Another closed day

Well the mountain has pretty much been closed since Sunday. It is now Thursday and I am betting a bit stir crazy. There is only so many things you can do around town before you get very bored of town. The weather has become awful on the mountain lately and winds are getting close to 60mph and visibility is around 100 feet or so. So in short you can no see hear or move if you were up there but we are getting some good snow. The reported base is around 3 meters of packed snow which will add up to a great spring with tons of terrain to ride.

I am thinking about traveling to the south island soon to do some riding down there and see a few different ski fields and even see a few mates of mine for a good ski session down in the south. But we shall see if that trip happens or not.

Well this is the weather as of last week, It was beautiful and just an amazing time to be working on snow. Now you couldn't even see those flags being that close due to the poor vis and wind.

I have finished my last day working for Atomic and Salomon but hope to come back next season and work for them again. They have been great to work for and I am looking forward to any other involvement I have with them.



Cheers and now just waiting to get back to the states and back to my friends at the shoe. Its going to be a great winter this year.

Long time no post

Well it has been a long time since I have written up here and not to much has been happening lately. But we have had lots of great weather and some good snow. It has been a good season and epic amounts of snow is still on the ground.
My demo days for Atomic Salomon have ended for the season. I was only contracted for 20 days and I have used all of those up. Getting the skis down the hill the last day was a bit of a feat. Loading things on the back of a snow-cat is a challenge in ski boots for sure. Metal tracks on plastic ski boots is about as slippery as you can get. Along with the fact that your bags of skis have 4 pairs of skis in each and are not easy to handle.

Now the rest of the season is just for me. Working in town at the local rental shop along with what I hope is going to be lots of skiing in the spring time soft snow and maybe a few hikes to the summit and skiing down on the awesome amount of snow the mountain has gotten this year.

Some of my favorite products I have tried this year have been the Atomic Bentchetler. From what I understand the new one is far better than last years ski, because of the stiff tail they have added, the ski sticks and holds on anywhere and everywhere you go. Best powder ski I have been on. Along with this as far as a pist ski I would have to choose the Salomon XT850 a brutal full sidewall dual TI layer woodcore ski. It is hard charging and will take you for a trip. Along with that comes the Atomic Nomad Crimson. Great lineup from both brands. But  I really cant wait to get home and be with my Nordica Fire Arrow 80 Pro new this season and going to be a pist killer.

Right now the Rugby World Cup has started and NZ will be filled with people here to see this great sporting event. Just from seeing all the stadiums it shows how small this country. The stadium that they will be having the final and all of the big games only holds 60,000 people. This is less than the WVU staduim that just keeps all of the mountaineers fans in. Wild when you think this not that big compared to many pro and other University's. But it is going to be great. Last night started off with NZ beating Tonger for the first opening game of the world cup. The games will last right through till Oct 23

I changed my flight the other day so I can stay here for my birthday and the final game of the world cup and work for a bit longer and make a bit more money that I can bring home to keep me above water till the winter starts at Snowshoe. Can not wait till I am back at Snowshoe with all my friends.

What else is going on down here. Nothing that I can think of right now. I have been going out and seeing a few good DJs but not really any good live music since I have been down here. I guess I will have to wait till I get home to see any of that. But everything is going well.

Will try to get photos up soon and keep this moving. Its been a while but hopefully I will have more to write about next time write.

Epic storm.

It is bad to use the word epic but this really has been an epic one. The last storm dropped 80cm in the last 48 hours and has just started snowing again. Once the storm breaks we are going to have over a meter of snow on the ground and its going to be an epic season.

Vid of NZ skiing.

A low res vid but still thats what it looks like down here at whakapapa. This was on tuesday one of the bluebird days I got to ski a little bit on. Skiing behind one of my friends Dazza.
Took the vid with my new GoPro camera.

Bluebird photos

Bluebird

Well if you have been to NZ before and mostly if you have been to Ohakune and the ski fields around here you know that the weather is unpredictable because we do not sit in a large mountain range, we are a flat area with a few mountains that stick up around here and seem to attract all of the gnarliest weather that you can think of. So it is strange that we have had such a great time with the weather over the last 2 weeks, I have been working non stop at the mountain doing demo days and it seems to be bluebird after bluebird day for the last two weeks. Wild weather that is suppose to be ending for a bit as of tomorrow but it has been great while it lasted. Today will be one of the last times I will be able to see the sky for a while because we are suppose to be getting some snow soon.

The demos have been going well for both companies and a great response from the public and the shops that they buy their equipment from.

Everything in kune is going well and the people are great, most things are going as planned but you cant plan for others that's why we live and keep on going. Great times down here and I will post up some pics soon.

Best pow day ever.

Just got in a while ago sore and can barely walk from today but it was amazing. But it all started out as a pretty shit day, had to wake up early and ride with a buddy of mine to Whakapapa to do demo's and we get to the junction and the road is closed. After waiting for a few min we decided to find out what was going on with the road and drove to the end and the guy told us that it would be over an hour before it would be open. So Dazza and I decided it would be best to go and do some "product testing" and we turned around and came back to Turoa. What a decision that was. We get to the road and it is closed at the 3K mark so we start talking to people and the road opens we start heading up. The road is slick and shitty but Dazza has been driving the roads around here for some time so I had faith we would make it up. But the other people are the ones that you have to deal with. We made it up the road and were close to the car park when cars started going wild. We made it past the switch back and the shit hit the fan. We got stopped on a hill and started sliding back down and ran into a SUV behind us and then went past the Audi in the ditch and ended up behind it. No more than twenty min later and we were getting pulled up the hill by a small pickup and we were back on our way. It was close to 9 when we made it to the top and there were only a few cars in the car park which was surprising but considering the road it was expected.

After making it there we got the fat pow skis out of the car and got boots on. We did get a coffee or 2 well in my case I got hot coco. And waited for the chairs to open. Most of the upper mountain was closed due to bombing for the snow and avalanches. So we found some sweet first track freshies on the lower mountain, at this point it was one of the best days I have ever had. But it only got better.

Met up with the manager of a local ski shop and we started to hike and now my legs are burning from walking up but it is getting better. The snow is deeper, softer and untouched. As we head in to the glacier we are talked to by ski patrol saying the area is pretty unsafe and to use caution for the area but we went anyway. We entered the bowl and no one had been there all day it was stunning. I am very angry I forgot my camera and my helmet cam because it was an epic day on the mountain. We went across one at a time as not to put to much stress on the snow so we wouldn't get a slide of any kind and skied carefully. Fresh tracks in a massive bowl and not a sound or person other than my mates in sight. It was simply the best skiing I have ever done in my entire life. I was on some big fat 183 Atomic Bentchetlers. It is the largest underfoot ski I have ever been on and was the best ski in the world in my opinion, maybe it was the snow, maybe it was where I was skiing but it was simply the best thing I have ever done.

After skiing the lines it was like being on top of the world and the hike out was awful but every step you were closer to where you could grab the lift and go do it again. Now thinking back and feeling my sore legs and back and arms it was all worth the ride down.