I discovered The Burton Snowbroads and the Volkl Ski Queens clinic at the Remarkables in Queenstown New Zealand while googling ‘snowboard clinics for females’. The idea of meeting like minded women who love to shred and were keen to progress as much as I did sounded great. Sign me up.
The night before the event, the Burton store in Queenstown hosted a meet and greet which was a perfect opportunity to meet the coaches and some of the other ladies participating in the clinic.
The store was also offering a storewide discount for all in the camp and had a range of boards available to demo on the day if you wanted. This was looking good and we weren’t even on snow yet.
Morning start
The day began at 9am with a very impressive breakfast spread, from burritos to croissants, porridge, hot apple sauce, nuts, and juice and to top things off, Moet champagne. For half an hour or so we feasted, sipped our Moet and excitedly chit chatted as we all got to know each other.
After breakfast we headed outside and grouped ourselves based on our confidence in the terrain park and what we wanted to work on that day. I was in a group with five lovely ladies, Emma from Perth, Sam from Christchurch, Emily from Canada, Jess from Brisbane, Jill from Ontario and our coach Leah from Colorado.
The day started with a couple of warm up laps so Leah could have a look at our general riding technique to see if there was anything we could improve on. It wasn’t long before she had us riding in switch for a couple of runs, again assessing our technique. Riding in switch felt completely out of sorts but it was great as it’s not something I do too often but it is good for progression and is a solid building block for riding in the terrain park.
Next we found ourselves practicing front side 180 jumps just on the flat. Leah taught us to think about our shoulders making sure the spin was being initiated by winding up the shoulders not just hucking it around. We then took our newly learned spins to the small jump line in the terrain park.
Personally, I find front side spins harder and much prefer to spin backside however I did persist and eventually got there in the end. Most of the girls were on fire and there were some really nice clean spins going down, even some 360 spins from pocket rocket Jill.
Boxes and rails were up next, we practiced our board slides and front boards over and over, again focussing on our shoulders both on the approach and during the trick. Not going to lie, there were a few hard stacks here but not without many laughs, we learned so much and everyone was super encouraging.
We also had a bit of fun jumping over the barrel at the bottom of the hill which was looked way more intimidating than it actually was, with a bit of speed clearing the barrel was easy and it was a great feeling just to float on over it. Many people just wouldn’t understand but jumping and sliding over hard plastic is just so much fun.
Take a break and begin again
Lunch time was here and once again was very impressive. We sat out on the deck, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying a buffet of chicken and vegetable skewers, a range of salads and delicious soup. Keen to get back out we chowed down quickly and headed back up the lift.
It was time for the medium line, these jumps were significantly bigger than the first jumps with larger up ramps that needed to be hit with speed. Most of us found out within the first few jumps that going slow really wasn’t an option as this meant landing on the knuckle which was not a nice feeling at all. Once we got our speed dialled we were able to send it and enjoy the experience of flying on our boards.
Leah watched us making sure our arms and legs were doing what they were supposed to be. Pocket rocket Jill took the flying literally and gave us a bit of a scare when she flew miles in the air and out of sight, thankfully, within moments she re-appered, laughing and still in one piece. We then moved onto the jump at the bottom of the medium line, slightly bigger than the others.
It was so much fun and happened to be my favourite jump out of them all as I managed to cruise over it and land perfectly on the down ramp. After the medium line success there was smiles, stoke and high fives all round.
Après
It was time to head back to the cafe for the end of the day presentations. A heap of prizes were handed out including a brand new board which was won by a lucky lady in a fun bean bag flipping game. Everyone received a prize and I must say I’m super stoked with my Mons Royale merino wool socks.
Before saying goodbye, we exchanged social media details to keep in touch with one another and share photos before getting a final group shot of everyone involved in the day. I feel so lucky and blessed to have been a part of this day and to have met so many amazing ladies with a similar shredding passion.
I hope that Burton Snowbroads continues for years to come because I honestly believe there is nothing more powerful than a group of ladies doing what they love, sharing the stoke and supporting one another at the same time.
Snowbroads is on again this year with four separate sessions at The Remarkables, do one or do them all.
