French Ambush rider Nico Antony recently returned from 8 intense days and nights at the Ecrins Massif in the Southern Alps where he was attending a "Wild Splitboard Training Camp". The exact location of the camp was between the "Col du Lautaret" and "La Grave". Teaching them was "a great (but strict) mountain guide" who has been snowboarding since way back in 1983, when only a handful of people in Europe were sliding sideways down mountains. In total the group covered 75km of distance and 12,000m of vertical!
The camp wasn't just about riding lines, in fact most of the time the attendees were learning how to guide a group securely on hard routes where rocks, ice, powder, glaciers and zero visibility are the norm. According to their guide, the group had perfect weather condistions for their course, but perhaps storms every day, 80km/h winds and no visibility beyond 30m wasn't ideal for moral! The group did enjoy one day of blue sky, but they also had to endure a night in an igloo which they built under the snow, after a 1200m climb.
Fortunately Nico was riding his Milligram Split which meant he was able me to save energy for digging, climbing, hiking and staying alive. In Nico's own words "It's so easy to go up with the Milligram and so playfull to go down! And a quick moment on hard snow gave me the feeling that it carves even better on hardpack than an UNW8." Apparently Nico's "dark and mysterious board" didn't go unnoticed by the other guys in the group who had a severe case of shred-envy!
