I just found this, it is a video from Will Jackways from the cat skiing trip that I went on at the start of the season.
It sums up the day pretty well, plus there is a wee snippet of my dropping a cool little double stager.
Go check it out!
http://vimeo.com/28812480
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Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
NZ Open Big mountan
Last week I competed in the NZ Open Big Mountain, I was pre qualified so I didnt have to worry about the qualifying leg. That was good cos it was a bit of a weight of my shoulders.
It is kind of nice to be able to ski the qualifier day though, it gets you warmed up and ready, so that you're amped for finals.
The snow was great, and some epic lines were skied.
My first run was OK, but I couldn't spot my entry point into my main big cliff, and had to pull out.
I was kind of annoyed by that.
I spotted it again from the bottom of the course and set off with a clearer image in my mind.
I changed a few parts of my line so that I took my top drop a little faster and bigger missing out some technical stuff from run 1 so that it would be more fluid.
I got through my mid section really well but landed on a rock coming out of a chute, and tomahawked.
That meant that run 2 was a no score.
I finished up 9th with my run one score of 7.5.
Considering I wasn't happy with how I skied that run, I'm OK with where I placed.
I definitely don't feel like I skied to my potential though.
But its all learning.
Congrats to the podium: George Pengelly 1st, Charlie Lyons 2nd and Sam Smoothy 3rd.
It is kind of nice to be able to ski the qualifier day though, it gets you warmed up and ready, so that you're amped for finals.
The snow was great, and some epic lines were skied.
My first run was OK, but I couldn't spot my entry point into my main big cliff, and had to pull out.
I was kind of annoyed by that.
I spotted it again from the bottom of the course and set off with a clearer image in my mind.
I changed a few parts of my line so that I took my top drop a little faster and bigger missing out some technical stuff from run 1 so that it would be more fluid.
I got through my mid section really well but landed on a rock coming out of a chute, and tomahawked.
That meant that run 2 was a no score.
I finished up 9th with my run one score of 7.5.
Considering I wasn't happy with how I skied that run, I'm OK with where I placed.
I definitely don't feel like I skied to my potential though.
But its all learning.
Congrats to the podium: George Pengelly 1st, Charlie Lyons 2nd and Sam Smoothy 3rd.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Export 33 Extreme
Last week I was up in National Park for the Export 33 Xtreme at Whakapapa.
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.
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.
On day 2 the venue was moved down the pinnacles to Policemans.
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.
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.
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
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
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Chill Series
The last few weeks have been pretty epic with competitions, travelling and work all packed in back to back.
It started out with the Chill Series up in the Canterbury club fields at the end of August.
Chill is a four day big mountain competition that runs at Craigieburn and Mt Olympus.
It starts off at Craigieburn with a qualifier day and a finals day and then moves on to Mt Olympus for another two days with the same format. The scores from both venues are then combined for an overall event total.
It is quite a challenging competition because you have to stay on the ball, skiing clean and hard for four days straight.After a mellow quali day at Craigie we were set to go. Finals day didn’t go so well for me. I fell in my first run, and then with the snow hardening significantly by run two I had to go really conservative and finished 11th.
Olympus went much better for me. I was a bit disheartened by my performance at Craigieburn, so I decided to pick a line that I knew I would have fun skiing. I skied solidly and had a blast, and finished up the quali day in 1st place. A great confidence booster.
Olympus finals day began with a relatively clean, solid first run, but with a few hesitations above features so I felt that I needed to push it more in the second run.
I picked a completely new, more difficult line for my second run and it started really well. I was feeling super confident with how clean and fast I had made it through my top section. I dropped a cliff into a wide chute and came unstuck on my run out and rolled.I had to use my run 1 score and ended up 4th on day 4. 6th overall in the series, an OK result considering I crashed out on both my money runs.
So then it was back to work for the next five days before heading up to the North island for the Export 33 Extreme.
Here are a few videos from the comp:
The official edit from Chill,
http://www.chillout.co.nz/archives/625
Daily comp footage from The Daily Dump,
http://vimeo.com/28129538
http://vimeo.com/28142943
http://vimeo.com/28185333
http://vimeo.com/28228038
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