in

This Blog

Syndication

Bits and Bobs

The Life of Sloth

(Previously) Wandering amongst the mountains of New Zealand in search of cheese

July 2007 - Posts

  • Bored of Mt Hutt

    Not a lot to write about really, but went up to Hutt today. They'd had 24cm snow fall yesterday and it only opened in the avo, so was expecting a bit of powder to ride. And there was. Looking up at the mountain it was odd how loads of it hadn't been ridden. So up I go and straight off piste. Ugh. Sticky, heavy snow with a crust. Fook that then. On piste was ok, but there's only so many times I can ride the same couple of routes, taking in the same hits, again and again. Bored. Dunno whether it was me or just a lot of idiots about, but over the course of the day I must've had 6 or 7 crashes or near crashes with other people. The last one I was gutted cos I'd just found a new section to ride thru that was pretty cool. So I'd just finished that, dropped back down on the piste, having spied this beginner coming down. Well, despite my best efforts to stay out of his way, he changed direction at the last minute, sticking his board full-on into my shin. Super Angry

    Well he apologised and I think I got him suitably worried when I could barely walk back at the bottom. Yep, nice cut to my pants, cut to my leg and (by the time I got home), an apple-sized lump on my leg. Still, somehow managed to get up and take in one more run. Was proper painful back at home and had to get the peas out and elevate it. Bastardo. Got an awesome bruise now.

    Still, I'm really getting sick of:

    • riding the same shit at the same mountain
    • not having any decent powder
    • rocks
    • driving 
  • Better day at Cardrona

    Well yesterday went very wrong. The plan had been to go up to Coronet, a few of us going up there. Got myself up early, started getting ready but then the bad news came in. It had been raining heavily all night and was continuing, along with strong winds. Ok, so that's snow on the upper mountain, but basically strips the lower bits. Not good. That pretty much wrote the day off, so ended up doing not a lot then going shopping and curry and beers in the evening.

    Got up this morning, almost expecting to have to give up on this roadtrip and go back to chch, the weather had been much the same all night. But strangely enough it had sorted itself out, giving Cardrona 15cm of snow overnight, albeit wind-affected. Myself, Sarah and Ramsey got up there early-ish, met up with Gareth and Jonno and got farming it out.

    Found a nice windlip/drop-off to hit all day, dropping into powder below. Plenty bits of ok powder here and there, though would've been nice to have another 20cm on top! Barely any wind and mostly sunny, so just shows how they can never really forecast the weather here!

    Rode that out for pretty much the whole day then down to the Cardrona hotel, with its outdoor fireplace for a couple of beers. Seem to have managed to warp all of my cards by sitting too close to the fire. Arse. Pizza and turbo garlic bread in the Cow finished off the evening. Now extending the roadtrip by a day so I can ride Remarkables tomorrow.

    Captains Basin @ Cardrona Round the fire @ Cardrona Hotel

  • Treble Cone needs powder

    Stayed the night in Wanaka, then up to Treble Cone this morning. Snow report was obviously wrong, as it had said 25-35cm snow 3 days ago. Hmm, surely you mean 3 weeks ago?! Still, conditions up there were supposed to be the best of the lot at the moment. Looked pretty good on first lift, and not so bad from the Saddle chair (yes, where everyone takes their horse). Got back down to the car to get the new board out and farmed it back up the top.

    Well the chutes (not the Motatapu ones - not doing them on my own or without backcountry kit after seeing avalanche footage from them) were ok, patches of windswept powder here and there, but otherwise in need of a lot more neige. Was just about to head down to base for lunch when was told that the bottom lift was broken, so if I wanted to keep riding, best to stay up top. Lucky I did as that was broken for a good couple of hours.

    Pretty much exhausted all the riding up on the top part; only about 30 people up there in the same situation; finally they got it fixed, so I rode down for a pie. Then it broke again. Couldn't be arsed with sitting around forever so gave up around 3pm, picking up a free half day pass for next time. Thing is, there won't be a next time unless there's a powder day when I'm back down here again. TC is good, but (a) A rip off at $99 a day (I get $20 off with my season pass tho), (b) a bloody long way to drive and (c) pretty dull without powder.

    Dunno where to go 2moro as now in Queenstown, but no new snow again. It's pretty much a case of where's got the best snowmaking, which is Coronet I think. Be good to cruise round there anyway - been a while.

    Right, I'm gonna grab a pizza, head back to Jimmy's and get the fire started. Farm on.

    View from Treble Cone 

  • Ohau I love to ride

    And that's exactly what their car stickers say, so I bought two. Right then, so here I am in Wanaka with Alain on my back trying to take control of the situation. 6 beers in the fridge with my name on them so I can't be long, or belong. Steinlager Pure. It's new, it's fresh, it's clean, it doesn't seem to contain every chemical known to mankind unlike original Steinlager.

    The plan was to leave ChCh at stupid o'clock yesterday morning, but that never happened, so missed out on a day's riding in bluebird conditions (no change for the last 2 weeks!). Eventually got myself moving, covered all 35 "right then's" and drove South. Schoolboy error #1, leaving at that time meant that pretty much all the way I had the sun in my eyes, just at that annoying level below the visor. Scenery absolutely stunning all the way, snow-covered mountains and fields, sunset, no cars. Loving it. Loving taking photos too much cos took me an hour longer than it was supposed to. Eventually I got to Ohau, which really is in the middle of nowhere - 200km to nearest significant town. Hit the bar straight away, $7 for a jug? ok then. As expected, pretty quiet over here on a Sunday night, but was the staff night off so got stuck into a few with them and demonstrated my incredibly fluky pool skills.

    Sloth was the first one up, so he could get a few pics of sunrise over Lake Ohau - incredible. Watched that continue over breakfast then got Rosie packed up and up the mountain. No chains! At last! FEAR at one point tho as had stopped to take photo but that was on ice, so Rosie wasn't too happy about gripping the track and only had about 30cm left to reverse so as not to fall off the road. Indifferent

    Damn wind! My arse as well. Got on the world's sloooowest chairlift, which was almost horizontal by the top. Back down thru powder that was collecting on the edge of the piste, over to the lift and...denied! On hold bcos of wind! Hmm, only thing for it - ride the beginners button lift. Could only take so much of that, before retreating to cafe.

    Turn around and it's farming again. Went off to the left this time, having scoped out some powder lines, but upon getting to where I think I was supposed to drop in, the wind started taking the piss and blasted my face with ice. Still, whereever it was, found some awesome powder all the rest of the day, thanks to the few others on the mountain (let me see, 14 in total!). And thanks to the wind for stirring up all that powder and dumping it.

    Definitely, definitely going back to Ohau. It's pretty much spot-on. On a big pow day that would be incredible. 

    Ohau good is this view?

    Ohau info hut Ohau busy it is!

  • The 200th Post

    Seeing as it's the 200th day of the year, I thought there's no better time than to write my 200th post on my blog. But what do I have to say? I'll leave it to Wikipedia for the moment:

    200 (two hundred) is the natural number following 199 and preceding 201.

    The number appears in the Padovan sequence, preceded by 86, 114, 151 (it is the sum of the first two of these).

    The sum of Euler's totient function φ(x) over the first twenty-five integers is 200.

    200 is the smallest base 10 unprimeable number - it can not be turned into a prime number by changing just one of its digits to any other digit. It is also a Harshad number.

    Two hundred is also:

    • A common ISO-standard film speed for photographic films. However, 200 speed film is being phased out in consumer films in favor of faster films.
    • A denomination of the euro note. The 200 euro note was designed by Robert Kalina.
    • The size of one side of the main square in Kraków, Poland (200 m×200 m)
    • 200 MeV is the temperature of quark-gluon plasma phrase transition.
    • The name for a car made by Rover, called the Rover 200.
    • An HTTP status code indicating a successful connection.
    • The sum of dollars given in the classical Monopoly game to a player passing Go.
    • A cholesterol level of 200 and below is considered "Desirable level corresponding to lower risk for heart disease"
    • "200" is the title of an episode of the television show Stargate SG-1.

    Or here's photos tagged with 200 on Flickr

    Anyone know anything else about 200?

  • Breaking in the new board

    Was looking like another grey day in Christchurch today, but the report said blue skies up at Mt Hutt so finally got myself up there. Been ill for last week or so, which has been annoying cos wanted to get up there and try out this new board.

    The thing I don't understand about it up there is how the car park seems nearly full but there barely anyone on the mountain. No queues all day Smile.  It's these wavy edges (Magne-Traction) that makes this board a bit strange and is gonna take a bit of getting used to. The snow today was powdery in parts, but mostly pretty compact (ice) and machine groomed. Where my Rome would probably lose grip the instant it hit the ice, this board just keeps gripping. You can push it so far on to an edge it's ridiculous. Oh, but there is a point where enough is enough and it kicks your ass. Loads and loads of pop - as I found out when just popped off the side of a cat track and got launched up in the air! Seems very stable at speed too - got in some nice big Euro-carve / Dynamic turns. Inspires so much confidence in riding.

    Well, I can't even remember what else I was gonna type, Alain is all over me so that'll be all for now. Might be off on a Ohau/Wanaka/Queenstown roadtrip this weekend/next week Automobile

  • Sloth's Total Ripper

    After last weekend's battle with the rocks, it was a good excuse for me to get out shopping today. So here she is, my all-new non-rock board. Have joined the Pope in the Lib Tech camp, this one being the TRS (Total Ripper Series) with Magne-Traction (that's those weird wavy edges). Bit of a softer ride, but little bit longer so still gonna be great in the pow-pow. If this board rides anything like I've heard, it's the schnitzel! Turns ice into powder. Anyway, I'll figure all that out over the weekend.


    Lib Tech TRS MTX
    Originally uploaded by le_sloth.

    Lib Tech TRS MTX Base

  • Mt Hutt Bluebird

    I don't really need to say much about how the day started - just look at this photo. Perfect.

    Mt Hutt from Methven 

    After breakfast in Methven, got ourselves up the mountain again. Seems word had got around and even more people were up there - we got up at 10:30 and were already in the overflow carpark! Went to pick up my board, but they'd had so many in to fix with rock damage, it hadn't been done. Choice was either to leave it with them and get it done for free or to borrow a board from the workshop for the day while they sort it. I hadn't noticed the full extent of the yesterday's damage and aside from multiple core shots, I'd Dan Blacked my heelside edge - giving it a nice lumpy effect. Bugger. Rock board it is then.

    Well, I could either take a Rosignol 163 or a Salomon 2008 test board. Salomon it is then, only thing being this was a 154! Had a wicked time on this anyway, like riding a skateboard - damn tiny! No more powder for me though, staying firmly on piste all day and not wrecking this board for them. Got back into instructor Sloth mode and sorted SJ out with better edge control - looking promising. Some tool had let go of his board while building a kicker, right in front of me, so absolutely belted it down the mountain trying to catch the thing. Put in a massive Euro-carve around it, just caught it, but slipped away again to cause chaos down at the bottom of the lift. Wasn't me.

    All in, a great weekend's riding. Bring on more powder!

  • Mt Hutt Powder Day

    Well, after yesterday's massive disappointment, Mt Hutt fully redeemed itself. Myself and SJ got ourselves up at 6:30am, checked the snow report and...yay!!! It's open. With 35-50cm of fresh dry powder Big Smile. Got all the "right, thens" out of the way, out the door and on the road (via Maccas of course). Roads were loads clearer than yesterday, but still icy, with barely anyone on them. Had we beaten everyone up there? Or had they beaten us? Chains for everyone on at the very very bottom of the access road. Despite getting up so early, we still didn't get up there until almost 10am, by which time a lot of the powder had been tracked out by the lucky few.


    View from Mt Hutt
    Originally uploaded by le_sloth.

    Signs up all over the place warning that a lot of the off-piste was baseless, or faceless, or something. Whatever it was, it was too hard to resist, so withing an hour or so I'd decided the Anthem was now gonna have to be my rock board. Lost count of how many rocks I hit, lurking under that freshness - the base was not looking good by lunchtime. Queues built up as every man and his dog arrived to ride, but still nothing like those in France. That's pretty much how the day went really, I found a sweet stash of pow under the 4-man chair that had to be ridden very lightly. Loving these drops into powder, really pushing myself to go bigger. SJ loved it, brig grins all round. Only thing without a grin was my board, which had multiple core-shots, stripping out any p-tex from past repairs. Dropped it off for overnight fixing in the workshop.

    Back in Methven, went to the Blue Pub for booze and food, before Alan got hold of us and was in need of an early night. Barely any time for photos, but you know where they are. Awesome day. Smile 

  • Mt Hutt - the day that didn't happen

    A very excited Sloth got up at 6:45am, knowing that it had been dumping all night. Looked at the snow report - yep, plenty of fresh, but Mt Hutt "On Hold". Well, that usually means that they're clearing the road and will get it sorted. Not wanting to miss out on a Greybird day, I drove off out there. Well the snow was falling thick and fast only about 20km out of Christchurch. By the time I got to Rakaia Gorge, it was time for chains on. No snowploughs here it seems - around 15cm of neige on the road!

    Heavy Snow Cows on the move

    Eventually got to the Mt Hutt access road, still on hold, now until midday. Ok, fair enough I thought, I'll head in to Methven and wait it out. That was quite slow thanks to the cows who were on the move. Almost got a cow's head in the car. No thanks, What do you do in Methven then? Seriously, if I had to do a season in that place I'd go insane. Farming, that's about the size of it. Well I hung around for a couple of hours, ate when I didn't need to, took some photos. Then got the bad news. Closed. Arsebiscuits. Bothered Sloth. At the time I couldn't figure it all out and was hating Mt Hutt for this, but looking back on it there's no way they could've opened with that much neige on the road and zero vis.

    Thought about heading over to Porters as that was open, but that would've been a bit of a mission for just a couple of hours riding. Turns out the prime minister was over there as well. Back home for this Sloth then. These days are there to test you.

Powered by Community Server (Non-Commercial Edition), by Telligent Systems