Welcome to Switzerland

Mid-March? Must be time for the British Snowboard Championships then. The well oiled Brits machines had rolled into Laax for the third year in a row, ready to fire a bunch of keen (and breakable) snowboarders and skiers at some jumps, metal rails and U-shaped holes in the ground.

But how was it going to differ from previous years? The answer, in the end, was not that much. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.

For up and coming riders, attending a contest with a format, mountain layout and party scene they know has got to help give their best performance. Knowing the order of events also helped powderroom.net pace a minimally-hungover and fun-filled week - but perhaps that's slightly less important.

The inevitable silliness started as soon as we boarded our transfer at Zurich airport. Waiting at the terminal for some lost luggage, our driver Joseph assembled an enormous wooden horn and tooted his way through some Swiss mountain classics to pass the time.

"Wonder if he'll start yodelling next," chortled a fellow transferee. Too right he will. And he yodelled his way all the way to Laax through his microphone.

A highlight was the Heidi-themed yodel to inform us that we were in Heidi country. We arrived in Laax soon after, our faces still creased with laughter, and Joseph gave us a final farewell yodel before he drove off into the night - no doubt to home to bed to dream of meadows, goats and blonde girls with pigtails.

Plenty of snow at the top

While Laax didn't seem to have been too starved of snow, it certainly looked different to previous years. There wasn't a scrap of snow in the town - making the usually sheet-ice footpaths a little safer than usual.

Checking out the slopes on practice day, the lower areas were mainly green, sunny pastures - with the home run a mere slash of white mush running through the spring fields. MC Christian Stevenson's clearly hadn't seen the home run before declaring 'Death before download'. 'Homerun to hell' more like.

Given the lack of snow in town, there was no way they'd have been able to pull off a big snow event like last year's Orange Air Time which used tons of the white stuff to create a massive quarterpipe.

Thankfully they'd invited the Euroboys to bring their airbag instead and that was set up at the base for people to throw themselves at. Great entertainment for those watching from the nearby bars.

The boardercross kicked events off on the Monday. As usual a few key parts of the course caused the most falls and crashes. One of the main culprits was a sharp drop near the start. Spectators would watch the riders drop down the slope and wait to see if they emerged out the other side. Some didn't appear as quickly as the others and were left hopping along the course to keep moving. Some didn't turn up at all and had to be assisted, slightly battered, from the course.

The atmosphere at the boardercross was slightly deflated

The sticky start gates also caused a few false starts but by far the most amusing technical issue was the inflatable Brits sign which was clearly having performance issues. While its air supply was sorted, riders and friends held it up with their hands to stop it blinding the competitors waiting in the start gates.

The women's final saw a fantastic start list - Jo Chastney, Lucy Passmore, Ivy Taylor and Posy Dixon - take to the start gates. The tricky drop got the better of Lucy and Ivy but Jo was able to maintain a lead until the end to secure her first Brits win. Posy came second while Lucy grabbed the final podium spot.

In the men's senior final, Robert Emmanuel managed to take over Nick Dudar's early lead to win the title, with Michael Arrowsmith coming third.

The biggest cheers of the day were reserved for the men's masters contest. It saw the return of some of the UK's most well-known snowboarding masters and former British Champions. The field included Chris Moran, James Stentiford, Steve Bailey, Matt Burt, Stu Brass and Spencer Claridge. Their entertaining final - accompanied by loud support from friends, wives, girlfriends and offspring - saw Ride's Matt Burt take home the gold.

Tuesday opened as another slushy scorcher - but an afternoon breeze stopped the big air run-in getting too soft and slow. That didn't stop the injuries though - Sonia Shaw was left in a sling after a fall early in the competition and Dom Harington hobbled off with a nasty injury to his 'good' ankle.

Notable too, for the first time in the week, was the absence of several bigger British names. Vicci Miller, Jenny Jones, Scott McMorris and Tyler Chorlton were all competing at the US Open rather than the Brits. Nate Kern, last year's big winner, wasn't competing today either - leaving the big air contest open to all.

Big air controversy

A podium place was looking rosy for a rider called Louis (whose surname sounding something like Berocca but he wasn't on the start list so I'm not sure how it was spelled) but there were confused looks all round at prize-giving when he wasn't called up to collect a medal. The three men in the money - Si Brass, Gary Greenshields and Tom West - even raised a toast to him during their prize-giving photos. It was all a bit strange.

It then emerged that Louis didn't have a British passport - an essential item when entering the British Championships and an issue only confirmed after the competition had taken place. I'm not sure why it was thought he had one but the organisers made the decision to disqualify him.

It wasn't a victimless incident either - the knock-out format of the contest has clearly left some of the riders with a bad taste in their mouth. If he hadn't been competing would they have still been knocked out at the same stages of the contest? Would they have progressed further?

If it had been a regular two run contest then his elimination wouldn't have changed the final results - the passport-holding riders with the top points would have won. In the end, it did affect the results and the potentially the TTR points of the other male riders. Not fun for them - and definitely not fun for the organisers to have to sort out.

Much more positive vibes were to be had around Jo Chastney though. She was totally stunned by her second Brits win in two days. She was also £800 richer and wore a grin wider than the superpipe.

Pipe champion Lesley McKenna

Lesley McKenna's presence and Kate Foster's shoulder injury left it pretty clear who the winner in the ladies halfpipe contest would be on Wednesday. But with Dom Harington out of action and Dan Wakeham absent, the men's title was up for grabs - and the next generation of male riders were all up for the challenge.

Lesley's performance in the qualification runs and the finals left everyone in no doubt that she would retain her title for the third year in a row. A fellow Scot - also from Aviemore - took the men's title. Angus Leith was going huge all day and took the title with a winning run that included a frontside 540, followed by a big Japan air, to frontside 720 and cab 540 to finish.

Wednesday night saw Animal hold a party to mark their 20th anniversary. A local nightclub - taking part in the Brits experience for the first time - was clad in black and white animal print and filled to busting with skiers and snowboarders desperate to dance.

The two and a half hour set by the Scratch Perverts definitely filled the brief - the place was heaving with everyone loving the classic tunes. I haven't been caught in a Rage Against the Machine moshpit for years and it was hilarious - although I swear half the riders on the dancefloor were probably still in nappies when those tunes first came out.

Laura Hill

Slopestyle Thursday started on a bit of a downer despite the general excitement over the record number of riders taking part - a massive 101 in total. One of the junior females overshot a kicker during early morning practice and had to be helicoptered off the mountain.

Chris Chatt shuddered as he explained how, sitting on a chairlift above the course, he'd seen her fall and watched her leg bend in a direction it definitely wasn't supposed to go. It sounded horrific - and the length of time it took to get her off the course (about an hour) showed that she'd had a really nasty fall. Fingers crossed that she's well on the way to recovery now.

Ryan Davis rode to victory with a broken snowboard while Posy Dixon won the women's title with Lucy Passmore and Laura Hill taking well deserved second and third place.

Thursday night - Red Bull party night - saw the doors to the massive Rider's Palace club open for the first time. Anyone who's ever been to the Rider's Palace can't help but be a little stunned that such a massive cavern lives quietly underneath the fairly cosy bar and rooms above. It's a like a nuclear bunker with beer on tap - and women's urinals too.

Lovely bedside lamps

The first things to greet us as we entered this year were three massive snowboarder sculptures. They could have been ice, they could have been plastic. I'd actually quite like some mini plastic ones as bedside lamps so if you every see them down at Ikea please let me know.

First up were Babyhead - a ska band with some slick co-ordinated dance moves and a trumpeter who seemed more at home bouncing round the audience than on the stage. They were very cool - and very popular. Next up were the Stanton Warriors and Bonobo who kept us dancing into the early hours.

The club was also the stage for a dance off competition and an informal award ceremony which saw Chris Moran celebrated for coming second in both the skiercross and the boardercross masters final. Ruth Knox - the mother (and a damn cool mother at that) of four snowboarders competing at the Brits - was also given a medal for her services to snowboarding.

Strange shiny snow

For the third year running (keep paying those weather gods Stu and Spence), bad weather day Friday wasn't needed so it was mountain playday for all. Despite hangovers of varying degrees, most people made it up the mountain.

We spent our day hooning round the rolling blue and red runs that make Laax such a fun and forgiving resort. We also found some untouched off piste snow - weirdly shiny and sticky and covered in a fine layer of ice but mucho fun for practicing slow motion powder turns in.

Afterwards we headed back to the Crap Bar - nabbing the seats in the middle of the roundabout for a good vantage point of our final apres drinking session of the week. Ewan Wallace, Christian Stevenson and others were on the roof with Johno Verity and Adam Gendle filming a last-minute sequence for the annual music video. James Carr and friends were amusing themselves by trying to destroy a snowboard.

Pens and beer equal beards for all

The Babyhead singer appeared straight from the slopes and was soon joined by a man we knew we'd seen somewhere before. It was the trumpeter - with his trumpeting arm in fresh plaster. Damn those snow planks.

After a final evening of liver abuse (and some moustache and tattoo fun with a big black marker pen) it was time to go home. Some people headed home while many others headed off to Tignes for the Protest Jib-Vid contest.

We weren't too sad to leave. Given the speed that years pass by as you get older, it'll only seem like a fortnight before it's time to head back to Laax for the Brits 2008. The big question is whether the big names in British snowboarding will join us this time.

For full results, pictures and video reviews of the Brits 2007 go to www.aimseries.com