Freestyle Snowboarders Take Flight

Friday night is freestyle night at The Snow Centre, the new "real snow" indoor sports centre in Hemel Hempstead. Snowboarders from across the South of England are welcome to try out the "Park and Ride" snowboard freestyle nights, where centre staff design and build a new park layout each week.

The course features a variety of hips, rails, boxes and kickers to suit novices as well as challenging more experienced boarders. The centre has a range of hard items and the benefit of unlimited snow to build any type of layout they choose, and, based on feedback from visitors, the courses are designed fresh each week. Construction of the course layout starts with a draft plan before the hard work commences on thursdays. Using tonnes of fresh snow the various features are built, tested, tweeked and made perfect before the skiers and snowboarders arrive. Each week is different and the layouts are getting more exciting and challenging as the course builders take on feedback and the boarders get more accomplished.

The main freestyle night is on Friday when snowboarders can use the slope for 4 hours for a cost of £35. If the full four hours is too much then a shorter two hour session is priced at £25. A shorter freestyle session is also held on Saturday evening between 8 pm and 10 pm which also costs £25.

For complete beginners who would like to try out freestyle snowboarding but haven't tried the sport before, the centre offers a complete day of ski or snowboard instruction. This full seven hour day includes lunch and dinner and takes new snowboarders from the absolute basics through to level one technique.

For high jumpers who want to try out risky manoeuvres the centre has also arranged for certain Freestyle Fridays to include the Airbag - a huge inflatable bag to cushion landings. The Airbag will feature once every month with dates published on The Snow Centre website for months up to February 2010. There is a small additional charge for use of the airbag.

The Friday evening freestyle session has been running for a few months now and is already proving very popular. The centre advises anyone wishing to attend to call and reserve a slot beforehand if possible. Qualified Snow Centre staff are on hand to offer advice, tips and keep things safe, but boarders and skiers need to have reached level 5 ability to be allowed into the session. Details of what level 5 ability entails is provided on the Centre's website.

In early June one of the FBBB Tour '09 events (For boarders By Boarders) was held at The Snow Centre, featuring competitions, balcony party and DJ music. Results of the competitions are now on the FBBB website.

The Snow Centre has a further range of instruction courses to take advantage of the 130 qualified snow sports instructors it has available to it. Full details of programmes and session timetables are available on the centre's website www.thesnowcentre.com