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.

Don't worry, Temple wasn't that good, You missed nothing ......NAAAAAAAAHT!

In my element!

What a pumping weekend up at Temple Basin. Epic snow, mad crew, both lodges at packed out. Lines were skied, beers were drunk, smack was talked, and my face was planted on the stairs after a failed staircase/bench bobsleigh run. Jelose much? have a look at some of these!

 Mission - Ski some pow!

Respect the Pro!

Having a moment to myself - Awsomeness!

You can't get hurt in the air

But you can when you fail on a staircase. More and more beautiful one scar at a time.

They left this me with no real choice...

But to rip the shit out of this!

Austin Texas looking tight

Rode from the peak of this (1728m) to the carpark at the valley floor (980m). Not bad.

Wounded soldier

Couldn't resist this one either

Austin Shredding.

Yeahboi!

Vinny being vinny.

NZ pow pow

Quality altitude planking

And here's some raw head cam footage dropping from one of the peaks we hiked. Siiiiick mellow line, of almost 900m vertical. Was a bit pissed of the cam turned off halfway into the line, but you get the idea anyway, enjoy! I did.

 

More snow forecast for later in the week = More good times to come!

Delirium

Month after month of earthquake anxiety, disruptions, university overdoses and all night study benders have not helped. And any false hope of early season snowfalls have just fueled the dependence. Ski porn and the smell of new riding gear curbed the effects for some time, but immunity developed. Week in and week out, unseasonably warm and dry forecasts have been sucking up all hope, instead we've been 'spiraling down a deep hole that noone wants to ever go down' (lynette, 2011). Luckily I am not alone. In fact everywhere I look, flatmates, friends, fellow university slaves, ski-bums and people on TV, all suffering from the same soul destroying insanity caused by a late winter.

My friends, this could all be about to change...

Could it actually be real? If so, then it's ON!

There was a brief repose earlier this week as we got the first turns in of the long awaited season. Core shots galore could not put a downer on the epic vibes that even lapping a sole T-bar, shaving ice and rock the whole way down the 60 second -top to bottem- run can provide. Myself and Plug accompanied a couple of young pups up to Mt Lyford, a small ski area in North Canterbury. A car load of us, and a handful of others were present. Naked skiing was respected (thanks Plug), beers were drunk and crashes applauded. Jacuzzi's and shooting stars were also there. This was just a warm up but we all knew that the real winter is just around the corner. Awsome couple of days cheers boys.

Desperate times cause for desperate measures.
After a half hour scree climb Tom, Gareth, Plug and myself came up with this one.
Cheers for the image Gareth (stolen from FB). 

Plug about to rip the shit out of his line...

White powder addict in withdrawals, lines in any form of any length will do - Me, pre-season 2011.

Who knows, this time next week we may even have some SNOW!