LAAX

Hey,

Today I’m writing in English because there might be some English speaking people who want to read about my trip to the Burton European Open (BEO) in LAAX, Switzerland from Jan 13-16th 2011.

Let’s start from the very beginning. I won this trip... How? Well, at the New Year’s Eve I was at home and bored. I saw a link on my friend’s Fb wall. The dateline was on the 31st of Dec and I decided to take part of that competion. I had to write why should I win this trip (and added some photos).

On the 4th of Jan I got a e-mail from Burton which said that I was the lucky winner of the BEO VIP package for two persons. I was so happy and called to my friend Tiia and asked if she wants to come to LAAX with me. Ofc she said YES... After the winter holidays I went to school for 3 days and then the lucky day came. We had no idea what's waiting for us in LAAX...

DAY 1

At first we flew to Helsinki (Finland) and then to Zurich (Switzerland).We arrived in LAAX about 1pm and met Mira who organized our trip. Our stayed at Rocksresort which is built in 2009 and the apartments there were quite fancy: we had 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, bathroom (with steam room). The view from the window was really nice: snowy peaks and rocky mountains. In our house was a bar/club called Indy Bar, so basically it took only 2 mins to go to a party. Also we got some stuff from Burton, Monster Energy, Mini and LAAX (backpacks, stickers, shoe laces, badges,  soft animals, gloves, beanies, T-shirts, notebooks, Monster enegy drinks...). 

Tiia

We were so stoked about the whole place but finally we changed our clothes and went up on the mountain to see the competition. As soon as we arrived to Crap Sogn Gion (2228m) station we spotted our friends Reelika and Maarja who luckily had a day off. We went snowboarding together and later watched the slopestyle semi-finals.

Rest of the evening we were chilling in our apartment. We moved in both bedrooms because our roommates hadn’t still arrived. About 7pm Maarja and Reelika came to our place and then we went out for a dinner to Nooba's (Asian food). After that we went to the Freestyle Academy. What a place! Unfortunately we didn't get time to go to this Paradise.

We all were quite tired and we didn't do much on that day. Tiia went to sleep but I needed to adjust my snowboard bindings. Our roommates arrived unexpectedly at 2am (2 Italian guys, 27-29 years old, working for some kind of Italian sb magazine).  I had to wake up Tiia, she moved back into our room and then we both went to sleep.

DAY 2

Next day we woke up really early (7am). Me, Tiia and Reelika went up to the Vorab café where Maarja worked (and also Reelika). We had to wait an hour til the lifts to 3000m (glacier) open so we went snowboarding to other slopes (and ride some baby powder).

Then we went up on the 3000m. At first we planned to snowboard back to LAAX and then go up again to watch slopestyle finals. Weather was really warm (+5C in the middle - SPRINGSESSION for sure) and the snow was suoer slushy so we didn't get enough speed and stopped all the time. It was very annoying and we decided to make a shortcut and snowboard through the forest. It wasn’t a good plan at all...  we couldn’t find the offroad track and got stuck in the melting “powder”. (how sweet!). Hiked back to the nearest lift station which was soooooo tiring. 

 1st one

3000m

 Tiia

Reelika

Maarja

Anyway, when we finally got back to the event place the women's slopstyle finals were on.

2011 BEO Women’s Slopestyle Final Results

1. Jamie Anderson (USA) BILLABONG 78.55 -$15,000

2. Sina Candrian (SUI) BURTON 77.10 - $7,500

3. Jordie Karlinski (USA) NIKITA 69.45 - $4,000

2011 BEO Men’s Slopestyle Final Results

1. Roope Tonteri (FIN) BURTON 86.30 - $15,000: 1440 - WHAAAAAT?

2. Peetu Piiroinen (FIN) NIKE 6.0 & BURTON 86.05 - $7,500

3. Chas Guldemond (USA) ROCKSTAR 85.30 - $4,000

We did some park runs later and then left because we were really tired. After having a quick shower it was time to go out to see the prizegiving (in front of our house).

We wanted to eat dinner at Nooba’s but it was full and we had to take away the food. Then our Estonian friends came to our place to warm up for the Rider’s Palace (night club). I think I’ve never mentioned my friend Will Nangle who’s a Scottish filmer and works for Onboard. Anyway, he was also in LAAX and did some filming. His apartment was in the same house so on that night we went to see what's happening there.

Later we went down to the Indy bar. It was pretty crowded but accidentally we found some Finnish people and started speaking to them (came out that we even had a few mutual friends cos some Estonian riders are also studying in snowboarding school in Finland: Britta Talumaa, Siim Aunison; and Sulev Paalo). The Rider’s Palace was full of people and it was so hot in there (felt like I was in a sauna/steam room). Music was bit weird though (lazer party, trance). There was a funny guy who wore a helmet and filmed people with GOPRO. He came to me and asked: "Do you want to become the next Hollywood superstar?". I said no but he didn't leave, kept asking questions...Pfff. I also met a guy whose parents were Russians and when he found out that I'm Estonian he started speaking in Russian. As I'm not very into speaking that language I left. Went to sleep at 4am.

DAY 3

After eating breakfast I went snowboarding alone because Tiia was sleeping and didn’t feel very well (got cold or something). Weather was really bad though (foggy) but it changed and at the end of the half pipe finals it was sunny again.

2011 BEO Women’s Halfpipe Final Results

1. Kelly Clark (USA) BURTON 90.33: $15,000

2. Queralt Castellet (SPAIN) OAKLEY 89.17: $8,000

3. Yuki Furihata Yuki (JPN) BURTON 86.83: $4,000

2011 BEO Men’s Halfpipe Final Results

1. Peetu Piiroinen (FIN) NIKE 6.0 & BURTON 89.45: $15,000

2. Kazuhiro Kokubo (JPN) BURTON 86.10: $8,000

3. Iouri Podladtchikov (SUI) QUIKSILVER 85.45: $4,000

Later Tiia joined me and did some park runs with GOPRO headcam (which we borrowed from Will). This day was a good day to our snowboards because they got waxed by the Burton team waxer (thanks!). Tiia left soon but I did a couple of more runs and then also went back to the village. It was so warm and wet (and the grass was green). I went to the media office to see what’s Mira doing. We went to the Burton igloo bar and got some warm drinks.

If you broke the ice the stuff was yours

Later on I imported the GoPro footage and gave the cam back to Will. Me and Tiia were too tired to go out for a dinner and then I just grabbed some food from Nooba. Then we chillaxed in our apartment, listened to some music, watched TV, tried out the steam room... Reelika came there and we went down to the Onboard’s apartment. Everything was pretty much exactly the same as the day before.

We went to the Indy bar before the Rider’s Palace. Then said goodbye to Reelika and stayed in front of our house. There was a guy smoking (older one, familiy man, from India) and he started speaking to us. Actually he thought we were from the UK but noooo... We spoke about Estonians, Russians and euro (it's our new money since Jan 1st) - random stuff. Suddenly one older man started speaking to me. He had been to Estonia once and bought a hand-made woolen cardigan from Tallinn. The guy had a HUGE problem: he hadn't had a chance to wear that cardigan because it is too warm in Switzerland. He wanted to know if I had a cardigan bought from Tallinn too (wtf?!). I said NO and left...

The Rider’s Palace was crowded again but the music was a bit better. There was The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 playing (+ DJs). This party was crazy (in a good way). We met funny people  and had loads of fun (ntks üks tüüp ronis lampi põõsast välja ja tõmbas kanni paljaks, aga siis otsustas et  muid asju on ka vaja näidata jne) . When we got back to our apartment our Italian roommates had left (yay!) and we had our own rooms again.

DAY 4

Next day I managed to get up at 9 or 10. It was our last day in LAAX which meant that we had to clean up the apartment and start PACKING our stuff. We said goodbye to Mira and gave some stuff to our Estonian friends (cos our bags were full). We carried our stuff to the Signina hotel and then went to the Onboad apartment. Sami and Philipp were still there, slowly dying... Tiia showed them some photos of Tech9 MFM team who were filming in Estonia this year (Why Estonia?) Anyway, I  went shredding alone. Tiia was chilling on huge couches in front of the Nooba.

At the airport we had some problems with our boardbag (had to pay exra 40€). I was too tired to deal with that kind of problems and the people there didn't speak English very well ("Sorry, what's the invoice?!") Anyway, problems solved, we started our trip back to Estonia (Zurich-Helsinki-Tallinn). I slept all the time. When we stepped out of the plane in Vantaa, Helsinki we were so happy to see the real snow again and be back in the cold (-8C). In Estonia it was a bit warmer but still cold.

Zurich airport, how come you don't have WiFi which is free and fast?!

We had some problems in Tallinn airport as well: OUR SNOWBOARDS WERE MISSING! I was so pissed off. Hopefully get them back soon.

***

So yeh, this was my trip to BEO. The whole trip was such a great experience to me. It was very well organized event (worth 6 stars). Good job!

Now a little bit about LAAX resort. Oh c’mon! This place is epic! It’s like a small mini world. Reelika said the owner of that place is very creative and wants to develope the resort as much as possible. The LAAX system is very logical and worked out very well: people live and work in the resort which has it’s own shops, cafés, hotels so basically the money is circulating in the same place all the time. In the other hand it is very expensive resort (actually Switzerland overall). Everything costs about 2-3 times more than in Estonia. But still, this place is highly recommended!

What else? Pro riders... We didn’t meet the Burton team because the riders were quite busy all the time and many of them left because they didn’t do well in the competition. Some riders went to world championship in Barcelona (Congrats Petja Piironen!). BUT we lived in the same house with them. To be honest, I didn’t recognize all the riders cos usually I see them riding in the video when they’re wearing goggles and helmet. However, I had a chance to see the interview with Roope Tonteri (for Onboard) and "photoshoot" with Sebastien Toutant and Mark Mcmorris. One day I heard and saw Luke Mitrani playing the guitar and singing. Actually it was really cool and cute. Erm... female riders: Enni Rukajärvi, Jamie Anderson, Silje Norendal (Baribe)...

So this was my story. I’d like to thank Burton, especially Mira. Although this trip lasted only 4 days I felt like I was there 2 weeks. Now I know a little bit more about the pro riders' life and faced the fact that actually every snoboarder is normal person, even if he/she in the TTR TOP10 list. See you next year at BEO!