Moscow, the Kremlin, and the FSB (AKA KGB)

Moscow isn't new to me. I spent time there in April 1993 as an impressionable young teenager when on an exchange program at school. I stayed 10 minutes away from Red Square and the Kremlin. Its probably the only part of Moscow that I recognise on subsequent visits. The rest has changed so much in the last 15 years.

My first night was a bit of a blur. My body shut down whilst I was watching the Champions league in the hotel bar and i remember waking the next morning at 6am and catching up with Andrew. I needed to share with him the delights of Gulmarg and woke him up to watch Castel: India * Kashmir!



I hadn't been in Red square more than 10 minutes when I was approached by an official from the FSB. Initially doubting his authenticity since he was not in uniform (until he was joined by two companions in uniform), I was not particularly cooperative. He felt that I was taking too many pictures, that my telephoto lens was too powerful, and had decided that I was a professional photographer and I needed to obtain special permission.

On the back of my travel marathon, after dealing with constant harrassment in India and recently having to pay a fortune in bakshish in Delhi to sort out my flight to Moscow via Kiev, I was in a particularly disagreeable mood. Furthermore I suspected that the FSB official was only interested in extracting a bribe from me, which I wholly intended not to do. At first I played my hardest at not understanding what he was saying, despite his rather good English. I then argued that there was nothing special about my camera, and after he requested my passport, I clearly pointed out to him that I had registered my arrival in Moscow within 72 hours (apparently a common reason that tourist are fined about USD 500). I was reaching for my phone and telling him that I was going to phone my embassy so that he could explain to them what the problem was when he backed off and decided to let me continue. Not 20 minutes later I was approached again by another FSB official. He was dispatched with even greater ease. It could become a sport.

Nothing strange here

This is my response to a post I saw on the following blog: Even normal recreation is getting weird

"Talk about people getting too jaded and needing extreme excitement to prevail over boredom!!

Talk about being out of your freaking mind!"

I don't see anything unusual with snowboarding or skiing on volcanoes. I just see them as a different type of mountain, that might results is some interesting terrain. I think that Kamchatka is likely to be a lot more mellow than Krasnaya Polyana in the Caucuses or Gulmarg in the Pir Pinjal range, both being places I benchmark my trips against. I certainly don't consider riding a volcano to be extreme, crazy, or fringe. I think spending your waking hours working to make other people's dreams come true rather than your own is crazy.

In fact, judging by most people's actions, I think they are fine with snowboarding or skiing volcanoes, even if they haven't ever consciously thought about it. Mammoth, amongst others, is actually a volcano, a fact that often escapes a lot of people.

For me I simply see Kamchatka as an exotic and vast snowboarding destination (larger than France, Belgium and Luxembourg combined), with a long winter, runs filled with endless powder turns, and hopefully enough variation to be technically challenging. Unlike skiers, I can't simply satisfy myself with nice symmetrical zigzag's down the mountain. Bring on hips, lips, drops and gullies! I don't expect to find many trees but then we can't have it all.

There is one volcano that I do want to snowboard that I do think does fall into the crazy, fringe, extreme category. Its Cotopaxi in Ecuador! We have a history. About 4 year ago, with only 100 metres left to climb largest active volcano in the world (according to the 2002 CIA World factbook), my guide decided that the risk of avalanche was too severe and turned me back. I have sworn to go back and conquer that baby, and when I do, I might consider strapping a board to my pack and snowboarding down to declare victory on the sleeping icy beast that will one day kill thousands.

Each to their own really, but I certainly don't see anything too extreme about heliboarding in Kamchatka. What is perhaps extreme is how far away it is from everywhere, including most people's consciousness.

A 100 day season - its a fulltime job

This trip to Kamchatka should crown what has been the best season of my life so far. I had planned on getting 100 days on my board and the season started well with plenty of snow in Europe. From mid December through to late January I went through a 32 day period where I spent all but four days on my board. By the time the Burton European Open rolled into Laax in late January, my body was aching and rather than riding the mountain hard, I found myself happily sitting in Cafe No Name watching the likes of Kevin Pearce and Shaun White, rather than riding the mountain myself. Some of the enjoyment was lost in my boarding and I soon came to terms with focusing on having as much fun as possible, rather than notching up days and after my knee started to hurt, I took a two week break in early Feb. By the time I reached Gulmarg in Kashmir on 12 February, I had about 45 days under my belt.

I had planned on spending 6 weeks of boarding in the Pir Pingal range in the foothills of the Himalayas but Spring arrived about 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated and I made an unscheduled trip to Kerala in Southern India for what I thought would be a little sunshine. With only about 65 days on my board, I can comfortably conclude that Winter 07/08 is going to fall short of a 100 day season... but there is no doubt that I have had more fun than ever before.

To add to this positive message, I am today also the proud holder of a Russian Visa. This has been stressing me out somewhat and with changes to the Visa regulations in October 2007 now stipulating that Visa's can only be issued to citizen's or residents of the country in which you apply, I was rather concerned that as an Irish citizen, with Swiss residency, currently in New Zealand, I was going to struggle. The rules allow for some discretion and fortunately for me, my basic Russian clearly curried favour with the embassy staff and I now hold my visa. Spaseeba.

I also got an email from Nikolay of Vertikaly Mir today. "Since your group arrive one day early, I would like to inform you that you can have heliskiing day even on 26th which are normally the day of your arrival. If the weather is good, i recommend you to join the other group for this day, if you want. Like this you have more chance for skiing." Brilliant, I potentially have one more day of powder before I call curtains on the best season yet!

What is more, I got an email from the guys at Option Snowboards on Friday and it looks like they are finally doing something about my Option Freeplus 165 which started delaminating after 20 days of riding. Admittedly I think that there has been a breakdown in communication between the shop at which I bought my board and the Swiss distributor for Option because the people at Option in Canada have always been super helpful. Lets see if Casoar in Vevey, Switzerland come through on this one.

My mind is already on next season, on Gulmarg, on Jason's invitation to Japan, on Richard and Nicole's invitation to Whistler and the promise I made in Casa Veglia to Dave that I would enter next year's BEO slopestyle in Laax. My mind even toys with the idea of cutting short a European summer and heading to Chile or back to New Zealand for more. I think I am getting ahead of myself. For the time being let me focus on getting everything out of the snowcapped volcanoes of Kamchatka. It promises to be better than Krasnaya Polyana and even if it only equals Gulmarg, I will have nothing to complain about. My first possible day back on my board is only 15 days away and counting....