The Life of Sloth

August 2006 - Posts

• Spring is here in the mountains

  Very windy for the last few days here. SJ and I went to go up riding today but both mountains were pretty much closed due to high winds - gutted cos we'd written off yesterday with nightmare hangovers. Has got so much warmer all of a sudden though - went out walking further round the lake this afternoon and was in shorts and t-shirt! Spring doesn't start till 2moro. Lucky we had that last big dump on 22nd cos that's really kept snow good up there apparently. Hopefully wind will be better tomorrow so can get on it again. Mildred will defo be coming back out to play very shortly though - the trail we walked today is gonna be top of my list for farming! Had to take my damn Westbeach pants back for the 3rd time this week - if they'd replaced them when I first took them in at the beginning of the season all would be good, but now there's barely anything left in the shops so I'm gonna try and get money back. Definately won't be buying Westbeach ever again! So I've still got another 12 days riding to get in over the next 6 weeks or so if I'm gonna get to 50 days this season - seemed as though it'd be easy but with high winds I dunno now. So, so pleased I got myself on that heli trip the other week now. What's next? Oh yeh, our plans for the next few months. Leaving Queenstown around 12th October, driving up to Christchurch (ChCh), find somewhere to live then fly to Adelaide for a week, on to Perth for MH and CT's wedding, back to ChCh until end of Feb 07, drive up and visit loads of NZ, sell car etc. in Auckland, before heading over to UK for 3 or 4 weeks in March. Les Arcs probably for week beginning 17th March, then back to somewhere in Aussie. Keep it up Sloth Posted Aug 31 2006, 06:21 PM by le_sloth with 4 comment(s)

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Eight (Windy Coro)

  Went up to Coronet for first time in a couple of weeks - all very tracked out but still so much snow up there - everything's nicely covered so plenty hits all over the place. Loads of park stuff for me to avoid too . Plan was to ride switch all afternoon - bit difficult when you hit icy mogul fields though I find. Pesky skiers. Seemed to be a lot of one-pieces out and about. Must be some sort of convention. And then the lifts closed due to power problems and high winds. Ah well. Posted Aug 28 2006, 06:38 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Volcom's Escramble launch party next week

  In keeping with our tradition of attending at least one movie premiere each year, how 'bout this one for y'all in London village? Just got this thru from White Lines... "Magic Toast would like to invite all Friday Fix readers to Leicester next Thursday (31st) for the launch party of Volcom's new film "Escramble". In addition to the movie there will be two bands, cheap booze and giveaways to get the party started. Two and a half years in the making, Escramble looks to be a corker - and you certainly can't scoff at Volcom's impressive array of team riders: Terje Haakonsen, Jamie Lynn, Bjorn Leines, Wille Yli-Luoma, Bryan Iguchi, Seth Huot, Janna Meyen, Cheryl Maas, Mark Landvik, Chris Demolski, Gigi Ruf, and Shaun White. Nuff said! So, get on down to Rock 'n Roll in Leicester Square, Leicester on 31st August from 8 till late. It's all free!" Posted Aug 26 2006, 07:09 AM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Seven (Back to Treble Cone)

  Another Early Start and a Selection of Pies Myself, Sarah and Gareth had another early start today for our roadtrip to Treble Cone (TC). After yesterday's near miss with the crash barrier, decided to go the long way round (118km to Wanaka instead of 59km) - doesn't really take much longer tho cos road's way better. Got to Wanaka and went off in search of the Hammer and Nail workers' bakery - oh and was that worth it !! Stocked up on sausage rolls, pies, chelsea buns and coffee - all cheap and great stuff. Hidden away on an industrial estate, you see, so no tourists. [Note: Snow Park pies are still winning]. Where is everyone? Yeh, so there we are arriving at TC, almost 10am and must've been only about 25 cars in the car park. Riding up the lift, still barely anyone around. Bits of powder around (they'd had 75cm+ since last Friday), but mostly tracked out and fairly windblown. I found this out for sure when I went down a black called Drop Off for my warm-up - pretty hard work! Off to the Motatapu Chutes With some very dark clouds looming over the back of the mountain, Gareth and I thought we'd better get a run in on the chutes. Funny, these were the same ones that gave me the FEAR a couple of weeks ago, but was definately ready for more today. Headed towards a nice big one bounded by huge cliffs. Jeez! How much untracked pow!? Wind had been blowing all pow from the rest of the mountain and dumped it nicely in the chutes...sweet as! Funny bit in the bowl at the top, light went really odd, both of us found our legs were all of a sudden up on our chins - hadn't noticed ground just dropping away below. Such quality pow tho. That pic above has got some notes on it if you click through to the Flickr page - show the 3 we've done so far. *** of a hike back out of there though, telling ourselves it was worth it all the way up, by the top were convinced it wasn't. Funny, though, on the lift back up immediately decided to do it again! The idea this time was to try not to end up quite so far down - Gareth managed this but Sarah and I missed the turning and ended up right down the bottom again! D'Oh. Riding the Gun Barrel and a lot of Wind Started getting really gusty in the afternoon - lifts kept stopping, so was time to call it a day just after 3. Got a couple of runs in down Gun Barrel though - still not quite enuf snow on it, but I just love it - probably one of my fave runs in NZ. Like a natural pipe all the way down the mountain, so great to pop 180s off the sides. Not that elusive switch BS though. Still hungry? Cafe up at TC is great news - NZSki could learn a lot from them. Had to make sure we stopped at Red Star burgers again in Wanaka. Got myself a huge Cajun Chicken one this time - so, so good. Best ones around. Although GBK Northcote Road is still the winner! And that's the end of my riding for this week. Been an epic 3 days, defo not the cheapest, but maybe best conditions of the season so had to take full advantage. Alan is now on my back and I'd best get some work done for the next 4 days. Until then, au revoir and love your work Sloth xx Posted Aug 24 2006, 08:08 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Six (Cardrona - Perfect!)

  Back on the road Sloth, Sarah-Jaye, Canadian Sarah and Louise did a roadtrip to Cardrona today...nice early start leaving at 7:30, so got ourselves there almost for first lift. Crown Range road pretty icy on the way and locked up going down the valley, missing the crash barrier by about an inch! I was filming at the time as well, so it's all there. Right so yeh, Cardrona (known by everyone round here as Cardies). Road up is way better than any of the others we've done - loads of snow piled up along the edge - all looking good already. Even looks vaguely like a Euro resort up there - not so much concrete. Freshies Seeing as it had been dumping for about a week and Cardies had been closed most of yesterday, there were still plenty freshies for us to get to first thing. Even straight up above the main resort building! Took the girls up these, actually came out looking down the superpipe - got some great shots of this - immaculate!   Worked our way across the mountain, looking for pow - SJ loves it now and was keen to ride as much as possible. Wish we'd done the short hike up to the weather station now bcos there was plenty up there before lunch but left it too late. Sharp Rocks Never again will I utter those words! As we left the car park in the morning I'd said how I hadn't needed to ptex my board this week. Great, thanks for that - despite there being all this pow around, managed to put something like 8 big scratches and core shots (most of which seem bizarrely centred around the Rome star!). The rocks here were worse than the Remarks! Chutes and jumps everywhere! Went down the Arcadia chutes a few times, up to the "Secret chute", Tulips and I dunno, various cat tracks that love to get in the way. Loads of snow-covered rocks and jumps all over the place though - loving that. Got an early lunch in - bit busy up there - probably only complaint about Cardies, lift queues were same too, although moved pretty quickly. Boarder-X The park at Cardies is amazing - so many variations of rails, boxes, kickers, un-named things, 2 pipes. So we didn't hit any of them. That's cos we're too cool for that ***. Yeh, like we even ride around with our pants pulled up, not hanging round our ankles, not with massive headphones on and not even having a rag hanging from our pockets. Yep, we really are the schnitzel. Boarder-X on the other hand was wicked fun - Sloth absolutely loving it, even if he did manage to completely clear the landing from one of those hits where you land to the side and end up stuck in some poles...hehe . Great news, more of that please. Alas, then it was all over and time to head on home, but not before having to try and find Louise avec le pink helmet - somehow ended up riding off the bottom of the BX, through the bigger boys park, almost off a cliff and back to the very bottom just in time for last of the last lifts. So then there's how they take people back to their cars up here...check this out! On the drive down saw a couple of boarders sitting by the side of the road with massive grins on their faces. Looked back up and there were 2 tracks all the way down - lucky, lucky them - so much snow they'd managed to get pretty much half way down the whole mountain! Sweet as. Posted Aug 23 2006, 08:16 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Five (Heli trips rock!)

  Well, well, well. What a day! No, really what a day!!! As many of you already know by text, that is without doubt one of the coolest things you can ever do! (Sorry Mr Pope, but it beats your breakfast at the greasy spoon!) Here's the story... The Phone Call After a night's sleep similar to what I used to get the night before Christmas, got up and waited around for the call. Wasn't looking too good to be honest - still dumping down here. Anyway, they said that it was going to clear a bit later so would be picking me up around 10am. Checked and rechecked things so many times, got myself in the van and headed off. On The Road Made a few pickups round town then drove out 20 minutes on the road to Glenorchy to our staging post. 40 or so people riding today so quite a lot going on. Unfortunately what was going on was the neige. It's weird, for the past few weeks we've all been doing a snowdance, really wanting Mr Dumpy to come round and today we just wanted him to stop! Really wasn't looking good - mountains disappeared into the clouds, I ended up lying down in the van. Farmed out lunch early (great stuff - quiche, fresh bread, loads of meat, cheese and stuff) - yeh would have been good to have it up on the "snowtable" as promised, but it all turned out worth it in the end cos just as we finished, it cleared!!! We were gonna ride the Thompson mountains, on the other side of Lake Wakatipu. To Be Brief Had a briefing on the choppers, how to be safe around them (like not walk into the rotors) and an avalanche briefing, got kitted out with our transcievers. Very big on safety, fair enuf - helped get rid of some of the FEAR that was creaping all over my back! Chopper Time! Finally, got round to our time to get on up there. 5 of us, 1 guide and "Hannibal" the pilot - an NZ legend apparently - rumoured to be the best chopper pilot in the country. Seem to have done well there, cos along with the best pilot, got a brand new (100 hours old) chopper, none other than a Squirrel B3 (best commercial chopper in the world!) and our guide was the owner of Southern Lakes Heliski. Well, heli's really are amazing. Couldn't stop thinking that I was on Treasure Hunt with Anekka Rice though! Hard to put into words how cool that was taking off across the lake towards the mountains, before heading straight up and landing on a tiny ridge! I mean, this is the stuff we've been watching on DVDs for years - and there I was doing the same!!! So, yeh we landed on this ridge and wherever the guide puts his pack is the safe zone. So one-by-one we got out, each has to put one hand on the pack and kneel down, then shield yourself from all the neige the chopper throws up when it takes off. Unbundle the boards, strap in and we're ready to rock! Pass the Pow please! So there it was, over the back side of the ridge you don't want to go - BIG drops, rocks, cliffs. Over the front, lovely huge powder bowl! And not a single track on it!! Speaks for itself really. Guide gets to go down first, we had to keep at least 50m behind him and mustn't go above his tracks, otherwise it's all there for the taking. Well there was around 40-50cm of fresh on top of another 40cm from last week, on top of a base of around 2-3 metres! Figure that out then. Yeh, big time powder-spray in the face. As we kept hearing the guides saying to each other all day - "have you ever seen it this good?" "there's so, so much everywhere" and "this is the best we've had in NZ"! There you have it. Loved it all, apart from the bit of avalanche debris hidden under the surface that took me right out on one run. Skiers are damn clumsy though - one guy lost his ski within 30 metres of his first run and 4 people took 30 minutes to find it. Another one lost both his skis. Where were we with our boards? Oh yeh, still strapped in and farming out their powder!! Actually, that guy losing his ski was a genius move for me, bcos I got to go down and join his group, so got an extra run in (5 runs for the price of 4, thankyou please! ) So, we did 4 runs around the same sort of area, getting around 600m of vert, then headed on up to 2000 metres for our final run, giving us around 750m vert. All in pure untouched pow. Time To Go All too soon it was time to go back, but what an afternoon's riding! Amazing views, incredible pow, slightly dodgy weather, but you can't have it all. Actually found it hard to decide what's best out of riding the pow or riding in the chopper. An amazing thing all round. Genius. Can't recommend it enough. Anyways, I'm really full of pizza, garlic bread and a few ales, so will have to leave you all to some photos from the day...enjoy. Have a look at this lot! (Did take loads of video footage too - watch out for that in a future Fancy That Production) p.s. Cardies 2moro, TC Thursday, Alan Friday. Posted Aug 22 2006, 07:43 PM by le_sloth with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, top 10, Winter 2006

• Heli Trip booked for tomorrow!!!

  Hell yeh!! It's dumping here at the moment (has been for the last few days on and off) - big chunky white flakes falling as I type. The word is that all this is clearing off tonight though, leaving us with bluebird for the next couple of days, before more neige on Thursday onwards. So, time for the big stuff! Sloth has finally got round to booking himself on a heli trip with Southern Lakes Heliski tomorrow!! Holy crapola! I get a call at 7am to let me know it's all on, get picked up and taken out to the chopper. Got myself 4 runs booked in, with option of doing more if my legs can take it, gourmet lunch served on a snowtable somewhere on mountain. The word is that conditions 2moro are gonna be "epic". Farm it out. Right, so in the meantime I've gotta: wax my board (edges are all good thanks to machine the other week, besides which, it's pow anyway) set bindings back get boots remoulded [Edit: tick] get binding spares [Edit: tick] eat pasta drink no booze How excited is this Sloth then?! I shall report back with news of the farming some time 2moro. P.S. In case you haven't heard, Return to Lesley Arcs...March 2007. Another fine Fancy That Production. Posted Aug 21 2006, 02:08 PM by le_sloth with 5 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Four (Another 35cm+)

  There I was about to start work this morning, thinking that yesterday's torrential rain all day and warm temperatures would mean it was no good up the mountains. Sarah-Jaye's bus had slipped off the road on way down (only into a ditch luckily!), snow up there was heavy and wet. Nope, I got that all wrong then - snow report said at least 35cm in last 24 hours . Holy crap! Got myself up there quicker than a fast-moving Sloth, neige everywhere! Got there in time for Shadow lift just opening (they were still blasting up there while I got my boots on - HUGE cornice being broken off, dumpy everywhere). Straight over towards Homeward runs, cat-track had disappeared though - windlip bigger than me along the edge of it! Had to walk it, which meant getting thigh-deep in powder. All worth it, got 2 runs in deep pow with great vis. And then he returned, full-on blizzard pounding the mountain, got one more run in before calling it a day. Loads of people were leaving already - couldn't see anything, chains on for everyone. Got back down to base and of course it cleared . Gutted, blue skies again. Ah well, can't win 'em all - plenty more coming in again this evening and next couple of days. Trying to get a roadtrip to Ohau sorted for Tuesday/Wednesday - plenty pow to be farmed up there. P.s. here's a first for me - got my head trapped in the door of a gondola last night - Sarah's mum dropped ticket as we got in, leant out to grab it, doors closed. Thought I was gonna end up farming all the way up with my tete stuck out the door! Posted Aug 19 2006, 01:45 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Three (Messing around the Remarks)

  Quite a slow start to the day up the Remarks - just getting out the car took about half an hour! Great conditions up there though - pretty soft powder on piste. Me and Sarah just rode round and round the baby park, sugar basin and stuff. Great stuff. V fast on the bits I usually hate up Sugar - mr Euro carve please. Don't know what some of those things were I was trying to do. Switch tailgrab head-upside-down-not-looking-where-i-was-going-dotcom. Something or other. All ends in a nice bit of powder thru gully back to car - dunno why we haven't noticed that b4? Anyways, I'm full of curry and Kingfisher so time to watch Sopranos. over and out p.s. Japan / Japow Feb 2007. Who's keen? Posted Aug 16 2006, 08:40 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-Two (Big Powder Day)

  Got ourselves up to the Remarks today pretty early. There's been 45cm fallen in last 48 hours so plenty of untracked pow up there - sweet!! Snowline was right down - had to put chains on at 2km mark which is lower than ever. Had Sarah-Jaye's mum with us today - her first time up a mountain, first skiing lessons. Hard to imagine what it's like going up for the first time ever - seems so normal to me now. Got SJ out on Homeward run - untracked pow everywhere . She loved it all - her first proper pow run, rode it pretty well once she mastered getting the nose up! Found myself a sweet windlip to hit - well, this is where I learnt that scoping it out from the lift about 300 metres away makes it hard to see what size it is / what the landing's like! Decided just to hit it anyway, only then did I find out it was a couple of metres high with a flat landing. Ooops - bit my tongue on that one. Still, went back and farmed it out a couple more times. Dunno what happened in the afternoon, but wasn't feeling so good - Alan was all over again. Took SJ up through the park again, which they've changed this week. Almost ended my season, was about to hit what I was sure was just a small kicker - lucky I didn't tho cos it was a long rail on the downslope - apparently a few people have been caught out by this - can't see it at all from above!! Landed on my *** several times today so got some great bruises - can't get switch backside 1s nailed - the last one to sort out before time to move up to 3s. Should really try and work 2moro but might head over to TC...we shall see. p.s. sorry if I woke u up again at the Chocolate Factory mr king and miss bob - had to tell someone about the pow! [Edit: Ok, so you weren't asleep at all! Impeccable timing from Mr Sloth ) Posted Aug 14 2006, 05:58 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty-One (CSI Day 4 - I passed!!!)

  Don't think it's sunken in yet - maybe it needs a few more beers to make me realise it - I passed!!! Heading in to town now to celebrate so will have to get round to telling you more later! Sweet. Sloth the Instructor, eh? Who would've thought it? Posted Aug 11 2006, 04:35 PM by le_sloth with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Thirty (CSI Day 3)

  30 days already?! Great news. Definately can't wait to get back to just being out there riding though instead of being instructed or assessed! Roll on Saturday Had our riding assessed this morning and got great feedback on that so loving it . Funny, cos didn't actually think I'd rode it my best, but apparently I had so sweet...still, had Alan all over me tho - damn tired! Got my level 3 demos much better when they were assessed later in the morning - way better than yesterday! Same deal with more level 2 stuff - garlands were best I'd done . Then moved on to a practise teach - had to do C turns for mine, teaching 1 regular, 1 goofy. Sort of went ok, but got myself a bit confused again on the explanations - damn goofy stuff! So lesson got a bit messy. Defo need to practise more of that this evening. Speaking of which... Had to hitch down mountain today for first time cos SJ and mum have got the car up at Frans Josef glacier. Bit of a pain but got home eventually after 2 hitches, 1 near miss, 1 walk and 1 bus. Fingers crossed (big time) for tomorrow! Whatever happens, I've learnt a lot from this course. We shall see... Posted Aug 10 2006, 05:25 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Twenty-Nine (CSI Day 2)

  There goes another day. Another fine day's riding, learning, teaching and all under beautiful blue skies on soft day-old powder. Spent the morning riding - focusing on using twist and pivot on all sorts of terrain. Twist really lets you farm it out - great news on steeps - early edge change, stay in control, love it. Did some level 3 demos (basic skidded turns, switch and regular), managed to stuff them up a bit cos didn't keep my turn shape consistent enough - hopefully will get another shot at them though. Spent the afternoon going through teaching kids, MA (movement analysis) and level 2 progressions. Bloody Americans. So, the games we'd come up with for kids - so they can learn snowboarding at the same time, say things like cops and robbers and well, any game we might have played when kids. You can't do anything like that now - nothing involving any implication of violence, cowboys and indians? nope. Space invaders? nope, might insult aliens. Everything's too damn politically correct these days. Rant rant rant. Moving on to finish off level 2 progressions tomorrow, practise teaching then it's the big day on Friday. Sarah's mum's just arrived for 10 days so they're off to Frans Joseph glacier tomorrow. Alan is tired. Posted Aug 09 2006, 05:58 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Twenty-Eight (CSI Day 1)

  Had my first day of the CSI course today up at Coronet. Couldn't believe how many people are doing it - about 75 of us! Got 9 in my group, from all over the place - Hungary, Germany, UK, Aussies. Loved it this morning - spent the whole time riding Mr Dumpy's offerings - loads of untracked, but not too deep, so bit crusty off-piste. Still, great to be riding pow again Combined all this with talking about the board performance concepts (twist, tilt, pivot, pressure) and how these are controlled using the 4 movements (vertical, longitudinal, lateral and rotational). Still had time to chuck a bit of freestyle in, cos this also demonstrates the above. Had our riding assessed last run before lunch, both regular and switch, steep and groomers. Seem to have farmed that out nicely cos feedback was great - only a small adjustment needed on my heelside turns. After lunch did a run down the Exchange Drop then on to beginner slope for level 1 teaching. Had to do our demos switch, 1-footed! Argh, not had to do that before. Feels really odd moving around with the wrong foot in - well hopefully not too much of that bit is assessed anyway. Did a practise teach which went better than all the others I'd done so pretty stoked on that (these count towards cert. as well). Finished off with a good run down, farming out what's remaining of the pow. All-in, a good day. Posted Aug 08 2006, 05:29 PM by le_sloth with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006

• Winter 2006 Season - Day Twenty-Seven (Dumpy's back!)

  Great news! At long long last Mr Dumpy has popped back in to town and spreading his love all over. Ok, fairynuff, he also gave us a full-on whiteout today, but at least he kept going all day (dunno how much yet, but looks like about 20cm so far ). Couldn't have left it any later either cos my CSI course / exams start 2moro and defo wanted more neige for that. Been up at Coronet shadowing again all day - certainly pretty different teaching beginners in a whiteout! Fingers crossed for tomorrow... Posted Aug 07 2006, 05:06 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2006