Don't be careful what you wish for!

Snow...

It is hard to believe that only weeks ago I was boarding not snow, but the plane in sunny Christchurch with reports that europe was experiencing its the warmest autumn in 150 years. No snow on the alps had yet been reported, and nightmares of last years warm dry winter showed potential of reoccurring... but this was not to be.

Snow...

and more Snow...

I finally made it to Verbier - Switzerland, at midnight on the 14th December (grâce à la seule M^me-taxi-Dellea!), there had been a dusting of snow a week earlier but there was only remnants present in town when I arrived. This night was also when the snow storms arrived. On my first afternoon, already enough snow had fallen to safely ski the trees back to the resort. By the following day all lifts were closed, and upper parts of the village were being evacuated because of the avalanche risk posed by the shear volume of snow that had been puked! And in the days and weeks that followed it has just kept coming! There were reports that more snow had fallen in the space of 2 days than in the entire 5 month season last year!

A short clip from my first week up here... 

And with any breaks in the weather that we have had we have certainy made the most of this amazing start to the winter. However we have had to share the snow over the busy festive period. I can't wait until the new year when the crowds of punters recede. With the snow base we now have, any amounts of fresh pow goodness will be epic fun.

And some mountains, sun and a snowboard.

With both my point and shoot camera and my ContourHD head cam now on the blink, photos/videos are minimal, however rumours have it that along with alot of new snow, the new year will also bring some GoPros and a brand spankin new DSLR! So I'm hoping for some sick photos to come.

Merry Xmas morning bluebird - about to shred some Mont-Gélé Fresh! :)

You can never be too prepared - vince with matching blu-board/blu-pills

Me & Claire - Christmas Day Hangover fun

Me, Vince, Ian and Claire getting a couple of turns in before Christmas Dinner and just before my Headcam died.

Headcam was on it side by accident, but I think it actually gives a fair reflection of how I was feeling after certain xmas eve celebrations...

Xmas Banquet

Vinny bout to score some post Xmas-lunch Pow

At least someone knows where to go...

Backside Mont-Fort runout

First couple of weeks have dissappeared already! I guess I must be having fun?!

Burnt to a Crisp.

I can't wait to go snowboarding! After enduring nearly 30 hours of bugdet airlines I'm currently in a holding pattern in the UK where I have been for the last week or so staying with friends and Fam. Despite Europe and the Alpes suffering from the warmest autumn on record (meaning 0cm of snow yet!), there is a storm brewing on the horizon and I will be on my way out to Switzerland any day now so could time it perfectly.

Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

On the way out to Europe however picked up some great sun burn (for the first time in years!) from my 6 days in on the beautiful Thai Island of Kho Phi Phi. Almost halfway between NZ and Europe it would be rude not to stop, so I spent 6 days of sun, sand and snorkeling all day, and buckets + beach partys all night...

Next Stop... Switzerland?

Uni fun over for another year. Time to get serious again... Hello Thailand!!!

Dump anyone?

It's almost 9 months to the day since I touched back down in New Zealand after another amaizing, albeit slightly thin on snow - European winter. The start of the university year was only hours away, and a bare room in a student flat was as organised as I had got for it. I thought I had a lot on my plate. Little did I know only 2 days later a massive earthquake would devistate Christchurch. All priorities would have to be scrapped and re-evaluated. Thankfully all my friends and family in Christchurch were safe and well, as many were less fortunate on what was one of NZ's saddest days. Looking back 9 months on, it is quite remarkable to see how far Christchurch (despite still being broken) has come, and to think we have managed to fit an entire university year in despite the campus having been closed for months due to major earthquake damage, thousands of aftershocks and some fat snowstorms. It was certainly a massive relief putting down the pencil for my last exam after a mega hectic rescheduled year. Here are a few snaps I have found of some less-snow related memorable moments from 2011.

Scotty slacking.

Digger clearly can't keep up.

Pitstop. Digging out Chch with the flatmates and tens of thousands of other students after big quake.

Easter roadie to the west coast with the favourite Frenchie.

About to black out.

Rugby World Cup quarter final time. Auckland with Vince Ray.
ENG vs FRA and NZ vs ARG.

So...

...after hitching for 5 hours in a van, a car, and a truck, carshing a night in picton, followed by a 6 hour ferry ride in 6m swells, finally made it home to visit the fam 24 hours after finding out my 45 min flight had been cancelled thanks to a volcano on the other side of the world. wtf?!

It's hard to believe how much has gone down already in 2011, and even more so that I will be seeing out the final few weeks of the year in the mountains as I head back over to Europe. Although already it looks like its going to be a late start to the euro winter, so first off it appears a weeks beach pilgrimage in Thailand is required to pray for some snow.

A massive thanks to all the crew in Chch for the good times, ski missions, study missions, earthquake missions, liquefaction missions, boiling drinking water for months on end missions, and the thousands of other missions than have gone down. Also cheers to the flat mates for the banter, ski bums for crashing on the couche and in 'the closet', the AB's for winning the world cup, and the Bond whanau for being awesome and super supportive as always. You have all helped turn a difficult year into one of the most epic, productive and rewarding yet. 

Heres a couple of videos i found that help sum it up pretty well...

A très vite Verbier!

Comps done, NZ Season 2011 over and out...

Thats it for me snow-wise in NZ in 2011. A bit guttted to have missed loads of good days riding towards the end of the season as uni started to catch up with me. Was a short and sweet winter down here. Packed with good times, great memories, probably some memory loss too... and some epic riding, but seemed to come and go a bit quick for my liking. Can't wait to get back over to Europe in a few weeks as soon as I can get done with uni down here - Hoping for some pow this time around.

Dropping Day 2 at the Export33 Extremes Whakapapa.
After a difficult 1st day (sitting in 11th) had a better run day 2 and climbed back up to 6th.

Ended up 5th in the K2 Chill Series at Cragieburn/Mt Olympus and 6th at the Export33 extremes at Mt Ruapehu. Two highlights for me would be qualifying top on day 3 of the Chill comp, as well as putting down a half decent run on the final day at Ruapehu to climb back from 11th after a tough 1st day of competition. And with names like Will Jackways, Colin Boyd, and Ruapehu local hero Jordan Decker all having put down solid scores on day one it was always going to tricky to pull back. So I was pleased to have got back a few places on my first time riding the 400m-vertical epic 'day 2' venue known as 'Policemans'. I was blown away by the high level of riders about competing, especially up at Ruapehu. I was really stoaked to be competing against some top NZ and International riders. A bit dissapointed not to get any podiums along the way but did enough gain some valuable Freeride World Qualifier points which should qualify me for some comps while Im over in Europe this Summer.

 The groupies chilling - K2 Chill Series, Cragieburn

 Check out some of the action from the lenses of the boys at The Daily Dump Snow Report

Cheers to my man Big James O, for putting us up in Natty P for another year. And was stoaked to catch up with a good old school mate Emma and her fam in Raetihi. Best couple of runs of the trip were getting shown about the Whakapapa slush by her little bro Alex. Just as much, of a buzz as the last time we went for a shred 6 or 7 years ago! Snowboarding with good mates just doesn't seem to get old.

Ski Bumming - Heading to the North Island.

Always Good times tho travelling about with Vinny Rayner. Made it even better having finished just ahead of him in both the comps (not to mention the boardercross), as I couldn't have handled the smack talk on the drives home if I hadn't. Nice to catch the Bond Fam briefly as we passed through Wellington, and had a good night out on the town there with very few drinks paid for thanks to a Verbier connection working behind the bar. Thanks also mum for letting us steal your new car for the trip!

A choice time lapse shot round Mt Ruapehu...

Temple Basin + Gnomes Freeride 2011

Dropping in style at Temple

Stoaked on life!

That time of year again and one of the highlights on the Uni Ski clubs calender and one of the most chilled Big Mountain Comps about. Temple Basin turned it on again after another massive storm passed through leaving us balls deep in pow. Somehow this time around I found my self watching this one through the binocs as a judge. Despite the slight disappointment not to be out there hucking with the lads, I couldn't have asked for a better day to bake out in the sun, sip on a few beers and judge the boys and girls sending it of some of Temples amaizing features.

Vinny going for it in his comp line - YEAH BOY!

Judging wasn't all hard work

Another busy powder day at the basin...

Not this Keas lucky day

Dobby, Dan and Douchbag.

Gnomes freeride is a comp run by CUSSC, the Canturbury Uni Snowsports Club and is aimed at all abilities and getting as many people involved as possible. It was an awsome day and was good to see my man vinny stomping both his runs and taking it out (unanamous judging decision I should add), as well as James who came up second with a nice line. Others were also sending it, some solid lines, some impressive double ejections... All in all an awsome day of competition in an amazing venue! Looking forward to next year already.

The good life!

Competition Aside, Me and Vinny stretched our Temple mission out to four days, and made the most of some of the best conditions of the season so far with an awsome crew, couloirs, kickers, hicking, hucking and a healthy amount of hydration...

Bring on the rest of the comps and the rest of the season! Can't wait.

More Road Trips and Snowdays. Keep'em coming please!

A rare line at Lyford

Any excuse is a good one to Hire a lodge and fill its jacuzee with skibums. And this last weekend coincided with a famous persons birthday which was all the excuse we needed. The snow up at Lydford wasn't anything worth writing a blog about but we had fun and after much trial and error found the best way to ski with snowboard boots on and get 4 people down the hill on 1 snowboard.
So thanks to Lynette, Dobby, Erin, Talyor, Hadfield, Schnieder, Plug, Caitlin, Matt, and Vinny for another awsome weekend of jacuzees, a few beers, ice cold glacial lakes, beers, natural hot pools, more beers and a couple of hours skiing crud.

Therapeutic

Mt Lyford

BN Ice Cold Lake to Hot Tub

Nice Group Shot, but this was as close as we got to the mountain...

A decent southerly front whipping up some fresh straight from Antarctica this week called for two things, Uni Closed and Ski missions in the Port Hills!

An even rarer line in a paddock up the port hills over looking Christchurch

Mount Olympus - Valley of the gods. Where dreams can come true, and be shattered along with our cars transmission!

Peak Hour traffic on a Tuesday morning up to Mt Olympus

Firstly all the best to Austin the Yank, who had made it all the way out to NZ to shred some pow with us only to have blown his knee on his second weekend riding. Losing one of the crew this early in the season definitely put a bit of a downer on our first mission up to olympus for the season, but having said that we still managed some nice turns. Hope ya knee goes back together right (for the 3rd time?!) and look forward to shredding some fresh with you soon man!

Vinny

Fresh afternoon air.

Yesterday we pushed on for a midweek mission up Olympus again, and for some stupid reason I let frenchboy drive-up. Safe practice is for myself to guide 'the hulk' (our Suby) up the hills in the AM, and if everything fine and the stars are aligned, then vinny will drive home back to Chch in the arvo. Anyway on this occasion I had had a late one in the books so Vincent was driving. We had almost made it up the notorious Olympus access road when vinny somehow failed to stop for a boulder (the size of a small house) in the middle of the road. We got some good air, and luckily the transmission fluid was leeking slow enough for us to get to the top of the hill for a ski. Getting back to Christchurch was another story however...

Hucking good fun

So despite the drama, the terrain and snow at Mt Olympus failed to disappoint as usual and we had another epic day it the sun.