Béal - Snowkite Session 24

The first real good powder finally hit our homespots, so it was time to get the dust out of my Manta kites and snowgear and see if I still remembered how it's done! It had been since March 2010 that I hadn't touched the white stuff...

(photos by Patrick)

Man, it felt so great! Even if we only went for a 2 hour ride, it was good to be back out on the fresh snow... For me and another friend, it was the return to snowkiting after injuries, so we had a big smile at the end (I thought it even deserved a Photoshop tweak)...

Time to find a new toy!

Today I sold my RRD Type9 12m kite... I must confess I almost had a little tear in my left eye, seeing it go away with it's new owner! It was the very first kite I bought and I had a lot of great times with it.

But it's time to move on, especially since this Summer/Autumn marked my return to kiting, after almost a year off due to injury. So, I leave you with a pretty photo of my old companion (the first one I took, when I took it out of the bag for the first time!), while I go "surf" the web for my new toy!

Finally back on the water!

Well, this post has been a long time coming... After (seemingly never-ending) months away from my kites, I finally got the doctor's "OK" for getting back on the water! My 12m had a lot of dust, but it was still ready to ride.

It was only for two small sessions, 'cause I have to get slowly "back on the horse", since my herniated disk problem is not 100% recovered. But it just felt so great...

The conditions where great for a comeback: 14 to 18 knots side-on, with only small waves and (almost) no other kite on the spot.

If you're wondering where it is, just Google "Praia de Moledo" or "Caminha". A beautiful strip of sand on the top North of Portugal. In the photo below, the spot is on the left facing the ocean. The hill you see in a lot of the pictures is already Spain, separated by the mouth of the river Minho.

A portuguese Kitetrip - the movie!

Finally, I've finished editing the video from our trip in Mai/June 2010! You can watch it here, but I advise going to Vimeo to see it in HD, full screen and with the sound up! Enjoy... ;)

It's not just kite all the time, but I think it has a nice rhythm and a good vibe so, hopefully, you'll enjoy it as much as those who where there.

A day at the Lautaret Pass

My friend Fred is getting better by the second at filming and editing his videos, so here's a good example of the great progress he's doing. Enjoy!

A breath of warm air in the middle of the Winter

Well, no being able to bring you my usual joyous adventures, I post a very cool video from a group of my friends that went to Guadeloupe to give a nice jump-start to 2011. Enjoy!

A cold birthday...

Being forbidden to kite due to injury, I thought about celebrating my birthday in our snowkite "homespot", at the Col des Supeyres, since there's not much chance that I'll be coming here often this winter...
It was a fun opportunity to see the spot with different eyes and enjoy a nice weekend with friends.

This winter has been quite weird, with an heavy snowfall in December, followed by a steep rise in temperatures that melted everything... Now, temperatures a freezing again, but there's no precipitation, so it was quite strange to see the spot with almost no snow at this time of the year. Even so, we found a tenacious rider that didn't get discouraged by the less than 2 cm of white!

(all photos are from Olive)