New Zealand season ’10

Once the winter season came to an end in the northern hemisphere it was time to get down to work and make some coin for a change  although working on a multi million dollar holiday home on Revelstoke mountain resort never really felt like a job! Summer is fun there definitely a year round destination with tonnes to do for the adventurous kind. Fishing is especially good even right in town and the local rock climbing crags boast endless climbing routes on good rock. Cheers Chris and Gee for getting a newbie hooked. Unfortunately the time came to pack my gears and say a sad goodbye leaving my lovely girlfriend Sandy behind to hold the fort for a couple of months. Thanks Sandy for being an understanding partner and being ever supportive! A quick 8 hour bus ride, and 18 hours flying later put me back on home turf. Good to see the family again but only a couple of days at home to do a few interior mods to make the trusty Toyota Caldina wagon livable, pick up sweet new gears from Nitro and 3CS outerwear and hit the road south, pick up Chill pass in Churr churr and straight to  Temple Basin carpark.

Sign to Temple Basin, blink and you miss it.  (John Carolin Photo)

Temple Basin is a low-key club field situated an hours walk from the summit of Arthurs Pass. You wont find any of the mod cons of busy commercial fields – nutcracker tows and natural grooming keep the crowds away, and a helping hand is pretty much expected each day. The natural terrain here tho, is enough to keep the keenest rider busy for a very long time, the entire month I spent there it never got tracked out. Good times! For those of you wondering what the heck a nutcracker is, it’s a harness you wear with a clamp-like device attached to the harness that you somehow fling around the rope and hang on.  On the ride up you have to feed the device through pulleys keeping the rope in line and do your best not to get anything caught in the pulleys!

Enjoyin’ epic crud! (John Carolin Photo)

The team at Temple Basin are super friendly and upon settling into the groove and becoming helpful I was able to stay on as a volunteer for the remainder of my time there.

Unfortunately I learnt the hard way not to  leave any gear in your car in the carpark as its right next to the highway and a great opportunity for passing dickheads to help themselves. Luckily I still had my riding gear, a pair of shorts, 3 t-shirts, and vital underwear and sleeping bag with me at Temple Basin so enough to continue on! A shitty situation but however I couldn’t have been in a better place. Scoring 20cms of dry NZ pow with 6 other people lapping the tow quickly puts a smile back in place! For future reference check with the Info Centre in Arthurs Pass – they will show you good places to park your car safely.

A little hiking for a little cliff. (John Carolin photo)

Much thanks to the team at Temple Basin for great times – Todd, Juliet, Ben, Jo, Bruce, Stan, Elliot, Sam, Jase, Gordy, Mary, Team Shovel on any particular day, and everyone who came along for good times! You create a magical vibe unique to any skifield anywhere!

Campsite on the ‘Tarns’ en route to hike Cassidy Peak one morning. (John Carolin Photo)

The Chill Series came along quick toward the end of August. Five days set aside for competition – two at Craigeburn Valley, two at Mt Olympus and one weather day. This year being a Freeride World Tour Qualifier Event, a heavy contingent of Euros had assembled for a culture shock, along with a talented line up of Kiwi riders and skiers. Day one got underway with one inspection run through Middle Basin chutes and one judged score for qualifiers. The snow was hard and well tracked out making smooth riding a trick in itself.  All went well with my qualifying run taking a flowing technical line,  it was enough to qualify in first place through to the finals. Day two was a weather day with mega winds, so ol’ mate Travis Donaldson decided his Daihatsu rental was up to 4wd duties. A hard day on the handbrake turned the shiny 1.3 litre from gold to brown, along with some close shaves with slow-moving fence posts it passed the day in quite an entertaining fashion.  A top up with supplies and it was back to the carpark campground for another night in the wagon. Day three dawned clear and the finals were on. Two runs – best one counts – on the first run I ran my qualifier line and stuck it solid, second run pushed it hard to better my score but came unstuck taking the transition bit too deep on the final cliff section. First run was enough to take first place! Awesome.

On to Mt Olympus that same night, interesting times getting up there! to say the least. To get to the upper lodge you have to go via a nutcracker tow – try this in the pitch dark on an unfamiliar tow loaded with gear! Next day dawned patchy and with weather deteriorating it was eventually called off and the final day moved to the Little Alaska Zone. With a forecast looking worse for the final day a bunch of us cut loose in the bottom hut so it could have been expected to dawn bright and sunny. It did. By the time we got up there the clouds in our heads moved skyward and continued to build during the morning, allowing for only a brief glimpse of the amazing terrain Olympus’ has on offer before fully socking in and bringing an end to the comp. Scores from Craigeburn counted overall so ended up winning the Chill Series, a bit of much needed cash and a Helipark Pass added for overall domination at Craigeburn! Good times had by all at both resorts and special thanks to Team Euro (a bunch of sick Austrian and German freeriders and freeskiers who like eating zee roadkill) and Emi and Kate Earl for letting me show up with the Euros and have a much needed shower and do laundry! Thanks heaps! Check Team Euros video teaser here.

Click here for full video coverage of the Chill series.

With only a week to go before the Black Diamond event at Temple Basin and a return north it was time to put that Helipark pass to good use! A quick call to confirm Wednesday was looking good and get directions and it’s all go. Helipark is a heliski/ride resort just south of Mt Hutt inland about 40 minutes. The terrain is controlled by explosives which is unique to heli operations which normally cover a wide uncontrolled area. The benefit here being you can ride wherever you like from drop-off point to pick-up point, let your imagination go wild on the fly up and do it on the way down! Superfun. Wednesday dawned clear as forecast and after a huge breakfast the crew turned up and we got a full safety briefing. The chopper flew in to land in the paddock next to us and I’m luckily chosen to go on the first flight up. The flight up is amazing. The valley unfolds before you to reveal the terrain available for the day. Before I can take all it in we’re unloading upon one of the higher peaks. The chopper disappears leaving an intense silence, five people atop a mountain,  30 cms dry pow and no tracks. Brilliant. We are told what aspects might avalanche (and that it’s quite possible in today’s conditions) and we pair up going one at a time. Yeah it’s good fun – I fully recommend the experience over a day at  a busy commercial field!

The Chinese Nike 6.0/Mellow Parks crew were up enjoying the day too. They had been filming their NZ adventures and put together an awesome clip of their trip down under. Interestingly they run the Mellow Park 40 minutes out from downtown Beijing where natural snowfall is rare and the terrain is not what we call mountainous. Their trip to NZ was the first time most of them had seen/ridden mountains! They were like kiddies in a candy store, loving it!  It’s neat to see different facets of snowboarding coming together like this.

On the next two drops I got first hit off peaks in the valley being reassured it’s not usually the first person down that sets off a slide, it’s the second or third. I feel dubious but do it anyway to let rip on some fun lines. Unfortunately for the second or third guys it did avalanche! They were ok tho no one got hurt just taken for a ride and shaken up and understandably so! Last run of the day we got dropped in a new valley head with true big mountain riding terrain laid out underneath. A quick check to see if it’s actually safe enough to ride, and an all clear given with advice to point it out the end and not to turn much at any point to minimise triggering a slide – uh huh – had to be done tho and definitely a highlight of my time riding in New Zealand. It really opened my eyes to a new style of riding, super keen for more! Thanks heaps Helipark for an amazing experience and everyone there that day!

After an epic day it was straight track to Christchurch for a rendezvous with ol’ mate Jordan Decker for the trip to Temple Basin. Cheers Sol for the accom in Chch! Our drive to Temple was welcomed with fat snowflakes falling well before Arthurs Pass, a sketchy drive up to the Temple goods lift ensued just before the road closed. It was a quick unload and careful drive back to hide the car in Arthurs Pass. Thumbs out we scored a ride with Paul the friendly snowplow driver to the Temple Basin track. It’s a hard hike to start with but in a blizzard with a foot of fresh snow its a bit trickier tho it’s good to see this amount of snow falling. The Temple lodge is a welcome sight an hour later when the new snow tops our knees by this point! Good to be back among the Temple Basin crew that night and anticipation builds for the coming day! Seriously, when the snow is good at Temple the terrain is that much better – it goes off!

Caught drooling! The view from Cassidy Peak, Tasman sea on the distant horizon, Temple's legendary terrain laid out below, dry untracked pow! Yes we have the goods in NZ too! (John Carolin Photo)

Yup! (John Carolin Photography)

Two days later it cleared sufficiently to open the top tow once Team Shovel worked their magic on the walking track. Good fun for sure, some of the driest pow I’ve personally sampled in NZ hands down. That night we experienced the Christchurch earthquake, still a violent shake even out at Arthur Pass! Next day was the Black Diamond Big Mountain event. With a premium 40 cms fresh snow to play with and a sunny day it was going to be good. We didn’t realise the magnitude of the quake at that stage. It turned out a lot of people stayed home that day opting to clean up the mess instead. So with a limited field of competitors it didn’t feel like a comp any more with the 40 or so competitors enjoying the good conditions and sending it just cos they could! Ended up taking 2nd there. Sad to farewell the Temple Basin crew up there but for sure paths will meet again somewhere someday.

We leave the next morning seeing first hand the damage the quake has done, amazing no one was killed. A long drive followed non-stop to Ohakune - good to get there! Cheers Rodger for early morning floor spaces, legend! We came up for the Export 33 Xtreme event on Whakapapa’s Pinnacles. The highest points accumulated from this and the Chill Series will get a wildcard Freeride World Tour entry. Once again Pete and Mary at One Stop Ski shop in Owhango got hard to work repairing a sad looking board. By this stage it had four inches of steel edge ‘floating’ off the sidewall. Needing edges on the Pinnacles, Pete worked his magic late into the night and rising early to get it ready for the next day. Cheers Pete, you’re a good fella! I owe you more than just a case of beer for that! Good thing he did a good job too cos a solid rain crust had formed making staying on edge vital! The snow never really released and after waiting as long as I could and seeing many people wipe out I decided taking a lame run and doing it clean could still do okay in these conditions enough to get enough points for the wildcard. So after two icy as runs each it came down to not wiping out! I placed 3rd and gained the wildcard entry for points overall from the Chill series and Export Xtremes. Stoked!

That’s really a brief rundown of my New Zealand season. Thanks to everyone along the road – you make it what it is. Also to Sandy for being so very patient (I will be home soon) and to my family cos I couldn’t do it without your support! Thanks Paul Crosby and Kaimai Sports for the Nitro/3CS hookup. For now, its a couple of jobs to do here then back to Canada, back to Sandy, a job asap, and get ready for another awesome Revelstoke winter.

Cheers

Scotty                                                                                                     (John Carolin Photo)