Hochfugen 4*

Last weekend I competed in the Hochfugen 4* FWQ event in Austria.

The trip to Austria was amazing and being in Europe is turning out to be exactly as cool as I hoped it would.
The competition side hasn't worked quite how I imagined it would.
Hochfugen didn't go too well for me. I had everything planned out thoroughly and knew exactly what I was doing but when I got to the top of the venue, unusually, quite a bit of uncertainty crept in to my mind. I had a very late start order and there were delays with half the field crashing and by the time I was in the gate the organisers had closed the zones I had planned to ride as they were fully ripped out. 

I managed to pick my self up a bit before setting off, but I still wasn't 100%, I aired off a natural snow booter, landed flatter than planned, side checked, crossed my skis and bailed.

At that point I was to low for my next air so I skied out and made up the rest as I went along. Funnily enough with so many others having a bad day I still ended up 18th.
Although the comp didn't go so well, It really reinforced in me the importance of mental prep before a comp. 

The lesson learnt is plan thoroughly and then from the moment the hike up begins it can only be positive thoughts from there on out.

The comp aside, being in Austria was awesome. The day after the comp Ruari Macfarlane and myself had an awesome pow day slaying pillows in the trees at Hochfugen, and that totally fixed all of my problems.


I am now back in Verbier skiing as much as I can before heading down to Andorra on Wednesday for the El Dorado Freeride FWQ 4*.

Innsbruck

Catching Trains to Austria

Catching trains

Sunset Across The Valley From Verbier

Hochfugen

Fugen

Innsbruck

Innsbruck

Innsbruck

Remedy Pow Day @ Hochfugen With Ruari Macfarlane

Subalpine Submarining @ Bruson

Jack loving the Subalpine-Submarining at Bruson

Up The Valley From Bruson

Axamer Lizum, Austria

Somewhere between Innsbruck and Zurich

Heading To Hochfugen

I have never really travelled by train before, let alone in Europe, so tomorrow is going to be a new experience.
I'm heading up to Austria to compete at the Hochfugen 4* Big Mt Comp.
It will be my second stop so far this season. I've had a few sendy days over the last couple weeks so I'm feeling much more confident than I was before the first comp. Here's hoping I do a better job of it!
The competition will run on the 8th and is a one day one run format, which is a little less stressful than the multi day stops. It can also encourage the all or nothing, just send it attitude in some people, which can end up with both spectacular runs and equally spectacular crashes.
It will be my first ever European 4* comp, so I am really interested to see how I compare.

 

Playing with the A-Star, work in progress

Field Testing the Icebreaker Long-Johns

Verbier So Far

This post is just a collection of photos from around Verbier

 

Skier - Jess Ounjian

Verbier 3*

Verbier

So the comp ended up being a blow out.

Conditions were good, there was a bunch of new slightly heavy snow and I picked a fun line that I was sure I could nail.

The standard of skiing was reasonably high, although the venue was a hard one to pick anything mind blowing in.

I had a decent cliff right out the starting gate which I aired and stomped perfectly. That was followed by a couple of fast pow turns.
Things were going well until I got caught up in some heavier snow and did a forward roll.
The lamest crash I have ever had in a comp.

The Venue

That all meant I was lower than I should have been coming into the tighter more technical mid section with two drops close together out the bottom. I was looking forward to skiing the rest of my line so I continued on.
However I ended up creating more sluff than anticipated which meant I aired off the first cliff of two slightly blind and way back seat. That ended with me hot tubing on landing and taking a rock to the butt.

I was skiing on the Collective 105 and in hindsight I think I should have been on the Cyclic 115 due to the amount of snow.

Not the best start to the comp season.
The positive was I got to ski some pretty damn nice pow!

Here is the link to a short pow edit from my first couple of days back on snow - https://vimeo.com/84524151

Europe

Le Chable

This season I am changing things up a touch.
Instead of following the American qualifier tour, like I have the last couple of years I have opted for the Euro comps instead.
I am currently based in Verbier and will be travelling between Switzerland, Austria and Andorra to compete. The plan is to do four 4 star events and two 3 stars.

I have had 2 days skiing here so far and all I can say is this place is big and gnarly.

This trip has been a totally new experience for me so far. Its the first time I have ever been to Europe let alone a to a country that speaks a completely different language to my own.
The language thing OK, It seems like you can mostly get by only knowing hello and thank you, as a lot of the time shop staff or customer service types can speak English well enough to get you sorted. However you gain mad brownie points if you approach them with poorly spoken French greetings off the bat.

First day on snow - Bruson
Photo - Charlie Lyons

The terrain here is amazing, its the kind of place where almost everything you can see from the lift you can ski.
However, it is totally up to you not to die. The majority of epic off piste terrain is not patrolled, I'm not exactly sure the reasons why but that seems to be the case. They bomb and ski cut anything that is likely to slide onto a groomed piste or into a building or lift station, but everything else is left to its own.
This season the snow pack is screwed.
Early season Hoar frost has meant that the super low layers are mighty unstable, so basically the avy danger is at considerable whether there is new snow or not.
So on top of worrying about the stability of the snow that fell over night, you have to take into consideration that the snow underneath might also be unstable.
To be honest, I feel slightly out of my depth. Generally speaking I can figure out how to deal with new snow stability (at least enough to get myself down) but the added old snow factor is something that I have not had to deal with before.
The word of the winter seems to be play it safe. And that's what I plan to do.

Scoping lines @ Mont Gele

My first comp starts tomorrow, Its the 3* event that wraps up the Verbier Freeride week.
This is another first for me as I have never competed in a comp in my first week of skiing for the season.
As a result of that I'm more nervous than I usually would be coming up to a comp. Even still I'm reasonably confident Ill be able to put down something fun.

The Venue

Marmot

Just Got My New Marmot Swag For 2014

For the last 2 years my outerwear and glove sponsors have been SOS and Hestra through Snowsport In Australia.
They have helped me a whole lot in the time that we have been together, the gear they have supplied me has meant more of my own money can go directly towards travelling internationally to train and compete in the FWQ.
Recently Snowsport have decided to change their outerwear supplier, so now seemed like an appropriate time to part ways.
I wish them all the best with their new products.

Following on from that I will now be skiing for Marmot through the NZ importers Allsports.
I am stoked to be working with Marmot, their gear is tech as heck and they stock some mighty nice colours!!
And it fits in nicely with Snowcentre who are a Marmot reseller.


I just received my new Marmot kit and that has me way too excited about going skiing in Europe!
Just a month and a half to go, and until then the gear is in the cupboard while I keep myself occupied with other wilderness adventures!

Oh and I also went to the Hooker Valley in Mt Cook National Park with my Mum on the way back from the North Island the other day.
Here are some photos.

Cloud Proof

Mount Sefton Hanging Glaciers

Mum

Hooker Glacier

Hooker Glacier Lake Ice

The Girdlestone, Turoa

For as long as I can remember I've wanted to ski the Girdlestone.
Last week I finally had the chance.
Its not like its a particularly out of the way climb, or even a particularly difficult decent for that matter, I've just never had anyone to do it with, nor have I had the gear. So until now, its just sat there looking at me.

The mission came about whilst chatting to Cam McKay about various other ski adventures. The forecast was banger and he said he had some spare gear, so that was that.


The hike up called for a bit of extra kit, although it wasn't straight ice, the rime was enough to make you lose your footing in plastic soled ski boots.
So we donned our crampons and had at it.

The going was safe until the last leg of the hike when, as we had anticipated the heat of the afternoon was causing ice to release and fall down from the rock walls above us.

For the last section of the climb swapped ski poles for our axes and swiftly scuttled up under the rocks to the safety of the high lookers left saddle (I don't know the name).

We decided it was too sketchy to continue right to the summit with the amount of ice falling, as the last section is basically fully rimed rocks.
So we took a moment to take in the view, clicked in and dropped in from the saddle.

Although the snow was pretty difficult for the first few turns, it eased quickly and I was able to open it up a bit and enjoy the run.

Its nothing compared to what real mountaineers tackle, but for me it was a great intro into climbing with axe and crampons, as well as observing first hand how the rise and fall of the temperature can affect the snow and ice around you.

Girdlestone vid

Looking off the back of the Girdlestone

Looking towards the Turoa summit from the saddle

Cam with Turoa behind

Girdlestone summit

About to drop in