Andorra - El Dorado Freeride FWQ 4* Top 10 Finish

Last week I went on a really rad excursion down to the tiny Nation of Andorra to compete in the El Dorado Freeride 4* event.

The comp ran as a two day event with a qualifier day and a finals day.

I skied a solid smooth run on day one with a medium air at the top leading straight into a tight technical double and then finishing with a bigger cliff at the bottom.

I really enjoyed my run and was just stoked to have one finally finished clean with no major mistakes.

Only 9 of the male skiers went through to the finals day, and I was number 8!
We got to ride up to the top of the venue in a heli for our runs, any time I get to fly in a heli is a huge highlight!

Heli Time!!

Standing at the top of the face I was feeling really good, I was totally confident and looking forward to skiing my line, it looked like a lot of fun.
My line started out with a small air into a tight chute which joined onto a bigger chute leading into my first proper air.
The tight chute went perfectly but I ran into a problem on exit.
I didn't plan for the compression I would get due to the angle change at the bottom of the chute and when I tried to shut down and control my speed to set up for my cliff I collapsed onto my back and lost control.
I was lucky I had the presence of mind to try and redirect myself away from the fall line both just before and during my roll otherwise I would have tomahawked off a substantial cliff.

My final result from the competition was 9th.

Overall a really positive experience. My confidence is high, my day one run was a good solid finish and getting to ride in a heli will make any day awesome!

Here is the link to the finals day highlights video - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=717005948332103&set=vb.218152354884134&type=2&theater
My crash is at 1:50

Andorra is a tiny country in the Pyrenees alps on the boarder of France and Spain and the mountains there are sick!

I travelled there with fellow NZ big mountain competitor Michael Norrie.
We drove down from Verbier through the France.

The drive down was pretty focused on getting from point A to B, but on the way back we had a little more time to spare so we went and got our tourist game on and took the long way home.

We ended up driving one of the more interesting routes home through a bunch of little old towns in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Along the way we had the opportunity to check out a couple of cool sights, an fortified town and castle ruins on a cliff top in southern France and the highest bridge in the world in Millau!

I am now back in Verbier preparing for my next competition which is a 4* at Nendaz, a resort that is part of the 4 valleys and is accessible by ski from Verbier its self.

Here is the link to another edit I made recently - https://vimeo.com/86785428

Photo - Nils Johansson

A church on a hill in Spain

A Viaduct somewhere in Southern France

Southern French Village

Not Castle Ruins

It was refreshing to be amongst some evergreens and warm weather in the south of France

French Pyrenees

Castle Courtyard

Cool Bridge in Andorra

Castle Ruins Somewhere in the South of France

Myself - Getting Upside Down

Joakim Sending a Backy

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