When learning to heel edge side slip on your snowboard, a reasonably short slope that is of a shallow gradient would be an ideal location for practicing.

You will need to start by strapping on to your snowboard at the top of the hill while sitting facing down the slope with your snowboard positioned horizontally across the slope in front of you.

Once you are strapped on to your snowboard you will probably need a mate to give you a hand getting up on to your feet. As your mate pulls you up, get them to rest their foot underneath the front of your snowboard near to your toe edge. As long as you mate’s wearing snowboard boots too, it won’t hurt them a bit. Once you are up and resting on your mates snowboard boot, it is at this point that you can begin to concentrate on standing in your basic snowboard stance.

Now you’re standing in the correct position, your aim is to keep your toe edge raised off of the floor at all times and keep your heel edge dug into the slop as you travel at a slow but steady speed down the slope in front of you. Ask your mate to remove their foot from under the toe edge of your snowboard. Once the foot is removed, try to keep your toe edge raised off of the floor nice and high, you should find that you stay in the same position and don’t move anywhere.

By lowering your toe edge slightly, you should find that your start to “slip” down the slope. The higher you raise your toe edge, the slower your heel edge side slip will be, the more you lower the toe edge of your snowboard, the faster you will go. Be warned, if you lower your toe edge too much, it will catch the slope in front of you and throw you forward. The aim of a heel edge side slip is to travel and a slow and steady speed down the slope at about walking pace.

The first few times you try this, get your mate to guide you down the slope by holding onto your hands while your arms are right out in front of you. As you become more confident, try it from the top of the same slope again but get your mate to only hold on to one of your hands. When you think you are ready, try giving it a go on your own from the top and keep practicing until you are happy that you can now perform a heel edge side slip on a snowboard every time.

Things to remember when heel edge side slipping on a snowboard…

• Stand in your basic snowboard stance
• Keep your arms as still as possible (moving your arms around will make this even more difficult, try to stand as still as you can on your snowboard)
• Make sure you keep your head up (it is very tempting and very easy to get into the habit of looking at your feet)
• Maintain an even pressure over both feet (try not to lean over the nose or tail of your snowboard)
• Try to travel at a constant walking speed down the slope

If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment.

The snowboard resort of Bansko in Bulgaria is a snowboard resort that you have to visit with the right mind-set. Many other reviews of this resort will be very negative because the reviewer is comparing it to the more expensive snowboard resorts in France or Snowboard resorts in Austria.  Bansko is an up and coming snowboard resort and is being improved every year. There is a lot of building work going on around the resort and the town but unfortunately a lot of these buildings are half built which is more than likely down to the global recession. The area near the main gondola is not the prettiest of towns and you need to keep your wits about you at night because you may come across a few man-holes without their covers on.

There also seems to be an aweful lot of stray dogs around the town which could upset those people that are scared of dogs. They will do you know harm but it’s probably worth mentioning.

There is only one way to describe the transfer from the airport to the snowboard resort and that is different. When you’re not dodging potholes, you’re dodging oncoming traffic, the roads in Bulgaria really are terrible. The transfer from the airport is around 3.5 hours. The town of Bansko is nice and very cheap (especially compared to other snowboard resorts) to give you a rough idea, a 2 litre bottle of beer is around £2 from the shops and a Pint of beer in the pub is around £1.50. If you are a lover of meat then all of the traditional Bulgarian restaurants are perfect for you, large fillet streaks for around £6. If you’re a vegetarian then there is an excellent Italian restaurant opposite the gondola which is very popular with local people and visitors to Bansko.

The local people seem nice enough, especially down in the town and the staff on the mountains. Some of the local snowboarders and skiiers in Bansko can be very rude when it comes to queuing for the ski lift. They will cut in line and barge past you, but this is only a minority of locals.

The mountain itself is more than adequate, it is also great for snowboarding. For more advance snowboarders, you could find the mountain a little bit limiting after a while. This is not the type of snowboard resort that best suits those snowboarders that like to go as fast as they can down every piste it’s just not big enough. For a week away it’s fine, especially if it is your 1st snowboard holiday or you are beginner-intermediate snowboarders, but Bansko could be too small and unchallenging for an experienced snowboarder unless you a a fan of off-piste.

There are some nice off-piste nice tree runs between runs 5 and 10 and some gentle off-piste around the snowboard park which is particulary good for beginners. The snowboard park in Bansko isn’t really worth mentioning it has 1 kicker, 1 small pipe, 1 low box and about 5 rails, which were all badly looked after because there was no snowboard park crew. Hopefully the snowboard park in Bansko is something that will be improved over the next few seasons.

People who have been to the snowboard resort of Bansko would usually tell you they’d definitely go back there again. At a fraction of the cost of some of the other european snowboard resorts, why wouldn’t you? Everyone loves a bargain and Bansko definitely delivers this. In summary, if you visit Bansko expecting the resort to be like the three valleys then you will be truly disappointed, but if you have an open mind and treat it as a completely new experience, you will have a brilliant snowboard holiday.

Les 2 Alpes is going to be home to a brand new quad chairlift for winter 2010-2011. This new addition to the snowboard resort is one of the many upgrades that are being made in preperation for the coming snowboard season.

The new list will cost 2.7 million euros to build and it’s main aim is to improve the access to the La Fee sector of the snowboard resort. The new chairlift will be 474metres long and 164 metres high and it is estimated to carry 2,000 people per hour.

The new chairlift is already being worked on, the seven new lift towers are being installed this month and they plan to have everything read for testing in October so that the lift can be fully operational by November.

Some of the other improvements you can expect to see at Les 2 Alpes snowboard resort include a drastic improvment of the signage throughout the resort with more than 500 directional arrows, 160 sign posts and 15 electronic notice boards with scrolling information being installed over the next 2 years at a cost of over 1 million euros.

The areas of La Fee and Thuit are also being improved. There are plans to protect power lines and improve the safety of the resort employess by spending 700,000 euros on new CATEX avalanche triggers.

Sheffield Ski Village has been undergoing some major improvements recently, one of the most drastic being the delivery of almost £11,000 worth of new Dendix that will be used to replace the worn out parts of the snowboarding dryslope. The summer period at UK dryslopes can be very quiet and so staff at Sheffield Ski Village will be taking advantage of this and replacing the larger sections of the slope in preperation for Autumn when the snowboarding dryslope starts to get busy again.

La Parva is located next to and just north of Valle Nevado and is a host to a plethora of refuges and rentable apartments for the winter season. Once you have purchased your lift ticket you are able to take the shuttle to and from lifts and lodges.  La Parva with 9,673 meters offers 13 chairlifts. It was easy to reach all parts of the mountain. La Parva seemed to be the most popular resort of the three and with good reason. It was well groomed, offered high altitudes with accessible lifts. They also offered Heli-skiing with their take off point from the top of a lift which was neat to see for people who dream of trying.

La Parva being bigger than Termas de Chillan offered a greater variety of runs, it was almost impossible to have the same run twice.

Termas de Chillan, located three hours south of Santiago is a resort, spa and casino! With many hostel options prior to the resort itself, you can save some money for boarding, food and the casino. With over twenty eight groomed trails and five lifts, Termas de Chillan actually offers the longest run in South America (13 kilometers). The lower height allowed for more trees and great scenery but unfortunately the resort lacked on the grooming and some of their black diamonds / tallest runs were pure ice and all bumps.  What were great were the long trails that went through paths of trees and also offered great side walls. For this reason I preferred Termas de Chillan over Valle Nevado.

Valle Nevado is located just east of Santiago in central Chile. With 3,000 meters in height and over twenty three thousand acres of accessible terrain it is said to be one of the most popular resorts in Chile.  As the host for the World Cup of Snowboarding the resort is ready for snowboarders with South America’s ONLY Super Half-Pipe. Valle Nevado also offers Heli-sking options. At such heights, Valle Nevado has little to no trees and high winds toward the top of the mountains. The view from that height is beautiful of mountains and more mountains. There are also little to no lift lines which helps cut back the time it takes to get all the way up the mountain. The style of the runs left little side wall available to play with. Access to three touching mountains, Valle Nevado, El Colorado and La Parva, allows for over thirty-five groomed trails.

The Chilean currency is used but for the most part prices are still comparable to major snowboard resorts. There are three hotels located within the  Valle Nevado snowboard resort, but because Santiago is less then an hours drive, it is cost saving to look into hostels below the mountain that also offer group discounts or rides to resorts. Unless you are going with a group, tour or guide be ready for the ride up to Valle Nevado. At 3,000 meters high car tires are required to have chains put on the wheels. Your car will most likely be a rental car, and unless you splurged for the four wheel drive, count on pulling over and dealing with these chains.  Because of the multiple resorts with one access road start driving early or mid morning to avoid the up mountain traffic.

Fix your summer snowboard craving and head south of the equator where the hemisphere allows you to feast on powder at high altitudes. The Andes are on the west coast of South America and are the longest continental mountain range. Resorts open for the season starting in June and go into October. Chile offers many options for high altitude boarding.

Below is a list of three snowboard resort reviews in Chile…

• Valle Nevado Snowboard Resort Review
• Termas de Chillan Snowboard Resort Review
• La Parva Snowboard Resort Review

The Andes in Chile offer powder at high altitudes, Heli-sking and amazing sunsets. If you have the motivation for a snowboarding adventure head south.

If you have been to any other snowboard resorts in Chile or in any other part of the world and would like to write a review of provide our readers with some feedback about a particular snowboard resort, then please send an email to info@snowboardrespect.com

Living in the UK, you would not expect there to be any snowboard instructor courses, whats the point, we don’t have any mountains?. Chatham Dry Ski Slope offer a 24 week snowboard instructor course that will allow you to teach at various snowboarding dryslopes across the UK providing you qualify.

The snowboard instructor course is structured into two halfs. The first 12 weeks will be spent breaking down your snowboarding and going through everything you’ve ever learnt on your snowboard all over again. Snowboarders that have completed this instructor course in the past have improved their boarding vastly in the first half of the snowboard instructor course. The second half of the instructor course will concentrate on how to teach a snowboard lesson so that it safe, fun and informative. You will also be taking guinea-pig snowboard lessons with (volunteers)  to get you used to how a snowboard lesson should be taught.

The surface at the snowboarding dryslope at Chatham is Perma-Snow which is a great surface to teach snowboarding on. If its not a surfaces you’ve ever snowboarded on then I would definitely recommend you give it a try (especially if its raining!).

The snowboard instructor course costs around £15 a week for the first 12 weeks, for the last half of the snowboard instructor course you will be effectively sponsored by John Nike Leisuresport, the owner of various dry ski slopes in the UK and so will not have to pay anything for the last 12 weeks.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, this qualification will allow you to teach snowboarding across snowboarding dryslopes in the UK. If you are planning to do a snowboarding instructor course abroad then this course is a great stepping stone and will give you a major advantage over other snowboarders on the same course. It will also improve your snowboard technique and general understanding of the sport.

Perma-Snow is a revolutionary artificial dry ski and snowboard surface. The surface has been developed to try and create a surface that feels like real snow. Even more so than the existing dry ski slope surfaces like Dendix, and snowflex.

Perma-snow is produced in rectangular white mats. Each mat is made up of thousands of small plastic hoops which have just the right amount of flex to allow ski and snowboard edges to push between them and allow for turning and carving on your skis or snowboard.

In my opinion, the perma-snow surface is most like skiing or snowboarding on hard packed snow. The surface is also much easier to ski or snowboard on when it is damp, so I would recommend getting out there during or after it has rained (unless of course your local perma-snow dry slope has a sprinkler system of course). The only downside to perma-snow when it is wet is the fact that it can be very difficult to stop on at high speed and it does tend to feel more like ice when it comes to slowing yourself down.

One of the main advantages to learning to snowboard on perma-snow is the fact that it has a spongey underlay which will help to cushion your falls and there aren’t any holes in it that you could catch your fingers in, like you can on dendix.

The surface is relatively new and is only available on a few dry ski slopes in the UK but if you feel like giving it a try, you can do so at the following snowboarding dry slopes and ski resorts in the Uk…

• Bracknell Ski Slope
• Chatham Ski Slope
• Llandudno Ski Slope