The Life of Sloth

September 2007 - Posts

• Last day of the season - Ohau

  10 hours sleep sorted us right out, and what an awesome start to the day. Perfect bluebird, no wind, great breakfast overlooking Lake Ohau. Here we are, loving it:   Snow was just softening up once we got up the mountain, damn warm already, almost a no jacket day. Took SJ up and got her cruising round, both loving it already. As the Yeti once said "This is the day, this is what we've all been waiting for". Well that was about the size of it really, just farming around, got plenty of filming in, not landed any 3s yet but pushing it bigger otherwise. No more hiking - done plenty of that, fear of rocks on board, plenty to keep me going on piste anyway.   Rode it out until nearly 4, chilled down at the cafe then back into Rosie and to the lodge. Now after a day up there I'm pretty hungry, and with a long wait till dinner we got some nachos in, but this was taking the piss:   Serious heart-attack potential on that lot - we didn't stand a chance. Chillies were damn good though. How would you do that? Well, without us knowing, that was that. End of the season. Perfect day to end it on, been a bit of an epic week with the Mt Potts trip too! Weather wasn't so good the next day and needed to get back to ChCh. Still had time to head out further round the lake and walk around Temple Valley - very remote, great scenery. Another fine bridge for Dan Black too. And a weird psycho-motel, complete with separate house (and probably "mother" on her rocking chair).  More photos over here.  Posted Sep 10 2007, 08:14 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2007, roadtrip, Ohau

• Back to Ohau: The Last Roadtrip

  With the winter season rapidly disappearing and spring farming on in everywhere, it was time for one last roadtrip. Where better to go, than Ohau? They've had consistently good conditions, better than most places, forecast was for bluebird, no wind, and there'd been 40cm or so of fresh earlier in the week. Another early start for myself and SJ, got Rosie packed up and got ourselves down to the lodge in around 4 hours. Scenery stunning as ever, getting very green through McKenzie high country now - plenty lambs out and about. "Ah, back again, Richard?" I get as we arrive at Ohau lodge. Seems I'm their best customer - everyone remembers me as I'm walking around, which is nice. Got ourselves up to the snow by 12 - busiest I've seen it, apparently they got around 400 people over the day. Still seems pretty much empty once you're up top though! No riding for SJ as was tired from the week's sales conference, so time to chill out at the cafe, in the sun. Meanwhile Sloth can't resist hiking the ridge again. Headed up further left this time, over to one of the back bowls. Spent a while checking it out, asking what conditions were like, scoping the drop in and run out. Drop in was full of FEAR, around 3 metres off the ridge into powder, onto head. Run out was powder, but had to watch out for rocks in parts. All good and worth it, but took some bad lines after that. Spent the rest of the avo just cruising it on piste, getting some big Euro carves in and taking in all the hits around. Back down to the lodge for a few beers, watching the sun go down, dinner then early bed for Alain and Alison. Liking this Manual Mag, if / when I can get my hands on it.   Posted Sep 08 2007, 08:55 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2007, roadtrip, Ohau

• Mount Potts Heli Day

  No words for now, Alain is tired. I'll leave you with this for the time being : <p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/WkIOMcWVq8w">http://www.youtube.com/v/WkIOMcWVq8w</a></p> View original media here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkIOMcWVq8w I do love the way YouTube takes a perfectly good video and knackers the quality. I'll put the original up tomorrow.  [Edit: Now I've had time to think about it all]  I think the vid pretty much tells the story itself, but anyway I'll chuck a few words together. There's a load of photos over here too. So that's it, 60cm of fresh in a couple of days, the one I was sure would happen some time this season. Funny that it fell 6 days into Spring though. With conditions like that I had to give them a call, but no cat/heli combo going on at Mt Potts this season, but "we do have a space on Thursday's heli trip!". 5 minutes of thinking and Sloth was back on the phone, booking that one right in. Very very early start, up at 5am and in Rosie, down south, then inland towards Mt Somers. Long, long, perfectly straight roads, sun coming up over the snow-covered mountains ahead. Now what I wasn't expecting were the suicidal ducks, wandering across the road in this area. What's that all about? Mt Somers is about 10 houses by the looks of it; from there it's on the gravel roads deep into the backcountry. I'd been told that if you feel as though you were lost, you were almost there. They're not wrong, this place is right out in the back of beyond. Scenery just incredible, the last bit took me ages cos I kept stopping to take pics. Check this out at Lake Clearwater:   Nice and chilled on arrival at the lodge, not getting going for another hour or so. Met everyone else, 2 groups for the day, including one of the owners. Ok, admittedly the others could've been better, just a bunch of annoying aussie dickheads, but they were from Canberra, so you almost felt sorry for them. After safety briefing, in came the heli, straight to the front of the lodge, then got in and flew across the riverbed to the white stuff. Nobody had been up riding it since the last storm, so completely untracked pow everywhere. Loads of it, light, fluffy, spraying up in the face. Get in! 5 runs later (and lunch on the snow) it was all over and back to the lodge. Damn these missions go so quickly. Seriously, if I had the money I'd be up there doing 10 runs a day. Nothing like it. If you get the chance, do it, don't question it, heli trips rock. If any of you lot get yourselves over to NZ, we're going back to Mt Potts, it's the schnitzel.   Time for a random big salmon?   Posted Sep 06 2007, 10:29 PM by le_sloth with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, Fancy That Productions, New Zealand, Video, top 10, Winter 2007, roadtrip

• Heli Day Tomorrow!!!

  Just a quick post cos I've got to get my kit together and be up at 5am. It's looking like the season has been turned on its head - now that we're 4 days into Spring, Mr Dumpy came along and left 30-60cm all over the south island. With bluebird forecast and no wind tomorrow I thought "hell, yeah" and booked myself on a heli trip at Mount Potts. Nobody's been up and ridden it yet as the weather was still clearing today, so that leaves just me and 7 lucky others to play around in 60cm of fresh, dry, light white goodness. Snorkel's ready, bindings set right back, got to get the FEAR out of my head but otherwise I'm more excited than an excited Sloth. Farm that one out. I shall be thinking of you all while you're at work Back to you...report 2moro...  Posted Sep 05 2007, 10:07 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2007

• Just one more powder day, please

  It's been a while now since my last day's riding up at Ohau. That's the story of this winter though - few and far between. Not sure how much snow's actually fallen up here in Canterbury, but I can't really remember more than about 1cm a week in the past few weeks!! Both boards are waxed, repaired and ready for a last couple of days, so if the snow report for this week is right, I'm in for a belter.   Now, let's just read that again. 53cm. In one day. On a highly unstable snowpack, made more so by possible rain the day before. Mt Hutt won't even get close to opening for a couple of days, and once Mr Lanche has done his work, followed by (grrr) yet more westerly winds, there might not be a lot worth going up for. Definitely learnt a few things from that course last season - no point risking hiking in these conditions. There's always other seasons. Another point to note - New Zealand weather forecasts. Essentially they're down to the toss of a coin.  This morning for instance it was supposed to be raining in ChCh - I opened the blinds to blue skies, not a drop of water. Completely unpredictable. The weather everywhere is on a mad one this year though - while we've had a dry winter, the Aussies have had one of their best ever, meanwhile the UK summer has been the wettest on record. Global Warming? A natural cycle? Sped up by human activity? Who knows. Either way, there's no harm in reducing our impact as much as possible in our everyday lives. Think about your next powder day before you next drive to the shops. Maybe it would be better to walk? Been out on Mildred a couple of times lately, Spring is definitely here, shorts and t-shirt weather. Had our first barbie last weekend (still in Winter then!). All good. Right well it's a lovely sunny Spring day so time to get outside in it Sloth   Posted Sep 02 2007, 12:42 PM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2007