BUSC Snowsports trip Easter 2011 - By Adam

It’s been a couple of years since I graduated from uni but I know from old trips that you only need to be loosely associated with a uni to be welcome on tour. BUSC (British University Snowsports Committee) is one of many organisations that organise ski/snowboard trips for thousands of students each year. When you think of thousands of students put together in any place for any reason, you would expect laughs, mayhem and madness. These things are never as mad as you imagine they could be but that really didn’t take anything from the trip. Although I have just received a text from BUSC saying ‘We apologise for the delay in returning deposits. This is due to an unprecedented amount of damage caused to accommodation’. I guess it was pretty mad.

A great time was had by all (well maybe not ‘Aids Face’, I’ll explain later). I was in a room of guys, all boarders, excellent crack! Aids Face is a name we give to one of the guys who destroyed his face by the sun on the 1st day, poor guy had the worse luck all week, bad times for him, good laughs for us.

The resort was Tigness in the French Alps and with an extended lift pass you could also ski Val D’isire. The trip was at the end of the season so the snow wasn’t great, but good enough and with the dozens of routes available with the extended pass you could ski different areas every day, the routes in Val D were particularly good.

BUSC organised the events, during the day there were big air, half-pipe competitions as well as charity bikini ski (with bouts of nudity!!). At night there was always something happening, big club nights etc on every night. The 1st night there was a big outdoor rave-up, ruined by a knob-head beat-boxer who got a new mate kicked out, he only threw a snowball at him. What did he expect standing on a balcony in front of 2 thousand students surrounded by tonnes of snow?

The second night I’d bought the optional mountain meal, with great memories of previous mountain meals getting pissed up on top of the mountain then boarding back down to the resort in the dark guided only by burning torches. The mountain meal wasn’t actually up on the mountain, in fact we were supposed to toboggan down to it, but the snow melted so we couldn’t. However, a cool tipi and many bottles of wine and memories of people snorting whipped cream and licking a goats skin hanging outside.

The Fenicular is an underground tube that takes you up to a café/bar on the mountain in Tignes , we went on the Wednesday and walking out of the underground shuttle out onto the peak of a mountain, we had the most spectacular sight I’ve ever seen, a glorious sunset (soppy I know but YOU WEREN’T THERE MAN!!). The music was BANGIN! The filthiest Dub Step I’ve ever heard, I’ve never had the filthiness of a bass actually pop my ear drums before. 2 many frontmen and ending with High Rankin, when a dj plays a set while drinking JD from the bottle you know it’s going to be good.

By now, although the lads were have a good time together, there was a surprising lack of action with the ladies, it was only later when someone pointed out there was an 8:1 ratio of guys to girls it kind of made sense. A bit of a sausage fest. The Thursday wasn’t great, one massive room playing the same music by the same djs and same annoying beat-boxer (starting to get bored by them now) and some decent house up in a small room. I did see a guy get knocked clean out afterwards, livened up the night.

It was starting to look like BUSC were really just milking the money from us as each gig was really expensive and what they put on just wasn’t as good as it could be. I went on an ‘On the pieste’ tour a couple years back and it was much more low-key, but because of the people you’re with you can have an epic time still. After hearing the last night was at the same venue with the same music and dj’s we decided to sack it off and have our own night out in town. It involved a massive pre-lash, Aids Face being sick over the balcony and ended up with a rave in a grimy underground bar. Result.

Has student life changed much in the last couple of years? The banter is the same, the chants, the rivalry is still the same, the drinking games though have evolved and become even more imaginative which was what cause carnage on the standard pre-lash!

Final thoughts On these kinds of trips, it’s not about the big events, it’s not even so much about the skiing, it’s about the fantastic time you can have with like-minded friends and strangers. I didn’t die or brake anything which is a bonus, spent a night in the chalet of some other random people in a different town, I’m a slightly better boarder and saw boobs on a ski slope so can’t complain really. Would I go again? Definitely!

Memorable quotes: ‘Dude, you’re a pro? I’m so much fucking better than you!’ ‘This is such an emotional song’ – While listening to Avril Lavigne’s ‘Skater Boi’. AHHH I didn’t even mention La Folie Duece! An unbelievable bar in the mountains at Val D, too much to talk about in this post, I’ll write a separate one just for it… It’s that good!!

-- Adam