Swoard ECS 2011 SESSION VIII: Feedback, pictures, etc.

[fivat]

Please, use THIS subject and only THIS one to give your feedback about the Swoard ECS 2011, so the readers do not have to open many subjects... Thanks!
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What a lucky Session! While winter is very bad so far in West of the Alps (ice and stones everywhere!), we got in Zinal amazing snow conditions on most slopes (except "Le Col"). The high altitude plays a role of course. But during the night from Friday to Saturday, the people working on the slope maintenance managed to take snow off-piste and put it on the famous "Barthelemy": this slope was just perfect for extremecarving, as never before this season!

The sun was in the sky all the time and the smiles on the faces! Many thanks to all the participants for the great moments which we shared and for the nice atmosphere again!
On Saturday dinner, we were exactly 212 persons in the main hall. Moreover, about 10-20 riders showed up for 1 or 2 days but could not participate in the dinner. So in total we were about 230 participants, like during the previous Swoard ECS in 2010!

Many many thanks to all the people who helped Swoard before and during the three days. Without them, this event would not exist.
Not in alphabetical order: Jean-Pierre, Romain, Franck, Arnaud, Julien, Anthony, Alex, Francesco, Evgeny (Ben), Evgeny (Rey), Christian, Anouk, José, Valérie, Laurent, Olivier, Mallorie, Nadia, Bernadette, another Valérie, Samanta, David, Benjamin, Manu, Gilles, François, another Olivier, Pierre, Joerg, Tali, Robin (the cameraman), Andrew (the photographer) and more (sorry if I missed someone).

PICTURES
Our official photographer Andrew will publish his pictures on Picasa, probably not before one week (it's a lot of work).
EDIT: Thank you for your patience! Here is the link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.rog ... cHi1-HOxQE#

MOVIE
The movie shot and edited by Robin for the screening on Saturday dinner is available...
- on YouTube:
- for downloading: https://www.extremecarving.com/films/20 ... S_2011.zip (98 MB)

See also the report made by http://valdanniviers.wordpress.com/ :
- article (in French) > http://valdanniviers.wordpress.com/2011 ... ing-zinal/
- video >

The date of the Swoard ECS 2012 is already known for sure! Jan 28th to 30th, 2012 !

The Swoard Demo Tour is not over! See you maybe in La Thuile (12-13 March 2011) or in Courchevel (2-3 April 2011).
For now, we have to return to real life!

Patrice Fivat

[Alex]

First of all I want to say good bye to all friends that i didn't see before my departure. Absolutely the best Ecs, all days blue sky, cold, and perfect snow. The bart was absolutely in the best condition with good snow and perfect shape with wonderful waves in its center.
The friendly atmosphere was every year more friendly and is always the best meet all the carving friends, enjoy the snow and after drink a lot of beer and jokes, smiles together... so thank you swoard to exists

a wonderful Saturday on bart :

a more wonderful Sunday :

as soon as possible I'll provide this video with sound and better image quality

[tommaso2k]

Dear Swoard team and friends,

first of all many thanks for this great event - i still have a blast.

Before i came to the ECS i was really concerned about the lack of snow in the west alps but what i found there was amazing. The Barthelemy was in great condition, Durand and the black slope under La Corne as well. The Zinal slope preparation was perfect so many thanks for this.

The EC riding was amazing but on top which was even more important i met again all the friends from the previous sessions and gained new friends as well. The spirit, community and friendliness of the people was great and i am really looking forward to see you all again.

Thanks so much for this great moments we shared together.

See you soon.

Thomas

[skywalker]

Some pics of Friday here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skywalkers ... 954875614/



skywalker

[Viviane]

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE!!!!

As Patrice already said: "We are lucky and very happy that the weather gods were so good tempered for us!"
But it is not just the weather gods we have to thank, also all the people who made this ECS possible, the organizers, the helpers, the participants.
Every single link makes the chain.
Therefor to everyone who was there:

THANK YOU AND HOPE TO SEE YOU NEXT YEAR

[Viviane]

Oh I forgot something ...

say halo to Jacques, that he may recover soon now!

thank you for mentioning the dates for the next event, counting the days already

See you soon!!!

[Roelh]

It was super! Thanks to all!

See the nice weather and some Dutch, coming up, extreme carving turns :

Roel

[pokkis]

Super special thanks for
- Patrice and whole Swoard team
- all participants
- Zinal grooming crew

It was once again amazing weekend.
Atmosphere was extreme good, like on good old first sessions.
Grooming crew did extreme job with Bart, it looked very hopeless even in last Friday but on Saturday it was good, and it is now getting better every day, today it was perfect surface and i assume we will spend there full day also tomorrow.

One additional big thanks about announcing session days for next year already now

See you again next year

[licarver]

Thanks to all the team SWOARD,3 magic days;
Special thank for Patrice,Alex(the instructor),Andrew(the photographer).

Boris

[Swayne]

Thank you all for this amazing event!

It was my first ECS and I was very pleased. I had very much fun, learned a lot... and the weather did it`s part.

There are some things which I want to emphasise:

- Great options regarding Board-testing
- there were too few screwdrivers available on Saturday, better situation on Sunday
- good job done by the grooming-crew
- very competent instructors - they were friendly, skilled, considerate, and motivating (I`m referring to Alex and Anthony here)
- the warm wine on Saturday unfortunately didn`t last until 16:00, I think on Sunday it was also bare; people shouldn`t be forced to stop carving in order to still get warm wine (by the way... did they boil the wine? There was no alcohol in it, wasn`t it?)

Personal thanks:

- the staff in general
- Joemzl for setting up my bindings
- Patrice for my first Swoard =)
- Anthony and Alex for the positive criticism

Cheers,
Sven

[crack676]

Here's a short video from valdanniviers.wordpress.com:



It was a great session, thanks for the organisation.

See you next year

[fivat]

The videos are available now!

See the first post in this thread: it has been updated and all links are given!

Patrice Fivat

[au]

Nice pics and beautiful videos.
Thanks God, Barthelemy has been opened

See you all next year!

[Pinguin]

Hello Patrice, Hello Jacques, Hello Anthony, Hello Swoard-Team and Community,

After a couple of years of monitoring the Swoard community I had the time to stay this year the first time at the ECS.

It fully exceeds my expectations !!

Snow: Perfect
Weather: Perfect
Swoard-Team: Perfect
Organisation: Perfect
Swoard-Community: Perfect

At the end I´m now a proud owner of a swoard and the trainging session with Anthony gave me the last kick

But one crying eye I have: Why the hell did I wait so long to participate at the ECS ?

So: I´m happy about to participate at the next ECS2012 and hopefully will see a lot of swoard-enthusiast of this year again - specially Erik, Christian, Thomas, Uwe, Joerg, ...........

Cheers and cu next year.

Pinguin (Andy)

[rcrobar]

Each season I look forward to the annual EC thread that makes it possible to hear and see the EC event. Thank you to all the riders who take a moment to stop riding, get their camera(s) out and post their efforts for all to enjoy; not always an easy thing to do! It really is a pleasure to watch all the very talented riders, with their own unique styles, rip it up on the steep and wide runs in Zinal. Hard to believe it is almost 10 years since the EC site went on line. This annual EC event makes it easy to see that the EC following and positive spirit will continue to grow for many, many more years to come.

Cheers
Rob