HIGH AS A KITE
For freedom, thrills and bracing exercise, the exciting sport of snowkiting promises the next adrenalin fix for winter wow-seekers. yeahbaby flew free as a bird through the wilderness to bring you a beginner’s guide to the newest, fastest fun on snow BY GUS HURST, TCS
Freedom. That’s the word instructor Pascal Nessier uses when asked to describe what snowkiting is like. “You can fly, do high jumps up to 200–300m, even go uphill. With fresh powder… Well,” he pauses and you know he’s re-living the experience in his head for a moment, looking for words to describe that intense Zen-like sensation when you’re not thinking about anything but Right Now. “It’s a nice feeling,” he finally says, the smile evident in his voice. “Not many people get to feel that.”
If snowboarding, kitesurfing and paragliding could have an unprotected roll in the hay and issue an offspring, snowkiting would be it. And, although it’s just starting to take off (ha ha) in popularity, it’s been around for a while.
A few years ago, when snowkiting was still fairly unheard of in the more mainstream resorts, I was with some guys from Ozone, a kite manufacturing company, who had designed and produced a new kind of kite, “The Frenzy”. We were on a glacier in Tignes, France, and in just the time it takes to boil a kettle, two men had pulled out all the necessary equipment, laid out their lines, attached a body harness to their kites and taken off.
Launching the kites at 90° to the wind, swooping back and forth across the sky, generated enough power to speed them along at around 40km/h. They quickly covered several kilometres of flat terrain and arrived at the base of a steep mountain face. It didn’t phase them. They zig-zagged up slopes that were far steeper than any black ski run, easily working their kites in loops and figure-of-eight patterns until they were mere specks on the summit. Then the two of them packed away their kites and skied back down. It was like a dream – never before had going up mountains looked so much fun – or so easy.
You don’t even need a mountain to do it. A frozen lake, glacier, piece of wilderness or a relatively big field will do. You don’t need a ski pass, there’s no queuing for lifts and it doesn’t even require that much wind.
“It helps if you can already snowboard,” Pascal says, “but 80% of it is kite control, so if you have kitesurfing experience you can pick it up very quickly, maybe in a couple of hours. But,” he insists, “even if you have no experience, and have never even been on skis, it’s still possible to have success after one or two days.”
All you need, aside from a pair of ordinary skis or a snowboard, is a big, steerable kite and a harness, very like the equipment used for kitesurfing. The wind pulls you forward or lifts you up. And, once going, you can enjoy the sensation of flying and riding across diverse snowy terrain.
It’s not just great fun but, as Pascal keeps saying, also relatively easy to learn. And it’s become more accessible in recent years, with schools opening up at some of the major ski resorts.
And it’s not just adrenalin-addicts who are feeling the love for kites. NASA has worked with giant powered kites for many years, and a team of UK explorers, Henry Cookson, Rory Sweet and Rupert Longsdon, made history last year when they completed a polar expedition using only skis and kites to travel 1,750km. Large freighter ships have also started exploiting the same principles to help reduce fuel costs and use the wind on the open ocean.
If you’ve never skied or snowboarded before, don’t worry: the power of the kite actually lends stability and makes the whole process easier. And if you’ve never mastered a powered kite before, that’s not a problem either, since modern kites are easy to control and have built-in safety systems.
There are a few dangers and hazards awaiting unwary beginners, including falling over and getting dragged, so it’s highly recommended that you begin with a couple of lessons to get you started.
Once you’ve got the hang of things, there’ll be no looking back. Travelling across pristine snowy landscapes, you’ll experience a wonderful, gravity-defying rush of sensations. But watch out, because, as one enthusiast put it: “It’s awesome. You are almost guaranteed to become addicted.”
PASCAL NESSIER
YEARS SNOWKITING: 8
AGE: 28
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: snowboarding, 21 years; paragliding, 4 years.
OCCUPATION: owner of and instructor (but I’m still learning too!) at the Swiss Snowkiting School
BEST THING ABOUT SNOWKITING: it’s a sport for everybody, not just the brave.
SPEED THRILLS!
Where to learn to snowkite across the bmibaby network
Geneva
The Swiss can claim to have pioneered this sport, so it’s no surprise that some of the best snowkiting spots can be found here:
- Pascal Nessier and his team of instructors can be found at the Swiss Snowkiting School, which is located on the snowy Simplon Pass near the Matterhorn. (Tel: +41 (0)7 8628 5973, www.snowkiting.ch)
- Stephan Popproth and his crew of multilingual instructors are in St Moritz. (www.kitesailing.ch)
- Alternatively, closest to Geneva, is Fabio Ingrosso at the Skikite Center. (Tel: +41 (0)7 9462 2105, www.fabioingrosso.ch)
- Super-cool Frenchwoman and 2006 world champion snowboarder and snowkite enthusiast Agnès Fontenay runs a school in Semnoz, near Annecy, about an hour from Geneva. This is a beautiful part of the world in which to learn and Agnès’s top class teaching skills will get you flying in no time. (www.airevolution-snowkite.com)
- Johan Civel, French champion kite skier, has his own set-up, Snow KiteAir, on the Col du Lautaret. (Tel: +33 (0)6 7046 5388, www.snowkiteair.com)
Barcelona
- Fresh new kite demo centre Kite Frenzy (tel: +34 (0)6 4910 4557, www.kitefrenzy.com) is a British-owned kite-surfing and snowkite operation run from Barcelona by Iain Hannay. Together with his wife, Jill, they provide fantastic accommodation (tel: +34 (0)6 5078 9568, www.bigbalcony.com) and Iain takes clients on trips to nearby Andorra and the Spanish Pyrénnées. Iain is not an instructor, but can arrange lessons for those who need them and sells equipment for kite manufacturer Ozone.
