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Feature sidebar - Riding in Russia

Local snowboarder finds Russian resorts rustic but conditions first-rate

Imagine dropping off a plateau into thigh deep untracked powder.

Now imagine getting there on a two-person chairlift shared with less than 400 people a day.

Welcome to skiing and snowboarding in Russia.

"It was like heli-skiing off the top of this mountain," said local K2 professional snowboarder Brain Savard, who has just returned from a trip to the Caucasus.

"There was a flat ridge that stretched out for kilometres in either direction at the top of the mountain.

"You could just hike along the ridge and then just drop in anywhere you wanted."

Savard and Nitro snowboarder Shin Campos travelled with photographer Dan Hudson to explore one of the last, great, undiscovered frontiers for alpine sports, the Russian ski resort.

Their first stop was Sochi a winter and summer resort on the Black Sea. They called a Sochi bed and breakfast home for a week while they boarded at Krasnaya Polyana, about 100 kilometres away.

"Sochi is the northern most semi-tropical place in the globe," said Savard.

"It is lush, it has palm trees and tropical plants and it is temperate. Then just 100 kilometres away is the ski resort Krasnaya Polyana.

"Its quite unique.

"We were riding in thigh deep powder amongst these old growth Birch trees.

"I have never seen anything like it. It is a regional anomaly. We are talking about trunks that are four feet around and trees that are 100 feet high. It was just beautiful.

"Here (in Whistler) we have a thick canopy and so only some of the snow gets through the canopy. But at Krasnaya Polyana there is great visibility among the trees and they are well spaced, and all the snow comes through the branches so it was just perfect powder riding right through these old growth birch trees. It was awesome."

The 3,238 metre high mountain has four, two-person lifts travelling to the top in a straight-line. The technology and on-mountain equipment is definitely rudimentary but the great boarding and skiing made up for most of it.

"It was over 5,000 vertical feet of riding," said Savard.

A day pass on the mountain was $15 US. Savard said most of the skiers and boarders were either locals or hard-core enthusiasts who flew from Moscow for the weekend.

"You could fly there from Moscow for $85 US," said Savard.

"They all have modern equipment. If they can afford to go skiing then they can afford to buy the new stuff and they have the new stuff in Moscow. They have snowboard shops and everyone was in current gear and walking around in their North Face."

Sochi used to host three million visitors a year under the communist regime, when all workers received paid holidays through the government. Today, said Savard, the locals are looking for ways to keep the resort alive.

With the great conditions and accommodation with breakfast at a place with a pool, pool table, ping pong and a shuttle to the ski resort for only $16 US Savard felt it wouldn’t be long before word got out and the locals started to see a lot more foreign visitors.

"Even with the cost of the flight to Moscow it is still so affordable," he said.

And the heli-skiing is the cheapest in the world. It costs $250 US for the day and the companies guarantee you six runs a day and a vertical drop of 4,000 metres.

"We flew around in these big MTD80s and they are massive," said Savard.

"They are like flying school buses. They carry 24 passengers and they are so powerful they just fly straight up in the air.

"They were pretty insane those big Russian military helis. That was really cool."

Not so cool was the thick black smoke, which billowed in through the small porthole windows of the helicopters. But Savard said he felt totally safe on every ride he took.

From Sochi the team took off on a 14-hour drive to Mt. Elbrus, the highest peak in continental Europe.

They stopped 18 times along the way. Not because they wanted to, but because local police wanted to check them out.

"If you got out of your car on the highway and you didn’t shut your door behind you there was a fine," said Savard.

"There was all kinds of little things you could be fined for, it was amazing. It was crazy."

The conditions weren’t great at Mt Elbrus said Savard, but the experience was.

A dormant volcano, the mountain provided some interesting lava flow couloirs and there were tons of runs to choose from.

To get to the top of the recreation area riders and skiers piled into a tram.

"There is no queue so people just scramble to get on. There is a sort of cattle-coral path with tall metal channels that guide you into this dark hallway to get to the gondola. It was pretty wild."

As Savard travelled up and looked back at the town a stark reminder of the reality of living in modern rural Russia stared him in the face.

No five-star hotels, garbage free pedestrian walkways, and fine eating establishments. Rather he saw the locals, who were without exception friendly and helpful, set in a routine of subsistence living repeated all over the countryside.

"You could see the ladies setting up their market stalls and stuff at the bottom of the tram," said Savard.

"It looked like there were clothes lines strung all over the place basically, even off the gondola line. It was something to see."

The contrasts of today’s Russia made even booking the trip a challenge, Savard spent hours researching before he finally came across www.in-russia.com a travel group with a base in the United Sates.

They organized the adventure for him and with hindsight Savard said it is definitely not a place you want to go to without a translator and a plan in place.

Savard took to the skies at Mt. Elbrus too. While the heli-skiing wasn’t as challenging as he’s used to he said it was perfect for the other vacationers on the trip.

"For the clients who wanted to ride powder and who wanted get long runs and nice snow it was pretty ideal," said Savard who provided a little entertainment himself.

"People enjoyed watching us because we were often doing cliff drops, so we were pretty entertaining for them.

"There was some hooting and hollering by the crowd. It was fun."

Savard said he is already thinking of going back.

"We were blown away by the mountains and the quality of riding and terrain," he said.

"The experience was unforgettable."



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