The Life of Sloth

August 2008 - Posts

• The Grey Dog

  Change the wind direction from a Southerly to a Nor-Wester at this time of year and things change, really change. From reading the report, I knew it was going to be a bit heavy and wet, but I needed to get up there, you know how it is?! Turn your bloody lights on! The weather from ChCh to the mountains was absolute horseshit - apparently we had a month's worth of rain in 2 days. Flooding, non-stop heavy rain, barely able to see on the roads. So why the F^^K do these idiots still insist on driving without their lights on?? People really have no clue when it comes to driving - they sit cocooned in their own little world, paying no attention whatsoever to what's going on around them. Pricks. I could go on, but that'll do, you get the point. Chains for everyone for the top part of the road, mostly because of the deep slush and rivers flowing down it. Vis was terrible too - could only see 300m or so. Had I made a mistake coming up today? Love the Grey Dog So after a couple of very very wet and heavy runs, time for a long black and a rethink. I was up here in the mountains, yes it was very wet, no you couldn't see much, yes it was far too warm. But, there was still 27cm of powder. No, that's not right, this wasn't powder, it was more like riding on a very wet carpet. A very odd feeling. There was also only the 4-man chair open, which was painfully slow and only gets you up part-way. I dunno, despite all of this I had a wicked few hours up there, finding things to hit up, ridges to drop off into the greyness, it was all good. This is the way of the Grey Dog day. I gave up when I was soaked through, got down the mountain and stopped at the excellent Hororata Cafe on the way home. The rain never stopped. End of Winter, bring on Spring I'd like to think the temperature will drop again, but there's usually a lot more weather coming from the NW this time of year, which does mean heavier, wetter snow. As I'm writing this, it's the first day of Spring (1st Sept) and 19c in Christchurch. Shorts, t-shirts and thongs (that's flip-flops to most of you) are back on. Spring riding is kicking off though and with the base we've got up here, it's gonna be epic! Bring on Ohau in 2 week's time... Posted Aug 26 2008, 09:55 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Mt Hutt, Winter 2008

• Big Mama, T-Bars and cake

  With only a sprinkling of new snow overnight, it was hard to pick out the best place to go from the snow reports. But seeing as it's 2-for-1 at Porters on a Monday, making it only $37.50 each, it was worth putting up with the t-bars for the day. Must've been damn cold overnight in Methven as Rosie's doors were frozen shut again; also very sketchy on the roads between there and Springfield - plenty ice . Porters pass was looking spectacular though - snow all around and yep, another bluebird day. Here's how things were looking on arrival:   No sign of clouds, is there? Mirror lenses on, they should be fine for the day? Hmm. We couldn't be arsed with chains, so got the free shuttle up the mountain - wish other places did this. Scoped out the lines leading all the way back down to the car park - now that would be an epic run. On the way up, learnt of the rare species of sheep found in these parts. They have specially adapted to the steep conditions by growing their legs longer on one side of the body than the other. This way, they're always standing horizontally to the mountain. Only problem being they can only walk around the mountain in the same direction. Can you imagine that, Mark? In search of powder Met up with the others and the six of us headed straight up the 3 t-bars (that first one is 1km and painfully slow) then off left on a crappy traverse line - icy, crusty, windy. Still, we had to get round to Big Mama (720m vert). Well, it was ok but nothing special. Snow was a bit sun and wind-affected, but a good long run anyway. Back up again we went off the other side, along the top ridge (very very windy) and tried various runs down there. Patches of soft pow in between crust, plenty piled up on side of catties (mostly for me to put my face in). The view from the top is ridiculous - check this out:   Bluff Face was the winner - hit that up all of the rest of the day. The wind was working in our favour, filling in our tracks with soft dry snow each time we got back round. Found a couple of little chutes and drops, all good. Then the vis went to shit (remember that bluebird start?) - some massive dark grey clouds rolled straight in over the top of us just as we called it a day. Heavy snow all the way back down the mountain - good as it was topping everything up, shame as it meant no riding down to the car park. So here's those same two shots at the end of the day. Nope, you can't trust the mountain weather.   Shame we didn't get a bit more fresh and a bit less wind, but another great day's riding with a good crew - looks like I was loving it here anyway!   Almost forgot about the hardcore chocolate cake. Well, it was cake, it was chocolatey and it was snowing while I ate it. And again, poor Dave - having moved on from the splitboard incident, hired a Custom, pulled one of the bindings off on 2nd run, knackering the threads. Gutted. Here's my pics and here's Farran's (great riding with you ). Posted Aug 18 2008, 09:23 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2008, Porters

• And another bluebird powder day at Hutt

  Been a while since I wrote now, but I think I can piece a couple of days together from the photos. something was weird with my board that day - there's me unable to find anything wrong. it was blue, there was plenty pow. we like that. Hmm, I can't really remember much actually. Myself and Farran just rode as much as possible, until the legs gave up. So much terrain to play with, especially out towards South Face and the ridge just before it - seems people overlook that so untracked still there at the end of the day. A great day, ending in a big feed at The Blue Pub, plenty beers and over the road to the Brown Pub. Far too much going on in one room over there, back to the hostel for a (very interrupted) night's sleep. p.s. old-skool split boards. No, don't buy one of those off eBay. Poor Dave and his no-riding trauma.   Posted Aug 17 2008, 09:08 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Mt Hutt, Winter 2008

• Craigieburn - The Big One

  "Sunday will be a classic day, blue skies, fresh powder and no winds..." so the snow report said. Looking around the reports for each of the mountains in Canterbury, it was going to be hard to find somewhere that didn't have perfect conditions! The likes of Hutt and Porters would be packed full of weekend warriors, so back to the clubbies it was, and there's no bigger one than Craigieburn. Time to Chill A very icy start to the day - all the doors on my car were frozen shut, meaning a climb through the boot to give them a kick from the inside. Picked up my SnowPool passenger for the day - Mark from Aussie. Luckily he'd been up there before, so explained some of the best spots to head for. Stopped off at Chill HQ in Springfield to buy a Chill Pass - this lets you ride at any of 11 mountains at cheaper rates (around $50 a day). Also got myself a proper harness for the rope tows - similar to a climbing harness, making it loads more comfortable than the old-skool free ones at the fields. Shaping up to be an epic day - check out the views:   Trees, Powder and Fast Rope Tows Now there's something unusual about Craigieburn - it (almost) has tree runs - well, there's trees on the drive up, around the car park and on the lower end of middle basin. Up the first rope tow, faced with turning a corner via a big inverted drum thing - FEAR unnecessary though. On to second tow and hadn't quite got the nutcracker closed, don't know how but managed to put my left thumb through the pulley. As if that wasn't painful enough, I then fell off the tow and landed on the same thumb, bending it right back and feeling like it was dislocated . Not a good start. Hiked the rest of the way up to the day lodge. Thumb appeared intact and moveable, but got progressively more painful over the day - wasn't going to let that get in the way though. Luckily there was plenty of barely-tracked powder next to the bottom 2 lifts because by lunchtime I'd still not managed to get up the top one - so frustrating! Rode the lower half of Middle Basin, which was great. Chilled at the day lodge for a bit - amazing views from the balcony, barbie on the go (which almost blew up). No bins up there, which was a bit odd, but means no keas and less work for staff I suppose. Determined to nail this top lift, I got back into my shouting at Sloth all the way up "You are holding on all the way", "Stay away from the pulleys, Sloth" until finally "Yeeeesssss!!! I made it". Get in. And what a view - was so, so worth it.   A long hike and a long run down Now I'd made it up there, might as well head up as high as possible - Hamilton Peak, to the left was the one. Hiked up there, finding possibly the most spectacular mountain views in NZ - 360 degrees of snow-covered peaks. Plenty of vert and knee-deep pow on the ride down - fair few small chutes to hit, loving it. Back up again and was already nearing the end of the day - damn time had gone quickly. In need of one last epic run, I followed a group of snowboarders round the other side towards Middle Basin. Traversed all the way round as far as possible, just out of patrolled area. Hard to express how good this run was - untracked, dry deep pow all the way, gulleys, slashing powder over the rocks, wind lips, it had the lot. Genius. All big smiles and collapsed in a heap at the bottom. That's what I'm here for. Was so good it felt like that long off-piste run down from Tignes to Val D'Isere (Tommeuses?)   As usual, all the photos are on my Flickr. Mark got a few of me dropping off the top of the peak, so will hopefully have those at some point too. Not been up yet this week, but more new snow around today so will soon be on to the next one... Posted Aug 11 2008, 09:13 AM by le_sloth with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Winter 2008, Craigieburn

• Epic day at Mt Hutt

  "This is the one, this is the day we've all been waiting for", so said the famous Yeti back in 2006. Well I used those very words myself today at Mt Hutt. Hadn't been planning on going up today - better conditions were supposed to be on Thursday, but checked it all out, made a quick decision and got myself out the door. On top of everything else from last week, there'd been another 20cm yesterday; but they'd not been able to get the lifts running too much because of wind. On the drive up I was scoping out the acres of untracked pow over towards the triple chair - I knew where I was heading straight away! Most of the morning I was staying on the high traverse line then dropping down through the Towers, picking the steepest and deepest lines then following on all the way down to the triple chair. Second run in had a wicked tomahawk stack - had just dropped off a windlip, looked back up but hadn't noticed something right in front of me - end of story. Loved it. Found myself a big pow stash off the bottom end of South Face - totally untracked for a couple of runs! As with all the best days, I didn't have my camera with me, so just got a couple of pics on the phone - bit hard to tell what's what, but here they are. Bit odd seeing the mountain from completely new angles.    The Outer Limits After lunch, stopped to read the sign at the top of the lift saying which of the expert runs were open - stoked! They'd just opened the South Face, where I'd been watching patrol blasting earlier. Got myself straight round there and out to the furthest limit of the resort - you're actually looking down into the next valley. Only counted 10 or so tracks below me, found my line and hit it - light, dry powder, loads of it - get in! . This area was only going to be open for another 40 mins or so, so straight back up the lift, but this time to spot patrol opening another area - The Bluffs, all the way round the opposite side of the mountain. Followed the catty round, couple of short hikes and found the patrol guy, who sent me on to the next one. "Only 3 people have dropped in ahead of you, your best lines are right there...". Awesome, so this Sloth drops straight in, massive air off a windlip and stacks it just before the top of a mini chute. Got a load of good pow turns in before hitting the road - you can just about make my lines out in this pic:   Was planning on going back round again but was getting proper knackered so stuck with some high-speed carving to finish the day off in the last bit of sun. It's days like this that remind you why you love it so much. I felt like taking back everything bad I'd said about Mt Hutt - amazing to be riding new parts of the mountain. This really is turning out to be an epic season - there's more snow right now than there's been in 15 years! And still plenty more to come...bring it on!   Posted Aug 06 2008, 08:31 PM by le_sloth with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Mt Hutt, Winter 2008

• So much snow at Hutt

  Just got back from riding powder all day at Mt Hutt - was loads better than expected . Last week's storm has dumped so much snow up there it's ridiculous! Gonna set it up perfectly for Spring riding (yeh, now how come that's only 4 weeks away already?!). The base is the highest it's ever been for this time of year - nearly 2.5 metres. Which of course is nothing in Japanese or US standards, but a lot for here. The report said only 4cm of fresh but there was at least 15-20cm in places. Finally I got to ride the South Face area and the triple chair, neither of which has ever been open in all the times I've been there - great cos barely anyone down there and loads more terrain to play around on. Only problem today was the vis, which was in and out constantly - giving me some shitty flat landings on cat tracks that appeared from nowhere. Was riding with another GoneBoarding member today, Farran - hopefully we can meet up for a Temple Basin mission at some point. Had to bail when the conditions went to shit - zero vis and snowing miniature ball-bearings - pas bon! Of course it all cleared again when I got my boots off and back in the car. Here's all the pics. Posted Aug 04 2008, 06:29 PM by le_sloth with no comments Filed under: Snowboarding, New Zealand, Mt Hutt, Winter 2008