Moonlight Basin

I finished up at the Moonlight Basin 4* a few days ago.

The venue at Moonlight is awesome, its the steepest, sharkiest venue I've competed on and my favourite stop so far.

The format for Moonlight was 2 day cumulative score with a cut after the first day.

My line on day one was good, but I skied the bottom half of it pretty loose, even still I finished on my feet and moved through to day 2 in 9th place.

Day 2 didn't go so well, I stuffed up the run in to my first cliff and went off slighty on the wrong angle with not enough speed, clipped sharks in the landing and crashed out.

Its a bummer not to have finished my run, but I learned a lot.
Mainly that I am able to self arrest quickly at the top of a really steep venue after a messy crash.

Since Castle mountain I discovered the best technique for dealing with the disappointment of falling or messing up in a comp.

Go be a dick head on either Snow Blades or a Mono Ski.

This tactic is guaranteed to fix all bad feelings.

I know this for sure because I have now tested it two times in a row.
And both times it has succeeded.

After Blading at Castle mountain, it was time to try something more ambitious,
So I strapped on a mono, and I skied the mountain.

Initially its scary as hell. but when you work out its all in the hips, the pole plant and the short turns, your day goes from pretty ait, to cosmically radular!

I also learned that a 360 on a mono, is a very very hard maneuver.

I've got a break between comps now, so I'm hanging in Colorado for a week before heading up to the Crested Butte 4* for the final comp of my season.

Here are my last two edits.

Alta Peow Peow

Jackson Hole Aye?

Castle Mountain

Castle Mountain was the second of my comp stops this year.
It was a 3* FWQ in Alberta, Canada.
I crashed in the run out of top air, due to not planning my run out well enough, and didn't get past day one.

That made time for some fun on day two.
I managed to score some Snow Blades for a day, and as you can imagine..
Shit got wild.

3 Bladers, one mono skier, front flips, coloradoing and getting told to chop down our jump by the Man were but a small portion of the days events.

One of these days there will be a blade edit.

But for now, I suggest you watch this 30 second video of Ian Borgeson and myself riding the Fernie skate park:
BC Park Blading

After that day I realised we need to grow the sport of Snow Blading in New Zealand.
Im going to get hold of some blades before the season.
You should too, then we can get stupid this winter!!

First Comp Of The Season

Hey!! here is a link!

Its an edit I just finished full of the skiing I did at Jackson Hole!

Jackson Hole Aye?

---Taos Extreme---

Flying into Albuquerque

I just finished up at the Taos extreme in New Mexico, the first 4* FWQ comp of the US season.

There were 3 days of competition and the scores from each day were combined.

On top of that the bottom 3rd or so of the field was cut after each day, that made consistency a high priority.

6 weeks ago I knocked myself out and had to spend a night in hospital, so the plan for this comp was to ski within my limits and land all runs on my feet, so the chance of another head knock would be minimal.

I managed to stick to the plan and I finished up in 7th over all.

A result im really happy with. 

I cant think of a better way to get warmed up for the comp season than to go straight into a 3 day comp.

Now that I know how I stack up against the locals Ill be looking to push it harder in the coming stops, the next one being Castle Mountain.

I am currently sitting in Calgary airport, killing time. 5 hours and ill be on a bus to pincher creek.

I stayed in the little town of Aroyo Secco which is about 15 mins away from Taos Valley Ski Area.

The hostel I stayed in was the Abdominal Snowmanison. I like the name.

Below are some photos of the town in all its adobe goodness.

The Snowmansion