Intergirlactik 2005

Before I heard about Intergirlactik, it hadn’t really occurred to me that you could snowboard in the Pyrenees. And it seemed nobody else I knew had given it much thought either. My messages on forums and to friends about the region and its resorts elicited nothing but blank stares and unanswered posts.

The ski and snowboard contest for girls was being held for the second year running in the resort of Saint Lary.

“Give us the hour of your arrival at the airport and pretty guys will come to pick you up,” said my email from the organisers.

St Lary

So I flew into Toulouse airport and, sure enough, two lovely local guys who ran a wakeboarding magazine were waiting for me in arrivals and I caught a lift with them to Saint Lary.

I thought I’d travelled a fair few miles to get to the contest – but then found out that riders Lisa Filzmoser, Connie Bleicher and Silvi Schlereth had driven 14 hours from Austria. Paulina Ligocka and her friends were on the road for a crazy 30 hours to get to St Lary from Poland. These girls really wanted to be here.

The riders, friends and media in town for the contest were all staying in the same place – the Saint Lary UCPA. It’s a bit like a hostel but nicer. Its best feature (well for me anyway) was the brilliant breakfast buffet where guests could also make packed lunches to take up the mountain – complete with huge boxes of crunchy bars, chocolate and crisps to fill your bag with. There was even a man to wrap your sandwiches in clingfilm. Genius.

The first day - Friday - was practice day and an absolute scorcher. Armed with my huge snack pack and a large tube of sunscreen (I learned my lesson at the British Championships and still had the t-shirt tan two weeks later to prove it), I headed up the mountain.

Getting to St Lary 1700m – where the gondola to the terrain park was situated – involved a fairly hair-raising drive along a narrow windy road stuck to the edge of the mountain. At one point on our way up we skidded to a halt to avoid a huge oncoming flock of sheep. They darted round us and climbed a ridiculously steep bank to munch some grass – followed by their smiling shepherd and his little sheepdog. A weird way to start a day’s snowboarding.

As we arrived at the park, the barbecue was being set up, the beer keg connected

Vicci Miller

and we settled down for a gorgeous sunny day of practice on the Intergalactik park.
The set-up consisted of a series of kickers, straight rails, a c-rail, a flat-down box, a hip, a specially made flat-up-flat box and rail to kicker combo – all decorated with huge, colourful artificial flowers.

The girls were loving it – Vicci Miller was nailing the rails (and was remarkably cheerful despite the fact that her half of her luggage had ended up in Russia). Lisa Filzmoser lead Vicci and her gang of Kit girls (www.kit-girls.com) off the kickers in ‘ballerina air’ formation and Swiss rider Tina Ramholt left jaws dropping with her huge spins off the biggest kicker.

In such hot temperatures things were getting pretty slow and slushy by late afternoon but the girls kept going til closing time was called. It was to be the best weather day we’d get.

Splashing about at the thermal pools

After a quick change back at the UCPA we walked to the town’s new thermal pools to relax for a couple of hours. It’s a bit like a fancy swimming pool with jacuzzi-type caves, steam rooms and saunas, waterfalls and winding roads with currents that sweep you round to the next cove. A hoard of girls followed by a gang of male photographers (and me) raised a few eyebrows amongst the local teenage boys but it was so nice just to chill and get our aches pummelled by the water.

Friday night we hit the local restaurants for some grub before going on to a club where a VIP area complete with champagne, pink wigs and satin gloves was waiting for the riders. Very glam.

Saturday was supposed to see the qualifiers and the best trick contest take place but the weather just wasn’t playing ball.

In the valley, the trees outside the UCPA restaurant were swaying heavily – and hundreds of metres above it was much worse.

We piled up the swaying gondolas to check out conditions in the park and, sure enough, the wind was pounding the place – making it hard to even stand up. We huddled for shelter behind the poma lift’s electrical hut while the decision was made to postpone the event until Sunday when we’d been assured the wind would die down.

So it was back to the ranch for a day of chilling out and shopping.

Bad weather booze up

Vicci’s luggage finally arrived after its diversion and late afternoon we gathered for some tunes, food and epic amounts of rum punch before hitting the red wine and then trooping en masse for more drinks at a local bar til the early hours.

On Sunday morning the wind in the town certainly appeared to have died down but in the terrain park, things didn’t look that much better than they did the day before.

The park was icy, it was windy, the light was flat and everyone was shivering. It was baltic. Swiss rider Nadine Boos was thankful that she’d brought her pink wig to keep her head warm. If I could have felt my feet I would have kicked myself for not putting more layers on. Things were not looking good.

Margot Rozies

There was no way that the girls had time to ride a full set of qualifiers before the final against the invited pros – there just wasn’t enough time. So organisers Laurie and Julie decided to hold a two hour jam session for everyone from midday to 2pm whatever the weather. It turned out to be a brilliant move – at noon the sky cleared, the wind stopped, the park softened up and we all thawed out. Oh happy days.

The girls had a brilliant session – Caro Belliard was mixing it up on the kickers and rails and narrowly missed landing a backside seven. Margot Rozies (sporting some very stripy zebra Roxy pants) was going huge off the hip as her Mum and friends watched from the bottom of the park and Lisa Filzmoser was styling the red box. The box also caused the day’s only serious casualty – one of the Austrian girls dislocating her elbow (but thankfully, she told me later, not too badly).

Session over, myself, Nadine Boos, Tina Ramholt and one of the French

Nadine Boos

photographers decided to make our way back down the mountain. The plan was to go down the gondola and catch a ride back to town from whoever happened to be heading back at the same time. Instead we saw a bus at the bus stop – we’d seen them in town so assumed they must head down the mountain. But no. This one ended up taking us further up the mountain and booted us out in the middle of St Lary 1900m - a ghostly-quiet apartment ghetto higher than we’d started.

Luckily there was a way down – a huge but not very frequent cable car.

“Do you think I can make it go to my house?” said Tina – not relishing the prospect of an overnight train journey back to Switzerland that night. We waited so long she

Tina and Nadine

probably could have walked back to the Alps faster but it came eventually and we headed back to town. On the way home we pondered a large statue of a bear either protecting or molesting a child (it was symbolic of something apparently but I’ve completely forgotten what) andthen hit the local playpark for a bit of seesaw silliness.

After changing and packing, we all gathered in the courtyard for the prize-giving. The best trick prizes – which were judged during the day’s session – were awarded first. Emily Ackerblom picked up the rail best trick for her backside 270 to boardside reverse out while Tina Ramholt, as expected, took the big air title with her backside 540 indie.

Every girl who took part in the contest (around 25 of them in total) was given a prize and a cheer. The countdown continued until, after Caro Belliard was announced in second place, there was just one rider left.

“Yes the winner is the shocked-looking Swiss rider over there,” said the MC and all

Intergirlactik 2005 winner Tina Ramholt

eyes turned to Tina Ramholt. Tina was one of the riders who came to compete in the open contest on Saturday for her chance to compete in the final against the invited pros so it was an extra-cool achievement to win the contest and the tidy 1500 Euro top prize. She was one happy lady.

So after congratulations and hugs all round it was time for us all to go our separate ways.

The brother of one of the organisers had agreed to let me and riders Rita Comi and Mirjam Jaeger stay in his apartment in Toulouse for the night before we travelled back home the following day.

As we drove back down to the city, through loads of gorgeous mountain villages, we suddenly hit the aftermath of a freak snowstorm. One minute we were driving on a clear road, the next we were crawling along on a road covered in a couple of inches of snow. A few minutes down the road, the snow just stopped. It was as if a cloud had got stuck, dumped a load of snow in one go, and then drifted off again. It was freaky.

Mirjam and I were catching a ride with a guy who ran a Toulouse snowboard store and he left us at a cute caf?© bar near our host‚Äôs house to wait for the others. We got some serious stares carting snowboard bags into a tiny caf?© in the middle of the city ‚Äì but scoffed down some ace croque monsieurs while we were waiting, all the same.

The next day we wandered round Toulouse in the sun for an hour, waved Rita off to catch her train and then drove to the airport - me squashed almost in the boot with my knees round my ears (two huge board bags plus three people in a small Peugeot is cosy but not, as we at one point feared, impossible).

An hour later I was flying through the clear blue sky – looking out of the window as the sun baked Mont Blanc and its surrounding peaks below. But the mountains looked different this time. Now I knew it wasn’t just about the Alps any more.

Just a few hundred miles away French snowboarders were also getting their snow fix on the parks and pistes of the Pyrenees. And the Intergirlactik girls were helping to put their playgrounds on the map.

CLICK HERE FOR A GALLERY OF IMAGES FROM THE EVENT.

For more info on the network of UCPA centres across France check out www.ucpa.com
More information about Saint Lary and its facilities is available at www.stlary.com
And check out the gorgeous eyewear on offer from Intergirlactik sponsor JeeVice at www.jeevice.com and ace clothing at Chiemsee www.chiemsee.com