Yup, we nipped down to see Kev and his Extreme Karts, and spent a couple of hours racing around the ice rink and trying to put Toby into the wall.

Now, we were expecting it to be good but it was absolutely brilliant. And even more so for those of us who won. The only thing that detracted from the afternoon was the necessity for hair nets, which didn’t seem quite manly enough to fit with the adrenaline and ego filled world of ice karting. But it’s hygenic so there you go…

We haven’t actually been able to combine those two words for a while. We’ve certainly had sunshine, and occasionally snow. But yesterday we had the very unusual experience of the two together. It’s actually alright, you know…

But there’s more good news – the sunshine has gone away this morning and it’s been snowing again. And up at Carlsberg it looks like this…

Well, actually that’s not true. But last night was the annual Powder Extreme v Performance Bowling Night and the end result was a disappointment to say the least.

That’s not because we mind losing, it’s just Felix will gloat for the entire summer about this…

So, we all trotted to Martigny with high hopes despite a depleted team as Kent, Martin, Toby and Gus were all missing due to ‘prior commitments’. We think they just couldn’t handle the pressure.

But it was a great night, Performance once again reverted to the ‘lager + pizza = high scores’ theory. Which wasn’t entirely successful. Powder Extreme, led by the irrepressible Felix, took it all very seriously. Well, except for Seb and Ben.

And it looked like this – the rematch will happen soon and we shall be bringing the A-Game next time Felix, you have been warned…

(Oh, one more thing, does anyone else think that drinking coffee during a bowling competition is, well, a sign of weakness?)

We posted the winning runs from the Verbier Extreme the other day, now thanks to Cyril Grosjean and PlanetSki.eu you can watch the two biggest talking points of the comp.

First Ludo Lovey took a terrifying fall over the cliffs and survived just bruised and dislocated shoulder. Then Maria Kuzma took a fall in the women’s snowboarding competition, setting off an avalanche that fortunately left her unhurt.

And the third is Mr Lovey again – this time staying in control and laying down a storming run in the Nendaz Freeride. The superman front flip off the final cliff is proably the coolest thing I have ever seen. Ever.

The Verbier Extreme was another dramatic and impressive day on the Bec des Rosses. If you don’t know what it’s all about, well, it’s the final event on the Freeride World Tour, and an excuse for a bit of a party in Verbier. And the winners looked like this…

Aurélien Ducroz (FRA), Men’s Ski winner of the Nissan Xtreme Verbier 2011.

Xavier De Le Rue (FRA), Men’s Snowboard winner of the Nissan Xtreme Verbier 2011.

Janette Hargi (SWE), Women’s Ski winner of the Nissan Xtreme Verbier 2011.

Anne-Flore Marxer (FRA/SUI), Women’s Snowboard winner of the Nissan Xtreme Verbier 2011.

Now, before you go through these photos it’s important we make one thing clear.

You see, we’ve all made fashion mistakes, and we all have a dodgy ski outfit lurking somewhere at the back of the cupboard. I had a particularly vile pair of tight purple race pants (with lime green flashes) that could induce nausea and epileptic attacks. And because we have all, at one time or another, owned something truly horrendous, we can spot someone else making that same mistake.

But when we went to Chamonix, France, we were looking for steep mountains, glaciers and everything we’ve seen in the movies. What we didn’t realise was that in Chamonix, the one-piece ski suit was not left in the nineteen eighties. It’s alive and well and usually day-glo… (By the way, the last one is probably the best).

And thanks to Dan, Donna, Sandy, Rich, Ben and Blaire for pretending to have their photo taken so we could discreetly capture the magic.