Airtripping

Wow.

January 6th came very fast indeed.
I got up and went for a run, to get a lil bit o last minute Sunday shine.
Then it was back inside to finish up the packing.

I jumped on a plane in Queenstown at 12 on Sunday.
Blue bird skies meant I got to see the alps in full summer snow.
That almost an oxymoron right?
It was probably 30c on sat, so don't ask me why there is still snow in the mountains.

Southern Alps getting the best of both worlds

It was a bit of a tease seeing that out my window.
Im currently in Vancouver where its raining.

But thats ok.

Cos someone told me its snowing in Revelstoke, and thats getting me a little bit excited.
Thats where Im heading tomorrow.

Woo! Winter!

On my way through Auckland airport I had to stop off and grab an extra thing.

A swish new jacket from SOS!!

Thanks fellows.

.

Ive also got this short video of packing...

Packing

Competititition

Photo: Chill

The last 4 weeks have been pretty epic for me. It was the peak comp season with four Freeride World Qualifier(FWQ) events of which I did three.

A whole bunch of travelling and competing, and a few awesome days skiing has made for a pretty top month.

I started out with the Chill Series big mountain up in Canterbury, a 2 star event.

This year the comp ran as a 4 day, 2 venue, 3 best places count format.

So it sort of ended up being a bit of an endurance comp.

The standard of skiing was really high this year, with a good bunch of Euros competing and a handful of the Kiwi kids throwing down mad stunts (Charlie Lyons cork 3 eat your heart out).

I had 3 solid days with two 4ths and a 2nd, which put me into 2nd place overall.

A good way to start the season!

Here are the official edits from Chill: Mt Olympus Day 1 and 2  and Craigieburn Day 1 and 2

After a mind blowing drive home down the West Coast, it was time for the NZ Open big mountain, a 3 star event.

I was pre qualified into the finals day, which took a bit of stress out of the comp seeing as I only needed to throw down on one day.

The finals was meant to be a 2 run, but due to the weather it was capped at 1 run.

I managed to put together a fast clean run with a few nuggets and one big drop and earned myself 4th place, with only .03 points between me and Charlie Lyons (3rd).

A result I am stoked with!

I competed on a pair of 190cm Head Bonecrushers, good for going fast and dropping big rocks!

The official edit from The Open: NZ Open Finals

Photo: Malcolm Pullman

Another epic mission later and I’m in National Park, waiting for the clouds to clear for the Ruapehu Xtremes at Whakapapa, another 3 star.

After days of waiting for the weather to roll out, we finally got a window and day one went ahead.

The Xtremes lived up to its rep of having the iciest venue in New Zealand (and probably the world) by hardening the hell out of LegoLand (day one venue).

Photo Credit: Malcolm Pullman

I had two really fast, solid runs on day one which put me at the top of the pile. I did the comp the REV 105, a nice stiff ski with lots of carve. New favourite comp ski.

In the end the comp became a one day comp, down from 3 days, with day 2 and 3 being cancelled mainly due to bad the extremely icy conditions on the venues.

So I finished up in 1st spot over all.

A very happy day!

The official edit from the comp: Ruapehu Xtremes

After the four New Zealand events I will be leading the Freeride World Qualifier (FWQ) rankings for the Europe/Africa/Asia/Oceania region.  Best three results for the May 1 to April 30 year count so with the northern hemisphere comps to go, and they include some higher point scoring 4 star events, it’s early days. 

There were about 20 European and US competitors here for the New Zealand comps and 8 of last year’s FWQ top 20, including me and Charlie Lyons were in the fields so the standard was pretty high.

If I can end up top 10 at year end I will be very happy.

I will be doing the Canadian and US events which are now part of a unified world tour.  You can get points from anywhere but they count in your region for overall standings.  The Americas is a separate region. Top four from each region go through to the Freeride World Tour of about 20 elite riders including NZs own Mr Sam Smoothy and Mr Charlie Lyons.

 

Im back in Wanaka, with the chill series done.

The week went really well, and was a lot of fun.
We managed to hit clear warm weather the whole way through, which was a bonus.
The format for the comp was three best results out of four count.
I skied consistently well throughout the comp with only a crash on the second day, and finished in 2nd place overall!!

So Im pretty happy!

My results were:
Day 1 -- 4th
Day 2 -- Crashed
Day 3 -- 4th
Day 4 -- 2nd


The field was really strong with a bunch of Euros turning up, plus all the Kiwi boys throwing down.

I've got the NZ open coming up in a couple of days.
This year I'm pre qualified for the finals, so that makes for a slightly less stressful comp.

Here is the official edit from Mt Olympus day 1 and 2,

Check it out https://vimeo.com/48408377

CHI I ILL

At last we got some real snow.

And finally I got to drop some cliffs and do some proper skiing and training.
I am really happy with that, because it means I am going in to my comps feeling really confident.

I’m currently packing my bags for the Chill Series Big Mountain, which is happening up at the Canterbury clubs starting on Wednesday 22 August.

I’ve been excited for Chill all year as it’s my favourite NZ comp.
Its amazing being able to compete in such remote little mountains. The whole vibe is great, plus the venues are sick.

Here is a little edit I slammed together of a few drops and thangs.

2012 start of season edit 


Woo!

2012

We have had an interesting start to the season this year, arguably better than last year, but even still the mountains are barely covered.
The lack of snow has meant Ive been spending much more time skiing park than big mountain.
I would love to be shredding pow and dropping lines, but the opportunity to ski more park has yielded good results.
I have been wanting to gather up some tricks to bring into my big mountain skiing for a while now but have never really been able to pull myself away from TC and into the park to learn them.
This season the stunt bag has started to fill up, I have managed to land a few clean Rodeo 7s and a couple of sketchy cork 3s.
Cork 7s are also on the agenda but I haven't actually attempted any yet.
Today, out of no where, I learned to telemark!
Its harder than I expected, but managed to get a good flow on after a few runs, gonna have to do it again.

So the park has been good, but i think its time for a bit more snow. That would be nice.

Im skiing on the Hammered this year.
Its Heads new Big mountain ski.
They have changed up the design quite a lot this year, the ski has a bunch more side cut and more rocker in the tip which seems to make them turn really nicely.
So even though they are 115 under foot, they are really nice to ski all round even on harder snow.
And im sure they will slay it in the pow!
A softer tip makes them a really playful ski, but the stiffness in the mid section means they still charge hard.

From left:
Rev 80 --- Hammered 115 --- The Caddy 84

Im back on POC again this year, which Im really happy about.
I had a few pretty big wrecks this year in the states, so Im really happy that I am able to use such good safety gear.

Im going to try and bust out an edit once I get some good stuff.
One of these days...

                                                   
                                                    Until then, check out this stunt I did!!
 

Last Month In The North

Last Month In The North

Whistler

Over the last three months I have been training and competing in the US.  It was a really disrupted trip with events being cancelled and postponed.  I had planned to compete at four Freeskiing World Tour events but with all the changes I only got to do two.

Antics. 

I had planned to use Salt Lake City as my training hub and travel to events from there however there was no real snow. So I headed to Revelstoke BC Canada where there was  heaps of snow. After almost 2 months in Revelstoke my skiing had improved a tonne. It made me confident for the events at Snowbird FWT and the Moonlight basin FWTQ.

Unfortunately I didn't make it past the first day in either of the events.

Ski Ballet has now become an accepted part of big mountain skiing.
@ Snow Bird FWT Qualifier

Snowbird was more bad luck than anything. Conditions were spring with hard snow and I was 6th runner.
I skied the top section of my run really fast and solid, but while skiing between my last 2 features my right ski fell off my foot, way to easily, but it’s hard to say why.
Helmet cam footage from Snowbird - http://vimeo.com/38671561

Bluebird at Snowbird

It snowed mega tonnes in the canyons round Salt Lake City the night after the comp and the next 2 nights that followed.
It was great to have some new snow to boost the spirits after having a bad run in the comp.

The next stop was Moonlight basin. 
I skied a really good top section, but I misjudged how much speed I needed to take into my last air.
I came up short and landed on rocks then tomahawked harder than I think I ever have.
I ended up with a concussion, but it was nothing serious.
The highlights from Moonlight Basin are at http://vimeo.com/39093335 -My crash is at 2:23.  
Pretty gutted as once again I was skiing solid, but it’s all learning.

Even though I fell in both events, I have been able to find a whole lot of positives from these two comps, I feel like I have a pretty good chance of doing well in finals, if I could just get there!

Flippin

With Moonlight behind me the only thing left to do was catch a bus, and spend the next 26 hours of my life travelling up to Whistler BC.
I met up with my Dad in Whistler, and skied the next 13 days solid.
We had about 9 days of awesome powder, topping up every night.
Only thing was I spent the whole time coughing my guts out, I still managed to have fun though, turns out its hard to have a bad pow day!

Flippin again

I got home to Wanaka a couple of days ago, well rested due to getting a whole row of seats to myself on my long haul flight!
(that'll never happen again)

It’s good to be home.

These are links to all my edits from Canada:


Hey Revy... Love You.

Revelstoke Rad Times

The End Of The Pow, For Now.

Hmmm. could be a little damaged..

:{D

Good Bye Revelstoke

The last few weeks at Revelstoke have been great.
We had good constant snow fall for over a week, dropping on average 6 to 10 cm a night, with a couple of bigger dumps.
That meant that a lot of the stuff I had been looking at through the drought were now good to go.
Two weeks of lines and pow plus a photo shoot, and it was time to leave Revelstoke for the USA.

Me, amongst it

After setting out from Revelstoke with the plan of ending up in Crested Butted, I arrived in salt lake city.

It snowed 30cm or something stupid the night before I was due to head out of town, and the main road out of town ended up being covered up by an avalanche about 20 mins before we were due to go through.

Simon Reeves & his pillow finding magnet

The only way out of town now was the long way through Nakusp with two ferry crossings, which we missed by only a few minutes each, that didn't help in the war effort.

The detour caused some problems, it meant that a 3 hour drive, which would have had me in Kelowna 3 hours early, took about 6 hours, and ended with me arriving at the airport as the doors to my flight were shutting.

Not an ideal way to start a journey!

It wasn't such a big deal because the Freeskiing world tour stop I was meant to be doing at Crested Butte had already been cancelled due to lack of snow on the comp face.

Jeremy Gardener, titts deep

I was still going to go down any way, because it would have been a good opportunity to get to know the place for next time.
As it turned out it was just as expensive to rebook to Salt lake city and that changed things a bit.
So thats where I am now, exploring and preparing for the Snowbird comp which starts in a week.


Its a bit of a shock coming from cold awesome pow at revy, and arriving to warm spring snow here.

In the process of editing all my clips from revy now, so an edit is due soon!

                                                                Ferry and ferry ramps