Onboard Global Snowboarding

Onboard Blogs - Melanie Schönthier

Mission almost completed?

March 22, 2007 @ 12:07 PM -

All over the resort Val d’ Isere you can see green, orange, turquoise or purple points (pro riders) shoveling huge kickers in the backcountry and black points (photographers) waiting for the perfect light/ moment/ rider - the Quest for the Holy Cover is still on! As the weather was too bad for the park to be shaped, the riders had to be creative in the last days: In stormy and freezing cold (minus 13 degrees) conditions, the crews searched the backcountry of the resort for good kicker spots. It has been a while since I helped building a kicker and after one hour of digging out heavy snow blocks together with Onboard’ s photographer Sami Tuoriniemi and riders Tobi Strauss, Marco Concin and Antti Seppälä, I was pretty much done and escaped with the excuse of buying chocolate for everybody at the closest restaurant (that this would take 30 minutes was no intention, really!). It seemed as we had found the perfect spot as the snow storm was everywhere but not here so after some more shoveling (including the wake up of a mouse that probably had hold her winter rest and was so shocked of seeing snowboarders that she/ he made a nice little poo on Tobi’s white glove), the boys played a round of “Paper, Scissor, Stone” to find their guinea pig – Antti lost. A smooth landed straight air later and Tobi couldn’ wait to get up as well. Here some impressions of this session (Thanks Sami!)… <div class="full clearfix">Tobias Strauss, niiiiiiice Stalefish. Picture: Sami Tuoriniemi</div> <div class="full clearfix">Antti Seppälä trying to find the mouse with an Indy. Picture: Sami Tuoriniemi</div> As some crews were building kickers in the storm and waiting for a weather improvement, others didn’ t even went up on the mountain but cruised around town to find something “interesting”. As I know from “secret sources”, they were successful and found drops, rails, sculptures and more! We don’t know yet who will get the cover but Scalp is still a hot bet – I haven’ t seen him for three days now as he is out all the time and shooting, shooting, shooting! Just got this Email from him yesterday: Hi guys, No good weather today so no kicker but... Some pretty sick stuff again courtesy of Aymeric Tonin, Arthur Giraud and Nico Diaz. And the BS Air is maybe even the best shot I did so far. The quest is still on... Cheers, Scalpino He even missed the poker night yesterday which Onboard’ s Youri won after three hours! Patrick Huber still can’ t believe his perfect poker face… Today the weather finally got better and suddenly you could see all the huge booters that the crews have built in the last days. Within only two hours the photographers got more shots than the three days before! Youri will probably tell you more about it in his next blog as I went with Sami, Marco and Antti again to find a spot for a nice powder shot. Unfortunately we weren’ t that lucky, especially Marco who hiked about 30 minutes to make two turns on one centimeter of powder! But the Quest is still on for two days – hopefully the Onboard Party tonight will not destroy too many riders… Live life to the fullest – Mel