It’s been a longgg time.. Shame on me! But back with a lill edit and recap from last year!

I’m not gonna make it too long, cause most of it already happend quite a while ago. I will give you guys a quick overlook about my summer, last years contests and ski trips together with some pictures! For being more up to date, just add me on facebook 😉

My summer was pretty mellow, with a lot of working (I’m working as windsurf teacher), windsurfing myself, riding with my horse, chilling out and partying with friends. Even made a 2 week holiday to Fuerteventura!

Beginning of summer we had 2 ski contests. One was the Skullcanday Railbattle in Zoetermeer. Which was pretty awesome like every year!! Even managed to get in 1st place!! 😀

Later on there was the Plastic Fantastic Railbattle on a dry slope. Really scary, sketchy, but soooo much fun!! Managed to put down a decent run for 1st spot again! 😀

After summer holidays there was the Antwerpen Railbattle!! It was the first time I was able to compete in this one, and it was sickk! A nice set up inside a big factory with a good vibe!

Around autumn the indoor riding started again! Also with a little indoor opening ski contest, called the Xtream team contest. It’s not really a big comp, but just some shredding around with a bunch off friend. And I even won a golden medal for it 😉

Beginning of november I went on a trip to Solden with the guys from Edgetrading. Helping them out in the stand so all the dealers could test some K2 & Ride stuff! Was a super fun trip to start of the season, so thanks a lot I could come with you guys!!

Start of december we got ourself a new member in the family, a second horse. My sister will start training him during the winter and hopefully we can make some big trail rides with both of them during spring!

During the Christmas holidays I started off together with my parents. Little ski trip to france. Was good to be with the family during the christmas days! Halfway their holiday I went back home alone, to pack my stuff and leave to Breckenridge, CO!!

This year was the first time I was in Breck later in the season. They didn’t had much snow, but the parks where still pretty good! I had an amazing time and never met so many new friends in such a short time!! Still missing them all, but hopefully I’ll see them again somewhere next year?!

After Breck I had a month at home to catch up with some schoolwork, before the Dutch Champs would be. These weeks I skied a lot in the indoor dome, trying to work out the new stuff I’ve learned in Breck. I was basically jumping, which haven’t felt so good in years. Managed to learn some new grabs in my spins and it all felt sooo comfi. Couldn’t be more happy with my progress! But.. unfortunately I broke my collar bone 1 week before the Dutch Champs.. It happend really stupid on the indoor jump, caught an edge on the nuckle and did a mellow belly/pinguin slide into the landing. Sooo no Dutch Champs for me. Still went to Laax to see how the rest was killing and had one sick week with good friends!

Right now I am back home, healing up my shoulder and hopefully I can start skiing again real soon!! Now time for some school stuf…

Here is a little rail edit I made from some footage I had lying around from the 2011-2012 season. Nothing special, but hope you will like it anyway!

Dutch Championship Madness!

Well.. Where should I start..

One week ago, I had a reunion party on my old high school. It was fun to see the old building, teachers and lots of friends again! We almost got our whole class together and saw some funny movies we made for our Latin class a long time ago, which was all pretty cool! For me it was the same story as I had to tell my friends a lot of times when I was still in school… ‘sorry guys, I can’t come to the party tonight, I am off to the mountains for some skiing!!’. What a shame.. 😉

So indeed, a few hours later I was in the car with my parents on our way to Laax, Switserland, for the Dutch Championships! Better called as ‘Snowfest’! We drove through the night and Sunday morning, still bit shaky from the ride I was up in the gondola!

Sunday was our slopestyle training day, but as it was really foggy and cloudy, we couldn’t ride the course until 2 in the midday. So after a little waking up, jibbing morning, we could easy get used to the jumps in the afternoon and around 4 we where all at the bottom tired from a sweet first day riding!

Monday was Slopestyle day and luckily it was bluebird!! Girls skiers had a half our training with all the youth snowboarders and  youth skiers, which should be fine. But unfortunately, 2 of the jumps we wanted to ride, just opened this morning. We weren’t able to train them on Sunday, so now we needed a bit more time to get used to them and feel safe. The run I had in mind was pretty sweet and should have been able for me with a little bit more time, but yeah, you gotta do it with what you got.. After 3/4 training runs I managed to get good speed for the 4 jumps, but didn’t do any spins so far.. The other problem was that the speed was changing every minute, as we started with all icy jumps in the morning, the 15 degrees heat.. turned it al into a lotttt of slush really quickly..

So well, lucky me (NOT!) I had to start the first.. Which didn’t went so well. I didn’t managed to do my K-fed on the box (front switchup, blind 270 out), so I had to do a revert before the 1st hit. Hit the 1st jump with an 180, landed a little sketch why I couldn’t get into control good enough, within the 3 meters time, to hit the 2nd jump switch.. So I skipped it.. and nailed two more spread eagle straight airs on the 3th and 4th jumps… 1st run down…
Before the 2nd run I had a lot of doubt.. should I try to do the same run, with bigger chance of not sticking it.. or should I go for a safe run, with a few of the same tricks in one run.. I decided that I wanted to bring a higher level of tricks to a Dutch girls competition and went for the run I was going for in the first time.
Pretty much stressed out, but sort of focussed I hit the first box with a clean K-fed, straight for the first jump with a 180 safety grab, switch for the 2nd big take off, switch 180..which unfortunately was pretty out of control.. (but landed), going for the 3th, but was to unsure about my speed so went for a straight air and into the 4th with another 180 with grab.. Not completely as I had planned, cause the straight should have been a 3 and the last 180 a 5… but well gotta live with it now haha! Even though I still think I kinda fucked up, I am happy I did it this way. Did managed to do my first sw1 over a propper size jump and to stick my K-fed clean under stressing circumstances. And unexpected I even got on the podium on 2nd place, so yeah STOKED!

All our ski parents for the support! 🙂

Ohoh….

Oohh yesh!

Monday night was the first opening party with ‘Ski Leraar Bruin Money Gang’, a Dutch rap crew. It was just insane. Crowd surfing, throwing shots, ripping T-shirts, scratches.. The whole place and all the people got trashed.

Tuesday.. For the most people this was hangover day.. Luckily I didn’t drink the other night, so pretty early I started skiing with a lill group. The whole day we’ve been cruising the park, filming a little bit and enjoyed the nice weather! Another good day riding!
In the afternoon Snowfest organised a Railbattle for skiers and snowboarders at the base of the slopes.  It went down really hard, especially for the skiers cause we where with twice as much as the snowboarders! Skiers reprezent!! 😀 For the girls skiers I think we had our first real railbattle ever with a decent railing level, which was sick to see! Isabeau throwing 2’s out the down rail and box, Hilde doing her first Lipslide on, on the pretty steep and high downbox and I got my K-fed down in my last hit of the battle! Together with my 2’s out of the rail and box and front swup’s on the box, they decided I even got the win! A nice pair of… socks! hahahaha 😀
This night, no big party’s, but just a little drink with the whole ski crew!

Waiting to drop..

Downrail

Hilde Pater

Dennis Emmerzaal. Winner of the guys!

Wednesday we decided to take the first lift up to practice big air the whole day and even do some filming. We did managed to train big air for a couple of hours, but once again it was a hard job with the changing speed. Also the weather wasn’t really helping, cause of the fog and clouds you could not always see the jump clearly.
This night it went down with Flexican, one of the best DJ’s in whole Holland! Unfortunately, everybody wanted to go to bed early to rest for the big air competition the next day. Hilde and me still made it till around 3 in the night with some dancing, but we did had a hard time getting up the next day..

Thursday.. clouds.. pouring rain.. fog.. perfect day for big air isn’t? After a few calls from the organization at the top of the mountain, we heard the the sight in the park was oke and the contest should be on.. so all up in the gondola..

Perfect!

Real stoked.. haha

At the park all skiers came together and decided we would give it a try to check out the speed for the medium jump. Everybody tried to stay positive, but the slush from the days before was frozen up to a solid ice layer, topped off with a little bit of fresh snow, which together with the warm rain/snow made the snow super sticky and slow. After a few runs the speed was ‘oke'(still changed every 5 minutes), but the judges decided that they could see the jump clear enough so we had to ride.. Not really stoked we went up to the inrun, from where we couldn’t see the take off caused by some bigg foggy clouds.. After another 15 minutes of sitting, waiting and making jokes about what kind of competition would be better in this conditions (who can crash the harders, who can slide the fastes on his ass, who can loose his ski’s the fast, who can knuckle the jump the best, etc.) organisation said we had to start. We still couldn’t see the jump and all skiers together made the decission not to ride. In this weather the risk on injuries became a lot bigger and with a group of mostly unexperienced young skier kids it would have been dangerous and unfair to ride. Nobody would have been able to show a good level and as this wasn’t an official FIS comp for the skiers, we didn’t felt any pressure to ride in this kind of weather.
The judged didn’t really agreed with us, but well.. sorry FIS guys, for us the Dutch Champs is more about a fun and good competition than about who has the biggest balls to take the biggest risk, just to get on the podium.

We got a lot of positive compliments about our decission from parents of little snowboard kids.. cause the whole snowboard big air was still going.. with a lot of guys and girls landing on the tables of the 8 and even on the 18-20m big jump.. it wasn’t exactly safe to ride..

Riders meeting

The inrun…

Perfect isn’t it?

On Thursday night Snowfest organised a Protest Night Ride. Hilde and I decided to do go snowboarding, and I was soooo happy we did!
The evening started at the bottom with Monster/Vodka drinks for everyody. When we where all there, everybody went up with the little gondola’s. In one of the little gondola’s even was a hidden ‘Ticket to Hell’, good for a Protest goodie bag! At the top we al gathered together and ride down the dark slopes trough the forest. That on itself was allready pretty cool, cause you couldn’t see shit! 😀 And halfway the mountain they organised a ‘little’ party in a restaurant. The whole place was turned into a scary halloween kinda look and on the slope was a Yeti walking around. The Monster&Vodka went crazy pretty fast and so was the party! When it started raining the crowd moved inside, where the tables and chairs where used for perfect dance-stages. The whole SLBMG was there together with Flexican, but this time not behind the DJ Boot, but going wild on the dance floor! The party was suppose to be till 11 in the night.. but at 1 there where still people skiing/snowboarding down the mountain from the restaurant back to base camp. The only thing I can say now.. If you weren’t there.. you missed the REAL Snowfest party!

Ready to go up!!

Party Place!

Flex going for some crowd surfing!

Sef cheering for Martijn, the man of the organisation!

Erik and Menno rocking the D-floor! Even on crutches!

Big time fun! And I was sooo happy with my snowboard boots. A lot more dance-able than skiboots!

Friday, last day riding. Being up at the mountain at 9 was a hard one now. Even though I didn’t drink a single drup of alcohol all week.. the short amount of sleep and the much skiing and partying started to pay back.
At the top we found out, that the rumours of the plan from Reinier and Wilko, wheren’t rumours. They DID managed to get an OK from the organisation and they DID find a new licent FIS judge and they where building up everything to organise our own Big Air contest for the skiers! We all helped out a bit with shaping and salting and even though the weather still wasn’t good, we now had lots of time and no pressure. So after more than 1.5 hour of training, our own skier big air jam session started. Everybody was riding really nice and relaxed and lots of guys managed to land some new tricks! Sweet!
For me (think for a lot of us) it didn’t really felt like a contest, but just a really nice opportunity to show that we are a big group of friends, with all the same passion and willing to organise something our selves so we can still pull off a competition under safer circumstances.

Ruben styling it out!

Lukas

Bellie going for a styled out shifty!

Vinnie up side down!

Dennis enjoying some chill hanging time

Sebas tweaking it out!

Me on a 180

Vinnie goin up side down again, but now coming off switch!

Sebba going in for the win!

The whole ski crew! Thanks a lot everybody!!

The Friday prizegiving always is a big one, cause it is the last one. Everybody gathers together to pop the last champagne bottles. I even got to open one myself cause I ended up 1st place on the big air! We where riding with 4 girls and the comp was judged on overal expression. I landed and grabbed my 180 and 3, which got me in 1st.

Rookies podium: 1st Ruben, 2nd Elia, 3th Jelle!

Mens podium: 1st Sebas, 2nd Wilko, 3th lukas

Unfortunately Mees got injured after Slopestyle on monday, so we missed him on the podium for the big air. Luckily he was still capable to rock the dance floor every night of the week!

Girls podium: 1st me, 2nd Hilde, 3th Bellie

Popping Champange!

After prizegiving we went to the Freeestyle Acadamy Hall. Which is a big hall with trampolines, foam pits, skate ramp, ski jump. Super sick!
With some help off the big guys.. or well the young gun kids (Mees, Vinnie and Jelle) Hilde and I started to learn cork seven’s into the foam pit.. Luckily the guys had a lot of patients, cause well.. haha.. we didn’t really got it so fast! 😛 At the end I did managed to do the beginning part of the spin really properly on the tramp, so stoked on that. And even tried some flips, didn’t quite worked out either, but he, it’s a start! 🙂

Friday night I had to pack all my stuff into the car before my parents let me go to the party. So all tired from the whole week, stoked but al beat up by the trampoline session and stressed from the quick packing, I finally got at the party! The first party I was NOT with the car! Jeah, finally time for a little beer drinking! Once again this party was just insane! We had a huge group together on the dance floor and we all went down till late in the night!!! Best closing party ever!

After the party I got picked up by my dad, drove to the appartment, changed, back into the car and we drove straight back to Holland. I pretty much woke up in front of our home. Still tired from the party and the whole week, happy that I could see my good old own bed really quickly!

Thanks to Bob Pernot for some of the pictures!

Getting back into this skiing thing

Here’s a quick update of what I’ve been doing last weeks. Tomorrow I got, once again, an other exam.. So I gotta keep this update short.

I just found out today that a little interview I had with a girl from my University is now out in our University magazine. Down here is the link, check it out!!

Click to access 5925.pdf

For the rest I’ve spend most of my days in school, but after that, I managed to make some good hours of skiing a few evenings a week in our indoor dome. We just got a pretty sick new summer park with lots of nice rails and boxes.

I’ve basically been working on just 1 or 2 tricks every evening I was skiing and my goal was to land a certain trick 5 times clean in a row, before I could try another trick. It didn’t always worked out, cause something you just don’t have your day for that specific trick. But it did got my mindset pretty focussed and I managed to get a few new tricks on lock.

Last weekend I competed in two small rail competitions which where both super fun! The first one was the Ski Junkies Railbattle in The Hague. It was a set up of a downrail, down box and a dubbel kink which where all in really good shape! We had an half hour hiking jam session together with the boys and after that an other 20 minutes final session. Unfortunately we where just with 3 girls, but yeah.. it was super fun anyway! I didn’t managed to do any new tricks, but did got enough to take the win! 🙂

The second contest was the Jibsy Kings railbattle. This competion is a slopestyle rail course with on top a down box and a down rail, than a dub kink raill and a up pipe, followed by a sick tank and the course ended with an other down rail and donkey dick rail. Pretty sick he?! 😀
This contest was more a snowboard contest, so all skiers got together in one heat and we got a pretty strange final, cause by some snowboard judges.. I ended up as the best girl, competing in the final against the top 4 men.. And they placed me 2nd on the overall podium, while the guys where trowing down some pretty big stuff.. So yeah.. that wasn’t judged normal at all, but once again, we all had a super fun day riding in a nice park!

Italy!

Right now I am one week home after a week trip to Italy for a Dutch ski magazine, the White. It was a really nice week, with lots of sun, eating, chilling and skiing. The resort is really nice and the funpark in Obereggen is super sweet and shaped perfect! Unfortunately we had a lot of wind the whole week, so we couldn’t jump the kickers that much. During the week I had to study a lot, cause I had to make one exam while I was over there and luckily the exam went well (I think..)! Right now I finished one week of school and upcoming week is a week free of lessons.. So.. maybe I will go for an other trip with my parents! I am not sure yet, cause I got (once again..) a lot of schoolwork to do 😦
Down here are a few random pictures of the week and make sure to check out the article what will come in The White next autumn!

Road Tripping!

It’s now more than a month ago that I came back home from the States. The 3 weeks I had in Breckenridge where amazing and I managed to ski a lot! I was a perfect way to start the winterseason, to get it all back and sort of warm up for the upcoming months.

Once I got back in Holland it was a big change, it was December, but the temperatures where still like autumn. Easy weather, no snow or coldness. I went straight into a week of studying and exams, but luckely after that week it was Chrismas holidays!

For the holidays my parents, sister and my dog went to do some roadtripping with the camper. At first we went to the camping in Flumet, it’s a small village close to megeve, with a pretty nice (and especially cheap) ski resort. We’ve spent the first two days chilling in the sun and riding some old ‘fresh’ pow. It’s insane to see that other ski area’s are fully packed with people during the holidays, but out here there was just nobody! So even the last dump of snow was already a week ago, there where still lots of new tracks to make!

After this first stop we went on to Switserland, Ovronnaz. We found a good parking spot in the village where you could perfectly camp for the night. We bought a ski ticket which included the posibility to go into the swimmingpool of a big Spa resort. So after a day on the road and a day skiing, it was nice to take a swim and a shower!
The ski resort of Ovronnaz is pretty cool, but kinda crowded.. We once again had a perfect day of bluebird, but this day the temperatures raised high above freezing level.. We saw a lot of avalanches coming down on the sunsides of the hills. After some family cruising we found a really nice hill in the shade, where you could safely ride some really nice lines! Only to get there was a lill tricky,  but all went good!
After a good skiing day and a perfect swim we decided to ride down, cause the weather forcast said a lot of snow was coming in later that night.. and with the camper and the steep pass down from Ovronnaz.. it was the best to get down while it was still possible.

That night we drove up to Adelboden, in the hope that the next morning the weather wasn’t to bad.. But we woke up with a blanket of 20cm white stuff all over the mountain and a sky full off fog.. After some discussions we decided that skiing in Adelboden wasn’t really worth the money with this bad sight and as there was a lot more snow aspected, we made the choice to drive back down and and drive to St. Anton, Austria.

Once we got in Petneu (a small village a lill further than St. Anton) we found a big and nice camper place/camping. In the meantime that day we already had about at least 40cm fresh snow and it wasn’t stopping. So Robina and I went to bed early to wake up the next morning with something like a meter of freshies outside of the camper. Together we went skiing that day in St. Anton. My parents, as much as they like fresh snow, decided to stay down, cause you couldn’t see more than one meter anyway. They spent that day laughing about our dog who has a seriously insane crush on SNOW! He can’t get his head out of it.
Robina and I spent that day rolling and laughing on the mountain, it was not normal how many snow there was and you needed really steep hills to get enough speed for some turns.
The next day it was still snowing like crazy, but we decided to stay down and take a long walk in town and enjoying the white view. The actual plan was to drive to Mayrhofen for New Years Eve, but as it was snowing so good in St. Anton we stayed there, to ride some good pow on Sunday.. Unfortunately the plan changed, at it started raining like crazy Saterday evening and it didn’t stopped until Sunday midday. So Robina and I spent New Years Eve soaking wet of the rain in the town of St. Anton..

The next plan was to pack our stuff and drive further east. So we ended up that Sunday night at the parkingplace of one of the gondola’s in Fiss (Ausria). The next morning the weather was pretty good, so we all went up to cruise around. I heard some good stories about the funpark in Serfaus, so I was super excited to check it out! When we finally found it it wasn’t that spectacular, there where a lot of rails, but it took you more than 15min to get up with the lift for maybe 4 or 5 rails in a row. So ended up with some more family cruizing through the area.
That night they again said it was going to snow, so we packed in and drove down to Mayrhofen. By now it was already Wednesday, so we wanted to go skiing that day, party that night (cause it was my Bday) and drive through the next morning.
My sis,  my dad and I where all ready to go, but when we saw the webcams from the view up at Penken and talked to some people who where coming down, we once again decided it was a waste of money. It was super foggy, reallly crowded and not really good snow.. ass Mayrhofen didn’t had that much snow yet. So back to the camper, made it a nice chilling day and went out for dinner and a lill drink in Scotland Yard later that night.

The next morning it was still shit weather, so packing and driving up to Zell am See. The last hour we drove through some pretty bad snow weather, but luckily all went good and we found a nice parkinspot next to a closed company building in Kaprun. The night it was snowing like crazy again, so we wanted to ride some powder in de resort of Zell am See the next morning.. So after a sketchy ride down with the camper we made it, changed, got ready and wanted to buy some tickets.. But once again.. more than half of the area was closed because of the storm, so wayyy to many people where skiing on just a few slopes and you couldn’t see shit.. So back to the camper, change again and took a really nice long walk to the city with the fam, which was super nice too!

This Saterday was the last day of our trip, I spend that day in town where I competed in a lill railbattle. In final we where with 5 girls, which wasn’t so bad!! The organisation on the other hand was one big chaos.. Some subscribed but the organisation couldn’t find the forms, there was no time schedule, so everybody was just waiting in the snow/rain some for more than 4 hours, not knowing when to ride. We asked the judges and they told us that the top 3 girls where going on to finals. But in the end it turned out all the girls where in finals anyway..
In training I wasn’t riding so good, but when I had to ride quali I managed to do some tricks. The setup was cool but kinda scary. At the bottum you had two meters until the fence, so offcourse when I landed switch I couldn’t stop on time so I had nice flight to the other side of the fence into the street! 😀
After quali’s I had to wait for another 4 or 5 hours until we could finally ride finals. Finals was with all 5 girls, 10 minutes. Isabelle (also from the Netherlands) and I where pretty much riding the same. We both managed to do a blind 2 out of the top rail, her’s was a bit cleaner, but she couldn’t manage to do a trick on the box at the bottum. My blind 2 wasn’t that clean, but I did managed to do a front 2 in the same run at the box down (counting was about the best run, so not overall impression). As the other 3 Austrian girls where doing there best but didn’t managed to do anything more than just riding the rail without tricks, Isabelle and me found out the 1st spot would have been between us two. So we where both pretty stoked!
We both got a lots complements about our riding and it was lots of fun, cause we where really pushing each other. But apparently the judges who couldn’t really see the bottum box, where doing drinking games during the judging, wheren’t really that serious.. Cause with prize giving it turned out, Isabelle got 1st and I ended up 4th.. So that means riding out a down rail to normal without doing any trick is more point than riding a rail to switch, or with a blind 270out together with a front 270 out in 1 run..  At first I really thought it was me, that apparently I skied so damn ugly, but I don’t know, this was just insane and I felt really bad for my parents. They drove all the way to Zell so I could ride this comp, we stayed till the end of the comp even though my dad had to start his new job on Monday at 7 in the morning and the road where horrible.. So yeah at that point I was kinda over this whole competiting thing, you get more fun and respect about skiing for yourself.  Offcourse not all comps are the same, and I will deff ride some competitions later on, but for now I am kinda done with them.

The ride back home, luckily, went pretty good. Not to much snow on the roads and not so much trafic.

Since then I am at home, going to school a lot, had 2 exams last week, will have one more upcoming week, so it’s pretty stressfull. In the meantime I am skiing twice a week in the indoor slope and I am really focussing on new technical rail tricks. It isn’t going as fast as I hoped, but maybe that because I want to be able to do a certain tricks for at least 5 times clean in a row, before I start focussing on a new trick. You believe you got to have it on lock before you can say you can do it.

This upcoming Saterday I will go to Italy for a week of skiing for a Dutch freeski magazine, I am really looking forward to that, cause I can’t wait to get out in the real snow! I do have to make an exam when I am overthere, but hopefully that works out just fine..

So for now it’s study time and almost packing time! I will get you posted how Italy was!

Winter Wonderland!

Cause that’s what it is out here in the States! Or well I got to say, there isn’t thát much snow.. but when you’re out here riding the perfectly shaped parks in Breckenridge or Keystone.. you seriously feel like you’re in one really big wonderland!

Preparing!

It’s almost 2 weeks ago that I got in to the plane, ready for my first ski trip of this year. And actually I just got 1 more week left.. Time flies when you’re having fun!

Almost ready for Take Off!

The trip from Amsterdam to Philadelphia and throughto Denver went pretty easy without any problems. At Denver I got picked up by a good friend from the Netherlands and his girlygirl out of Breck. Once we got in Breckenridge they dropped me at the place I was going to stay the first 5 nights, together with Tanja from Swiss! She was already there, so after a quick catch up talk, it was bed time! For me the plan was to take it easy the next day and do some shopping, cause I came in really late in the night.. But when we opened the curtains, we didn’t needed a second to decide what to do.. packing our stuff an go skiing! It was completely bluebird and we already heard that the big park in Keystone just opened a couple off days ago. So basically the first 4 days we’ve been riding Keystone in the full sun, with spring temperatures, what more do you want?

Overview of the early season park in Keyston.

They’re blowing like crazy to build the park bigger

Eveline and Tanja chilling in the chair up at Keystone

On the first Thursday we moved out of our first little house and moved into a big nice house where Tanja would stay until mid february together with the Swedish and Norwegian girls. I can only join all of them for a short time, so gotta make the best of it!

A few of the ski’s we got in our house

Last weekend I took the days off from skiing, cause the weather got a little bit bad and with temperatures around -25/-30 I thought it was the best to put some good time into my studying. Since this Tuesday the temperatures got a lot better and so did the weather. The first week I have only been riding Keystone, so this week we wanted to check out Breckenridge too. The park is a little bit smaller, but also realllly nice! Today it was a bit snowy and on those days Breck is the best place to be. We can take the lift up 5min walking from our house and cause there are so many railes, it’s just perfect for some good hiking sessions.

Finally some new snow!

We did some hiking and filming

Every evening I lock myself up in my room for 3 to 4 hours and try to study as much as I can. Upcoming thursday I gotta make an exam over the internet, so hopefully that will work out good. Just got a little more than one week to go out here, so I am now going to hurry with studying for this evening, so I will have enough timeto ski upcoming week! Keep you posted!

Time to get going!

It’s mid November and we’ve had the most sun last few weeks since July.. strange, but what can you do about it eh!

Last 1.5 month I’ve kept myself really busy with the usual stuff, training the horses, my doggie, going to the gym, a lotttt of studying for school, surfing got less and less as the temperatures started to drop and indoor skiing got more and more. It was time to start planning the winter season in combination with my school.. wich always brings a lot of stress and organizing with it.. Mailing the wrong persons, getting send over to an other person and so on and so on.. At the end it’s al worth it, but it takes a lot of work to get a few weeks free, to switch some exam dates and even to make one exam in the states. Cause yes, that’s where I will be going soon, really soon!!

In 2.5 days I will be flying to Breckenridge CO again! This year I will be going without my sister, cause she decided to spend her money for a 3 months South Africa kitesurf trip, not to bad either!! I am really looking forward to be back in Breck again, most of all cause I will be staying with some really good friends from Swiss and Sweden! Tanja, Maria, Emma and Nina! We will have a house of just ski chicks, so that will be awesome!

I will stay in the States for just 3 weeks, cause I have to be back one week before Christmas for two exams.. Christmas time I will be with my parents, so that’s nice! We will probably go on a lill ski/family trip to Austria!

Once I am on my way to Breck I will keep you all posted more frequently!

Down here are some video’s and pictures from Giolo his first Agility contest, a few training edits of the progression of Keisho after his back problems and from an Endurance ride at the ‘Dutch-Joy’ Stables in the Ardennen in Belgium.

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Lill contest

At our own dogschool

Summer holiday is over..

It’s been a few months since my last post and basically that’s because i’ve been pretty busy enjoying my summer! My whole holiday i’ve been teaching kids how to windsurf  at the GO-Surf windsurfschool close to my home http://go-surf.nl/ It is super fun and chill work!

My time off i’ve been helping at the dog school with the agility lessons and I’ve kept on training agility with my own dog.

http://www.werkhondentraining.nl/jcms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97:even-voorstellen-&catid=45:algemeen&Itemid=128

Further i’ve been working with the two horses.  With one i’m just riding outdoors on the beach and with the other we’re now able to ride him again. He got a new western saddle and he’s just doing great!!

As the summer in Holland wasn’t exactly sunny, we did had a lot of wind. So almost every week we had some really good surfing days!

Since two weeks school started again and it’s back to stress, planning, organizing but also.. back to skiing! I’m really looking forward to upcoming winter, my knee’s are feeling great and I just can’t wait to go on a trip!!

Down here some random pictures of my summer!

VU university interview

Overhere the interview I told you about! It’s on the website of my university. Check it out!

http://www.vu.nl/nl/over-de-vu/sport/topsport/vu-topsporters/canisia.asp

Skullcandy Railbattle 2011 went down!

Like I said in my previous post, Skulcandy railbattle was coming up and what can I say.. It went down! We weren’r exactly lucky with the weather.. the rain was pouring down so it all turned out in quite a dirty mud railbattle. But that couldn’t spoil the fun. The setup was sick as every year (Thanks to Gerben Verweij), the crowd was cheering the riders up and all the riders had a good time.

Quali started with the skiers and as we where just with 2 girls, we could ride together with the guys. The guys tried their hardest to get a spot in the finals, so some hard tricks where pulled out! The level of the skiers is getting better and better every year which is super sick to see! After the skiers it was time for the snowboarders to show what they could. They went just as crazy, which caused a lot of ‘oeeehs’ and ‘aaaaaahs’ screamed out by the crowd.

While all the riders where completely wet and dirty cause of the rain, mud and ‘snow’.. we had an (inside) BBQ in Snowworld to rest out a bit before it was time for.. finals!
Finals started off with the skiers. Isabeau and myself didn’t exactly had to qualify, but could ride finals straight away. Cause of the rain the whole day, the temperatures and the riding, the inrun was more mud than snow.. so not exactly fast anymore. But after some testing by the boys, we girls gave it a try again. It got way more difficult cause of the lack of speed, but it was still some sort of do-able.  In quali I was mostly riding the donkey dick, which went pretty good..  but somehow I got some problems with that rail in finals, so it took my quite a while to get it stable to try a frontside 270 out. Luckily when I finally stand on it good, I managed to pop the 270 out immediately :). The hiking, the pushing to get the speed and the really hard & flat landings started to feel in your body, so I didn’t managed to put anymore tricks down.. But yeah, it was a sick setup, my knee was holding it down super good and I was still alive! 🙂

                                                              Beau and me!

So up to next year! Hopefully we can manage to get some ski sponsors for the event, so there will come more skiers, more prizes and more money for the whole event to make it even bigger than it already is!

Down here is a nice edit Johnny made! He is filming what’s going down every sick event in the Netherlands! So ofcourse he was there to film the action and to do some lill interviews! Check it out!

And a edit of the whole skiers final made by Ruben!