The venue for the day was in Lego Land, which is on the top half of the Pinnacles.
We hiked up for inspection, and soon found that we were going to be faced with some challenging conditions.
The face was icy as hell, especially in the shaded aspects. There were sections where the ice looked blue. It's the first time I have seen blue ice in a long time.
The weather was perfect to begin with, though it did start to cloud in near the end of the day.
 |
| Day 1, catching some rays pre comp |
We managed to get two runs in with out too much interference with cloud. My first run was solid but I missed a couple of my features, due to the ice.
I picked a slightly different line for run two because I felt like I had a chance at scoring higher. I started my run with a drop straight off the ridge to straight line through a chute and a small hop out, that was followed by a small rock to immaculate Tranny and over the centre ridge line to another cool Tranny. A very fun line.
Btw for those who dont know, I am most certainly not talking about lady boys. Tranny is a short for- *TRANSITION*.
I finished 3rd on day 1, following Sam Smoothy in 2nd and B Devine in 1st.
 |
| Photo: Lachlan Humphries |
It was a visual inspection only from the bottom.
This made things a lot more difficult. On top of that the face looked mega icy. I decided to stick to the faces with the early sun, but I had to rethink my line mid hike because I was able to see that my chosen line was 100% NOT ON.
The hike took about an hour.
It was quite nerve racking, as the steps in the boot pack were blue ice, and the toes of my boots are quite round, plus my poles didn't do anything because the tips had broken off, so not exceptional grip.
I dropped into my line and found that the snow was much better than expected, and that the drops I had spotted were not actually drops, but more patches of rock with a fall away. I dealt with it and did some on the go improvising. Stomped my run and ended in 4th, putting me in 4th overall after day 2.
The most amazing thing was that we had now had 2 days of competition in a row with no delays, although the cloud did menace us on and off.
 |
| Photo: Lachlan Humphries |
The podium at this point was Sam Smoothy 1st, Charlie Lyons 2nd and B Devine 3rd.
But I saw it as Kiwi, Kiwi, Yankee.
And I thought it would look much nicer if it was Kiwi, Kiwi, Kiwi.
I planned hard, with a lil help from Charlie. I decided that because the day 3 venue was going to be on Policemans again, I would ski my same line faster and much smoother than I had on day 2. The key words were, Ski Smart.
The next day was postponed due to cloud blocking the judges view. They told us this after 3 hours of waiting on the ridge, we were in sunlight at the top so it wasn't so bad, and there was a lot of singing and good banter to pass the time.
We arrived up the mountain on day 4 to similar conditions, but managed to get a good window and the comp went ahead.
I skied my run almost exactly as I had planned, harder, faster and smoother but still safe, and it paid off.
I ended up 3rd after the day and that put me into 3rd overall behind Sam in 1st and Charlie in 2nd.
SO, Kiwi, Kiwi, Kiwi was acheived as planned.
 |
| Team Kiwi, Ruling |
Then it was off to Auckland with Charlie, Cam and Tyler in a well over packed Nissan Sunny.
Good job to all who competed, some great runs were put down!
The results
http://www.mtruapehu.com/content/library/Export_33_Xtreme__Day_3_Results.pdf
Vids
http://vimeo.com/28608275
http://vimeo.com/28658880
http://thedailydumpsnowreport.com/new-zealand/new-zealand-tour/2011/09/08/8th-september-2011-whakapapa/
Tori Beaties NZ skier write up
http://www.nzskier.com/articles/537/export_extremes_day_4_-_a_judges_blog_by_tori_beattie
No comments:
Post a Comment