Kiwi Stoke, New Zealand 2012

[Gerome]

Hey Bro! by the afternoon my forearms were spent. I tried to get on the lower tow at the parking lot level at least ten times and refused to go to the bottom where it was flat out of stubbornness. The ski patrol girls laughed at me. I wasted 15 minutes flailing because I couldn't hang onto the rope. It was awesome.

[Gerome]

Nice to see you are getting the full Kiwi ski experience! That bottom tow at Olympus isn't easy for first-timers...throw me down on that list.

Here's a little writeup from a trip to Olympus is 2003...

http://www.slaythegnar.com/2003/08/n...pus-nz-081503/

Hey, are you heartcarving in that trip report? Epic!

[skier666]

Hey Bro! by the afternoon my forearms were spent. I tried to get on the lower tow at the parking lot level at least ten times and refused to go to the bottom where it was flat out of stubbornness. The ski patrol girls laughed at me. I wasted 15 minutes flailing because I couldn't hang onto the rope. It was awesome.

I know that feeling. I have a fond memory of seeing my buddy on a snowboard hanging on to reach the top if the bottom tow. Watching his hands go through the pulleys was priceless. He was stoked to have wounds from riding a lift, heh.

[Gurutasker]

Well my first post appears to have been swallowed by the great internets, awaiting moderator approval or something like that..

Been lurking for a while and thought I'd start contributing with a few shots from the NZ season thus far, but willl try again shortly!

Home mountain is Mt Ruapehu in the North Island, and we've got a good snow base building with some sweet days already had. If anyone's coming over for a holiday feel free to hit me up as I've started with the mountain hosts here.

Edit: Looks like anything with a picture gets denied waiting on moderator approval.

[Gurutasker]

Mt Hamilton (2011/2012 NZ Season)

[Gerome]

Cool. Looking forward to seeing some volcano skiing

[Powder Donkey]

Heads up,

$45 Craigieburn passes on Liftie http://www.liftie.co.nz for the next couple weeks. $49 and some overnight options at Broken River. Craigieburn has the option for cheap lodging also http://www.craigieburn.co.nz/category/news

[Dhelihiker]

I never saw this befur. Damn that hiking looks good, real good. It was a 100 today, ugh

Anyone have any advice on cheap airfare to NZ? I want to hang tuff with Gerome. Land me a 2 week consulting gig that will justify everything. Has anyone else committed yet?

[Imz]

Me Either- Looking pretty neat!

I've heard about those crazy lifts; I take it you weren't inclined to whip out your camera on the rides up?

[Gerome]

Hey guys, I was about to email you all and make some plans. Looks like flights are about $1500 round trip to Christchurch in September. You'll have to decide if you want corn snow adventure on the glaciers near mt cook or wintery snow in the club fields (meaning come sooner).

I got some gopro video of the rope tow gnar, but I've realized I hate editing the compressed gopro files on my outdated editor, hence the backlog of hundreds of hours of footage on my computer in the que.

Maybe I'll get a video up this weekend sitting by a fire in a lodge. The forecast is for 0.5m precipitation. Unfortunately the snow level is 1800m and the mountains top out about 1900m.

[DHogg]

Not from this year, but here is a video of Temple Basin to give you an idea of what the skiing around the clubbies can be like:

[Gurutasker]

Season has yet to really get cranking up north this year.. unfortunately there's a lot of precipitation and high freezing levels coming through on the weekend, so spirits aren't exactly high! It's been an early season spring-like cycle with marginal cover.. but still plenty of time yet!

[Boof Head]

1 month til I hit up Broken River and Craigieburn for the first time. Just mounted up my new Ninthward THA's ready for action.

[Gerome]

1 month til I hit up Broken River and Craigieburn for the first time. Just mounted up my new Ninthward THA's ready for action.

Hah, the Ninthward THA are what I brought here to ski on. PM me if you want to meet up at Broken River or Cragieburn when you're here.

This weekend got the rain we didn't need. I checked out Temple Basin. We walked the 40 minute hike to the lodge in the rain the entire way just to check out the terrain. The mountain looks sick, but every club field in Arthur's Pass was closed. Apparently, Mt. Lyford to the north missed the rain. Oh well, Temple Basin will be sick when it looks like that video Dhogg posted.

Here's some photos of a ski tour from Cheesman and Porters last week:

[Gurutasker]

Nice to see you got some goods before this rain came through.. really done some damage The beginning of this season feels more and more like spring as the weeks go on.. crossing fingers that winter really does get underway soon (the next 10 days or so are looking pretty bare at this point though..)

[skier666]

Nice...

I've never been to Cheesman but I believe Porters is ready for a big expansion.

[Gurutasker]

The reduction in snow cover after last weeks rains courtesy of NASA. Left image taken before the weekends rain. Right image take 2 days ago. Images courtesy of NASA rapid response & NZSNOWFORECAST.COM

[TeleAl]

Great stoke.

[gravitylover]

Nice to see you got some goods before this rain came through.. really done some damage The beginning of this season feels more and more like spring as the weeks go on.. crossing fingers that winter really does get underway soon (the next 10 days or so are looking pretty bare at this point though..)

Sounds like last (ski) season here on the East Coast. Some of my best mt bike rides so far this year were in January. It was dry, almost dusty, and 65 degrees.

[freshies]

Awesome stoke!

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Man, NZ is goregous. I never cease to be amazed. One day I will get down there.... Hopefully the conditions improve for you Gerome.

[Gerome]

Here's some from Broken River two weekends ago. It was firm and beer-o'clock couldn't come soon enough.













Last weekend Mt. Lyford got 20cm of fresh, which equaled a 20cm base in some places. It required some even pressure and speed to keep from scraping over rocks, but when up to planing speed, it gave that powdery fresh feeling.



The rope tows are still fascinating.




And my coworkers are pretty amusing to ski with














Mt. Lyford also has an amazing fully functional ski museum where you can click in to truly parabolic skis into the cutting edge 1991 technology; original rear entry Salomon or even Full Tilt, before they were called Full Tilt.







Till next time. Although I'm not sure anything will beat skiing followed by a ride in the batmobile and ice cream.

[Island Bay]

Good news! It's been snowing the last couple of days, and it didn't come a second too soon.

Here's some pics from Craigieburn last Friday and Saturday, showing rather bony conditions. That said, it actually skied quite well, with 3" of dust on crust turning creamy on Friday afternoon, and some windsift on Saturday. Sharks lurking, though.....








I was the only skier on the mountain all Friday morning :-)

[Gerome]

This was the weekend I've been looking forward to. The southern club fields on the South Island got hit by last week's storm so we headed to Dobson and Roundhill where they were claiming over 1 meter of snow fell by Wednesday.

Dobson on Saturday









And Roundhill on Sunday: Each club field visit is a surprise. My low expectations of Roundhill were blown away when we arrived at the Heritage Rope Tow, the longest rope tow in the world at 1.5km long and rising over 634m vertical.

Rope tow to the sky.



Before the Heritage Tow was installed in 2010, Roundhill consisted of the - round hill - seen in the next photo



Backcountry that the tow was untracked as far as we could see.



















That's all for now.

[Gerome]

I'll be in Wanaka and skiing Treble Cone this weekend. If there are any NZ mags around, let me know and we'll meet up.