Competititition

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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.

 
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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

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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

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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

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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

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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




Update Time

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Its been a really bad season for snow this year in the states, even in BC snow fall has been less than average.
Due to the lack of snow, comps are being postponed left right and center.

Three out of the four stops I have entered in; Moonlight basin, Crested Butte and Kirkwood have now been moved back a into march and April.
This means that I have ended up staying in Revelstoke for much longer than originally intended, so instead of a couple of weeks I will be here for just under 2 months.
Its probably one of the best places to be stuck mind you!

There is a good crew here at the moment, I have been riding with Simon Reeves and Scott Heale a bunch and Jeremy Gardener just got over from NZ last week.
Scotty and his mates know this area super well, so I have been able to see and shred some of the local gold!

I just moved into a cool little flat as I'm now here for another month, its been good so far, and I'm starting to get used to the mega trains that pass the house in the night.
The house is about 50 metres away from the tracks and the it shakes when they pass, its pretty cool actually.

I didn't have a key last week and ended up climbing 3 stories up the outside of the building to get in through the deck door.
That was fun.

after a couple of weeks of constant cold and snow fall, the weather this past week has taken a turn for the dry and warm.
Praying to the snow gods, and hoping for the weather to start coming back in properly sometime in the next few days.
It snowed last night about 5 cm, but not really enough to get excited about.

I had a pretty good crash the other day and hurt my leg, so have been taking it pretty easy the last week.
it is frustrating but the snow is pretty average at the moment so its actually not such a bad time to be going slow.

Also the diving boards at the pool are great for making up for lost fun!

I have done a couple of photo shoots so far with Mickey Ross and Ryan Creary, hopefully something good will come from them!

First comp stop is now going to be in Crested Butte March 8th, provided it snows between now and then, hopefully it wont be postponed a second time!

Here is the link to my pow video from the first week here.
http://vimeo.com/35182953

And the link to my 2011 season edit which I finally managed to get uploaded.
http://vimeo.com/36744662




Leaving The Land Of The Long Wet Summer

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I left the land of the long wet summer on the 11th of Jan,

Q-TWN ~ Orkland ~ San Fran ~ Salt Lake ~ Calgary ~ Kelowna ~ REVELSTOKE!
A long journey it was, and the length was due to a combination of, plans changed due to no snow in Utah (where I was to be based) and delayed flights.
Turns out we sat on the runway for an hour all because the air con wasn't working.
G U T T E D.
Any way I ended up in Revelstoke late at night, half asleep and almost blind from tiredness, it never ceases to amaze me how hard sitting down for 3 days is. 






I'm lucky enough to be staying with local kiwi man about the hills Scotty Heale.
Scott has been living in Revy for the last 3 years now, so he has a pretty good knowledge of the sweet spots on the resort and beyond.


My first day at Revy was supposed to be a chilled day exploring and getting the snow legs back in action. 
But to be expected, I got carried away and my calm warm up day became like any other.. too much fun.
As it ended up, I didn't get much of a chance to get my legs in shape before the first storm.
It came that night, 20cm of vanilla ice ice baby (pow).











We were up at 7 and in the lift line by 8, still not early enough to be at the front.
It was however enough though for us to get first tracks down 800 odd vertical meters of uber deep uber light pow.
That run was both heaven and hell at the same time.
I was still so un ski fit that it destroyed me.
a brief rest on the gondola and stoke chair saw us straight back into the pillow factory, spoiling pillows.
If you get what I mean.
I was soon lost from the pack, and from then on it was solo shred time.
Followed by a nap in the cafe.

All in all im pretty pleased with day 2 of Revelstoke riding, although it did make day three that little bit harder.



Getting out of bed this morning was an effort that's for sure.
Every thing hurt, damn that sneaky lactic acid.

But again, it had snowed.And aching muscles were met with first run hiking and more deep snow.
We managed to stay together today, and found some sweet zones and cool lines, but the agility levels were definitely low, so I took it a little easier.

I am now absolutely mangled, sitting on the couch on the verge of falling into some kind of exercise induced coma, wondering what tomorrow will bring
and hoping that I'm slightly less sore when I wake up!


Its a wonder I managed to finish this post, my eyes are only half open.

Working on getting a wee day 2/3 revy edit up. might need a nap first..







NZ Open Big mountan

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Last week I competed in the NZ Open Big Mountain, I was pre qualified so I didnt have to worry about the qualifying leg. That was good cos it was a bit of a weight of my shoulders.
It is kind of nice to be able to ski the qualifier day though, it gets you warmed up and ready, so that you're amped for finals.
The snow was great, and some epic lines were skied.
My first run was OK, but I couldn't spot my entry point into my main big cliff, and had to pull out.
I was kind of annoyed by that.
I spotted it again from the bottom of the course and set off with a clearer image in my mind.
I changed a few parts of my line so that I took my top drop a little faster and bigger missing out some technical stuff from run 1 so that it would be more fluid.
I got through my mid section really well but landed on a rock coming out of a chute, and tomahawked.
That meant that run 2 was a no score.
I finished up 9th with my run one score of 7.5.
Considering I wasn't happy with how I skied that run, I'm OK with where I placed.
I definitely don't feel like I skied to my potential though.
But its all learning.
Congrats to the podium: George Pengelly 1st, Charlie Lyons 2nd and Sam Smoothy 3rd.

Export 33 Extreme

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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

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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!!

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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

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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

OPEN AT LAST!!

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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.

Kirkwood FWT

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Had the Kirkwood qualifier the other day, didn't manage to qualify though. I skied a more conservative line than I usually tend to pick, with the intention of finishing. 
I'm a little bummed cos I didn't ski it as clean as I had wanted . I ended up 15th and they took through the top 14. gutted.
But all in all a good learning experience, I finally finished a FWT qualifying run on my feet which is good as I have been DQ in 2 out of the three american comps I have done. so now I have a feeling of what needs to be done for next time!

snow oh oh, snow snow

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SO MUCH SNOW.
Im in Kirkwood at the mo, and never in my life or even in my dreams have I seen this much snow.
It has been snowing non stop since Monday night, and they say we have had  131-144".
The snow is so deep that there are people all over the place stuck up to there thighs in pow.
I spent 10 minutes yesterday digging my self and my skis out of the snow when I dropped a line, missed the transition and landed on the wrong side of the windlip followed by a rather impressive double ejection.
The last few days have been immensely fun, some good training for sure.
Today is not so good as i managed to pick up a mysterious calf injury from the madpow yesterday. So Im having a couch day icing the sore out of it.
On the bright side its so busy today I would have been in line for my whole life any ways. 
On the dark side, I want to be skiing mega bad right now, and ski movies don't really cut it. They kinda don't satisfy the craving, its like a heroin addict trying to get their fix from a candy bar. no good.


Some R.I.C.E today and it should be ok for tomorrow! (i hope)