I rocked up at Hemel Snow Centre for my usual Friday night of freestyle and was pleasantly greeted by the presents of the Animal Pro Riders. The team were making Hemel look pretty rad and defo had stepped up the trend as they were all donning their new bling outfits.

With Animal’s Snowcamps just around the corner they were putting on a big night to put you in the mood to take up a weeklong trip of coaching from their pro riders and to radically improve your skills. The coaching was available for anyone who wanted to learn some new freestyle skills and it was kindly provided by Animal, so there was no extra cost. We had one of Animal’s top coaches, Steve Addicott. He kindly put us through our paces; I practiced backside 180s, frontside boardslide, and some weird tricks that Steve made up.

Animal said that their only reason for existence is to see you IMPROVE, “so prizes are for newly learnt tricks! We want to see you PROGRESS – so prizes are not just for park rats that have been spending all of their free time buttering the box but also for the best effort and improvement on the night so come have some fun and let’s see you FLOURISH!”

My efforts for the night were rewarded with a pretty pink Animal Cap and a lush cream Animal Hoodie. Two of the other girls were lucky enough to take away Animal Snowboarding Jackets so they were stoked, and 3 of the guys got rewarded with Animal Hoodies.

It was my best night at Hemel since its opening, and the attendance of Animal’s Pro Riders, Samantha Rogers, Dom Harrington and James Webb most definitely jazzed up the slopes.

Visit animalsnowcamp.com to find out more on how you could spend a week riding with the Pro Team in either Japan or Austria.

Written by Catherine Peck, sponsored by Salomon Snowboards, Bonfire Clothing, Ski Club of Great Britain, Clip-in Hair Extensions and undercover-glamour.com