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Alexi Godbout gets upside down in Val d’Isere.

T he plan was ambitious, but not altogether unreasonable: Three weeks in Europe with

five of your best buds, centered around the first annual European X Games in Tignes, France, with pri-vate park shoots, a video comp, and no shortage of urban slayage all on the menu. The goal: return home with money, footage and fame. For a seasoned group of slope-style riders from Quebec, planning a large trip like this is full of ifs and whens. Weather, injuries, and travel delays are par for the course, so the team filled its itinerary to the brim, knowing at least a few things would go wrong along the way. Led by slopestyle stalwarts J.F. Houle and Alexis Godbout, the raison d’etre was a Tignes break-out party in the freeski world, the first jaunt across the pond for the Winter X Games. Charles Spina, acclaimed photographer and filmmaker with

several transatlantic trips under his belt, was along for the ride to document the trials and tribulations of the comp scene, but was really there for the private park shoot scheduled at the end of the trip at Chatel Resort in the famed Portes-du-Soleil region that borders France and Switzerland. Filmmaker J.F. Boutin had his eye on the prize of a first-of-its-kind video competition in freeski legend Candide Thovex’s hometown of La Clusaz. And, so enticed by the spoils up for grabs, Swedish superstar Henrik Harlaut hopped along for the ride. But it was not to be. Murphy’s Law reared its ugly head before they had even left Trudeau Airport in Montreal, and remained a travel companion throughout the journey. But in typical Quebec can-do spirit, the crew found out that when life gives you lemons, all you need a little bit of tequila. Or in this case, a lot.

Words: Jason Mousseau & Chris O’Connell, Photos: Charles Spina

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The promised land becomes anything but during three weeks abroad for our Quebecois crew.

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Alexi Godbout gets upside down in Val d’Isere.

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Henrik Harlaut makes the most out of the few hours of sun the crew found on their trek.

S pirits were high with the vet-erans brushing aside the now standard interrogation of pho-tographer Spina at the airport

before departure, but quickly sank on arrival. The plan was to head to Tignes for a private shoot before the frenzy of X Games took over the entire town. “We were so stoked to leave the cold and bitter Montreal winter only to arrive in France during one of the gnarliest snow storms we’d ever seen,” Godbout recalls. Weather resigned the riders to something they’d soon become all too familiar with: off days. And what to do with time on your hands in a strange country? “Easy,” says Houle, “You sit around drinking beer, eat-ing expensive food, and smoking weed, all while wishing you were skiing.” With Plan A in the garbage can, atten-tion turned to X Games qualifications for J.F. and Alexi in slopestyle. Though the boys had no shortage of rest, the weather continued to be a problem, causing speed issues on the course and ultimately led to both riders watching the finals alongside the 60,000 other spectators that made their way to the resort that weekend. Spina, unable to secure on-course photo credentials from the notoriously tight X Games organizers, brokered a deal to act as the Orage mascot for the event in exchange for some gratis liba-tion. And so what do you do with yet another round of off days? “Easy”, Houle repeats, “You sit around drinking beer, eating expensive food, and smoking weed, all while wishing you were skiing. “At least this time we had drink tickets”.

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P lan B, thoroughly destroyed along with the boys confi-dence, led the crew to decide it was time for a change of

venue. The boys made the trek to Val D’Isère in search of urban options and looking for at least one shot. Having bagged a down rail on their first day in town, the boys returned to the home of a local friend who’d be showing

them around for the next week. Unfortu-nately, their gracious host failed to relay their accommodation plans to the owner of the house, and while admiring the first pieces of usable footage from the trip said owner returned and explained that the five skiers were no longer welcome. Bags packed and now farther down the plan alphabet with little to show for it, J.F. Boutin perked up as the crew made its way to La Clusaz for a novel multi-day session and video edit competition. “It was not only a chance to get some footage for my film on the biggest with beautiful backdrops,” Boutin says, “but an opportunity to showcase my filming and editing skills to a wider audience.” But as the second or third round of nasty weather hammered the eastern part of France in as many weeks, condi-tions closed La Clusaz due to, among other things but a first on this trip, ava-lanche danger. Boutin left without ever pressing the record button once.

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J.F. Houle shakes the cobwebs and shifties into the melting snowpack.

W ith little to show for weeks on the road and thousands of sponsor dollars spent, the last

gasp for the boys was located 300 kilo-metres north in Portes du Soleil. Local ambassador Arnaud Kugener has called Chatel home for years and as Houle and Spina found on a previous trip here in 2007, which culminated in an epic sunset booter sesh, if they could make it anywhere, this would be the place. Kugener had taken it upon himself to organize another private jump, but high hopes quickly faded, explains Houle. “When they showed us the jump we thought it was a joke. Tiny, zero pop and too dangerous to hit. We spent the next eight hours sitting in the Cat rebuilding.” After a full day of digging the jump was ready for the next day. Cue some truly tropical conditions, the only major weather annoyance that had yet to make an appearance, includ-ing temps hovering around 18C for five straight days, and rains that all but laid to waste their efforts on the kicker. “We sat around and drank our sorrows away,” laughs Houle. “The trip was a pretty big failure, so we just went on a bender.” Six days later the rain stopped and despite an amalgamation of hangovers

the boys saddled up to check out what was left of their booter. It was bad. Melted and brown. But nothing another day of hard work couldn’t fix. The next day was bluebird and the boys showed up to get some work done. Along with 15 local rip-pers that had heard about the session. Despite the rush hour-like conditions on the jump, Spina and Boutin were finally able to get what they needed. Exhausted from running up the jump dur-ing their two-hour window of good light, the crew could at least be satisfied that they got something done despite the tidal wave of misfortune. The cherry on top of this spectacle de merde was placed the next morning, with the boys packing up to head home only to find the weather had changed again and dumped a foot of fresh. Perfect conditions for skiing. But bad enough for travel to have Houle recite a now famil-iar refrain, “Pass the tequila.” ×

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After a full week of slogging, Harlaut works double time in Portes-du-Soleil.

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