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

Update Time

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

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..