to Como Lake for our last day. Crazy beautiful and felt like I was in a movie. Spent my last afternoon walking Milano were the streets were so busy you could barely go anywhere. Finally I flew out of Malpenza yesterday morning to go back to Montreal.
It was the busiest, yet the most amazing European adventure ever.
Here are a few photos of the Chicas Camp and the rest.
Ciao
Dom
xx
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