LINES The Giving Zone JP Solberg on the Camel Toe gap in 2010. JP shut it down with a frontside 540, cab 900 and this backside double 1080. For quite a few years, the Camel Toe was considered dead. How could anyone hope to do more than JP had done on that perfect day? Words David Vladyka Photos and Captions Ahriel Povich Romain De Marchi and Jules Reymond getting a bump from a heli that David Vladyka organized to take us straight to the spot. With three feet of fresh snow, it would’ve taken half the day and most of our energy to even get the crew in place. The heli was actually the only option for getting it done this time because the forecast for the next day was less promising. OH, BIG BERTHA. Multiple factors directed us toward our first session at that specific jump, the most prominent being that it’s a rela-tively short hike to get to it from Avoriaz, a resort in Morzine, France. It’s nestled in a zone we call simply “La Zone,” which has served as the stomping grounds for some of Europe’s most impactful backcountry freestyle snowboarding. La Zone covers roughly two and a half square miles and, when you consider its home in the Alps, that’s a relatively small area. Still, within La Zone I’ve counted more than 20 jumps we’ve shot at regularly over the years. Many of those jumps have grassy landings, meaning that with only a little bit of snow we can usually make something work. On top of those favorable aspects, La Zone faces northeast and works well with the wind. Snow often piles up and stays fresher for longer there. Nearly every one of Absinthe Films’ movies, from Saturation (2003) to Isle of Snow (2019), features footage from La Zone, and we weren’t the only ones there. I’ve seen Halldor Helgason filming for the old TransWorld Snowboarding videos, as well as Torstein Horgmo and Werni Stock for ShredBots. But before all that, we had to figure out how to best access the place. 100 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 20.4: Page 100
