Snowboarding at La Cluzas.

My two teenage children fixed me with withering

stares. "Dad, don't even

think about it. You're the wrong generation."

High on the sunlit, snowy slopes above La Clusaz in the

French Alps I had entertained the fleeting ambition,

for the purpose of research you understand, to step on

for what is perhaps the simplest free ride on earth.

The snowboard is little more than a thin, rippling slab

of wood, curved up at the front and back, its underside

smoothed to greased lightning. What an exhilarating way to

go down a mountain.

But while nobody minds if you ski well into mellow,

creaky-jointed old age, snowboarding is strictly for the

teenage-to-thirtysomething range. And I certainly did not

qualify.

So I was in La Clusaz, the small village resort an

hour from Geneva, merely to watch. But was I here as

travel writer or war correspondent?

The skiing press carries ominous reports of imminent war

between skiers and snowboarders. Traditionalists of the

piste are spluttering into their

apres-ski coctails, choking with indignation on their

cheese fondue, over the arrival of the baggy trousered

upstarts with turned-back caps, their boards

emblazoned with provocative urban jungle-ish names like

"Original Sin".

However my children were not here to wind up the skiers,

but to have fun. They were

enrolled on an Ecole de Ski Francais (French Ski School)

beginners' course on one of the growing number of

snowboard-friendly

resorts in the Alps, which offer instruction in special

snowboarding tuition areas and facilities for more

experienced boarders. The question was - were the

skiers snowboard-friendly too?

We rode up in the fetching, burgundy-red gondola in the

La Grand Bornand resort, in the next valley to La

Clouzas. Boarder 1, my 14 year old son, who normally wore

slouchy trousers wide enough to hide a snowboard down, was

impeccably-coutured in his hired salopettes, a woolly

"beanie" hat his only gesture to rebellion.

Girls are up for this too. "Ha, just try leaving me

behind," said Boarder 2, my 17 year old daughter, refusing

to accept that snowboarding was a "boy's thing". She was

dressed "school bus smart".

I knew this was going to be fun. I have had many a

"virtual" ride down a mountainside, sitting at Boarder 1's

shoulder while he negotiated the 1080 snowboarding

computer game at 125 kph.

Half the time he seemed to be "airboarding"; 20 feet off

the ground, turning and twisting in the 360 (that's going

right round), the 540 (right round and a bit more), the

"stalefish", "mute grab" and "indy nosebone". So I stood

behind a tree, just in case.

But the first two hours, as instructor Jean-Pierre, his

face burnished the colour of a russet apple, explained,

was the snowboarding equivalent of learning to crawl. The

pair spent the morning finding their balance, arms

outstretched like tightrope walkers, describing elegant

arcs, taking the occasional nose dive, This is like

falling off a log, only you take the log with you, because

you are attached by your boots.

By lunch time the

fists-pounding-the-snow-in-indignation/humiliation

moments had given way to continuous and already stylish

200 metre runs down a shallow slope.

So what do (some) skiers have against snowboarders? A

core objection is that snowboarders go down the piste at

different angles to skiers, and cut deeper into the snow

with the side of their boards, leaving it corrugated and

icy for skiers.

They are said to hurtle dangerously around the pistes

causing accidents. Some slopes - Aspen in the USA is one -

have banned them.

The insults gather like a snowdrift in a high wind.

Snowboarders are uncouth, have a "grungy" look and a "bad

attitude". They are talentless, jumped-up skateboarders;

chased out of the shopping malls they now disrupt polite

mountainside society.

Don't know where Boarder 2 fitted

in here. She doesn't even say "Check it out, man" or

"radical". For a role model she would look to leading

British snowboarder, 21 year old Juliet Elliot, very

feminine and not in the least anarchic.

The 97 year-old Ski Club of Great Britain

recently invited snowboarders to join. It renamed the club

magazine Ski and Board. Now diehards are threatening to

form a breakaway snowboard-free club.

Stricter elements in the skiing establishment

must be terrified that Prince Harry might give

the upstart sport his endorsement in his annual appearance

before the press of the world next January - as he did

in 1999 when he wore snowblades, the new half size skis,

sales of which immediately went ballistic. Then there

would be no stopping snowboarding.

Skiing comes in various permutations, with a multiple

choice of ski size, with or without sticks. The appeal of

snowboard is its simplicity - the fastest and freest form

of non-mechanised transport open to the young

person - prices start at #100-#200. Just tuck under your

arm and go.

The first snowboard may have been

the "Snurfer", derived from the surfboard in

1965. The "Skiboard" followed in 1972.

But snowboarding really took off in the 1990s. The Olympic

Committee accepted it - no bribes asked or given, I'm sure

- as an official medal discipline in time for 1998's

games in Nagano.

In the afternoon the children took to the slopes above

La Cluzas, a pleasant village resort, with no high

rise buildings.

Jeremy, a young man with the mountainside at his feet,

equally at home on board or ski, was their new

instructor. He

soon had them weaving a sinuous line down the piste,

changing direction with judegement rather than luck, and

swooshing to a standstill in a cascade of snow in front of

an imaginary skiier.

Every so often a black clad youth would skim past on

the edge of his board - the snowboarder's version of

cornering on two wheels - knees bent, swaying his body

from left to right on with what seemed like real skill.

And evident enjoyment.

The boys (and, I hope, the girls) from Lyon and the

cities nearby - street hardened skateboarders - come up

here and roam far and wide. Traditonalists may object, but

there is no doubt the mountains are becoming a less

exclusive place.

In the middle of winter, in the Northern hemisphere,

there can be few more joyful places to be than

on the ski slope when the sun is shining, even if you

only stand and watch.

Against a glorious panorama of multiple peaks, I could

see the same cameo of animated activity - little coloured

dots of people skiiing, and no doubt snowboarding - at

level after level above me, right to the distant top. In a

matter of minutes many of them were hurtling past me.

There are perhaps 85,000 snowboarders in the UK; most

of them, with our succession of mild winters, must head

for the Alps. Resorts like La Clusaz and Le Grand Bornand,

where there seemed plenty of room for everyone, want them

to coexist with skiers. I saw no animosity, nor did my

children encounter any.

There is snow through to May at La Cluzas. Our

instructor Jeremy recommends Easter: a very good time to

visit because many people French people are off to the

already warming-up Mediterranean.

And my children's verdict? When we left their knees

were blue with bruises. But as Boarder 1 reminded me - he

had spent the winter on a skateboard jumping kerbs - snow

is softer than concrete. "Snowboarding is

wicked."

_________________________

Fact Box.

La Cluzas is 50 km from Geneva airport and about two and a

half hours by bus from Lyon. Maersk Air run daily flights

from Birmingham direct to Lyon: tel: 0121 743 9090.

Annecy - 30 km from La Cluzas - is served by direct train

services from Paris, with Eurostar connections from

London. Rail Europe (0990 848848) coordinate bookings. The

writer and his family stayed at Hotel Beauregard, tel 00

33 450 32 6800. La Cluzas on line: www.lacluzas.com

French Tourist Board 178 Piccadilly, London W1V OAL, 0891

244123.

---------------------------------------------