Béal and Supeyres - Snowkite Sessions 35 & 36

There have been big snowfalls this last week, so I took a couple of days to check our usual spots of Béal and Supeyres. Tuesday, the wind was quite strong and allowed for some nice runs, but with the low visibility we decided not to stray very far from the parking space at Col du Béal. The photos from this session where really lousy, so I just post here a couple of the shots from the "bonus run", at the end of the day, when we decided to snowboard down the road to the first village, since there was more than enough snow paving the way!

On Thursday, with much better weather on the forecast after another night snowing heavily, I headed with a couple of friends to Col des Supeyres, to taste the fresh powder...

Unfortunately, even if we where offered some sun and great snow, the wind never really picked up and remained quite light all day long, so it kind of felt we where kiting in slow motion...

Still, it was a fun day between friends and it sure beated being at work! And with more snowfall to come in the next few days, we'll soon go again for more!

Béal - Snowkite Session 32

Sun and strong wind for a super day! Despite all the snow melting away with the unusually warm temperatures, there was still plenty of space to fool around. Great freeride session with a super fun jump session as the sun was going down. Big up for Telma, doing her first good runs up and downwind, with Fred looking proudly at his girlfriend's exploits!

Béal - Snowkite Session 30

A cool day finding lines between the patches of grass! It was probably the last day this spot was still explorable, at least until it snows again (the unusually hot temperatures of the last days have taken it's toll). It was still a lot of fun, especially following Steph around to find small lines of snow between grass, trees and rocks (thumbs up for the little river covered in glass and snow; it required some technical kite flying to follow the stream). And the stronger wind in the morning allowed me to use my 8m Manta, that doesn't come out of the bag often (I think I use the 12m one 90% of the time)!

 

You can find a part of the GPS track here (I forgot to turn it on after the lunch break, so there's a part missing).

Supeyres to Béal - the connection!

This session was a long awaited dream! Even if the snow was quickly melting away through the day due to a sudden rise in temperatures, the wind was blowing constantly and with the right direction to finally try the connection between the Supeyres Pass and the Beal Pass, our 2 "home spots" in the Forez region of France.
It was a cool and amazing ride, even if we had some tricky passages... But we did it and everyone went home with a big smile (it was the first Supeyres-Beal connection for 4 of the 5 of us)!

Olive soulriding...

Happy to arrive at the antennas!

 Olive's kite had a (too) close encounter with a tree...

A panoramic with a "ghost" rider (click to see larger)

(and a couple of other photos from Olive)

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)...

Béal - Snowkite Session 6

A mostly sunny day, strong winds and lots of powder! What more can a guy ask for?

Béal - Snowkite Session 5

A very cool session, not long, but with great conditions, good wind and powder!

Béal - Snowkite Session 2

Just a week later, I was back for more, under the same weather conditions...