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.

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

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.

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

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

Cat Ski!!

On Friday I got the opportunity to cat skiing in down in Kingston, and take some photos with Cam Mcdermid and Neil Kerr from NZ skier mag.
We turned up in Kingston bright and early, grabbed chicken pie and a flat white, booted up and jumped in the helli.
It was the first time I have flown in a helicopter, so as you can imagine I was absolutely frothing.
Our pilot was awesome too and gave us the full helli experience, low flying, cork screws, banks, etc.
He dropped us at the top of the cat ski bowl and from then on it was all up to the sleds and snow cat.
The snow was great, slightly sun baked but still epic.
We spent most of the day finding and shooting lines, and a few good pow runs too, hopefully we got some good shots!
Queens town cat skiing is an awesome set up. I really like the way they run things.

Next thing on the agenda is the K2 Chill Series Big Mt.
Gonna be SICK!

TC POW

We have had a couple of good snow falls since the start of the season, but as I have been pretty busy with work over the last few weeks, being school holidays, I haven't had much time to actually ski TC.
I managed to get up last Monday on my day off for a shred. It ended up being one of the best POW days ever. I will admit there was a lot of hiking and hunting involved, but it was well worth it. We skied some of the lightest and deepest snow I think I have skied in NZ. I was submersed a couple of times. It was a genuinely awesome day caning it with friends.
Here is the link to my helmet cam edit from the day.
http://vimeo.com/26907580

oh my gosh

SNOW!!!! yusssss...

!SNOW!

and decent coverage too.

OPEN AT LAST!!

Today was opening day at Snow Park, to be honest when I heard that they were opening today I wasnt expecting much. But when we rounded the last corner this morning, and the hill came into view, I was definitely impressed with what I saw.
Considering we have not had a good natural snow fall this whole month, I think they have done well.
Who would have thought we could be skiing right now, while the hills are still brown, thank god for snow guns I guess!
I was absolutely stoked to finally be back on my sticks again, this last month has been unbearable, as I'm sure all the powder hounds and park rats in town will agree.
To me, having no snow at the start of the ski season is like having your parents forget your 10th birthday, and not realising until a week later.
A few weeks back I sprained my ankle really badly on the trampoline, so I have been worried that I might not be able to ride at peak shred, it seems to be fine in a ski boot, but I wont really know until I get into some real mountain riding.
I always love the first days of the ski season, its great because you spend the whole time running into all the people you know from past years.
So even though it was just boxes, rollers and man made snow, it was awesome, and well worth the money.
Definitely going back tomorrow.
Now, BED.