blast from the past....

from back in 2009 on a trip with the Groms, Dave J and Nicol so much fun and how we have all progressed since then, check out my awesome bail pretty much at the end of the vid so funny, hahahaha!! :D

So where to next....

My new board (thank you to Boarderline for ordering it in for me :)) ready to shred hard in Mayrhofen, Austria. Yup that's right I'm heading to the Hoff for the season, this would have been my first choice too so feel really lucky to have got instructing work there for the season, it took some perseverance but stoked on how it's all turned out. Super excited and a lil scared at the same time, haha but all will be good and will actually believe it's all happening once out there. I wanted to head to Europe as have not done a season yet here, they have amazing mountains and parks to ride, hopefully get a Scottish shred in before I leave too!! I hope everyone has an awesome season wherever they will be riding this winter :)

Huh....?

So this is what you get when I coach someone with their snowboarding and they have a crazy imagination like mine.... a new teaching technique that works for them.... the steezy panda doing the john wayne lollipopping the crab with the mutant claw while on the see saw in this case the rocking horse, even more cowboy like.... don't ask just be inspired, hahaha!!!! :)

SKIING WHAAAATTTT!!!!

Hehehehehehe yes I skied this season for a few hours one day made it all over the mountain, even got parallel turns, tried some carving but I need lot's more practice at that, haha!!!!

Drew was working on the learner slope on one of my days off and said I should hire some skis so I did, everyone seemed to be swapping this season skiers on boards and snowboarders on skis so why not join in!! I visited him on the learner slope and was turning first run down as I did get ski lesson when I was younger but not been on since then!! On Drews lunch hour I had a run down McD's with him and then carried on to bottom of Whitestar, Katie had also got skis too but left by this time!! I have to say I was impressed with his instructing!! Then he had to go back to work so I headed over to Captains all by myself annnnd managed it, I have to admit that I did have fun skiing, I think more because it was a new challenge but I will never be converted, but I may go on skis again for the odd day or something!!

As I went by every lift station all the lifties were shocked and taking photo's of me even had patrollers doing the same, I guess cause I was prob the one they thought least likely to see on skis and Red had announced that I was spotted on skis over the radio so everyone knew, hahaha!!!! I even did a switch butter down a fair bit of McD's, unintentional of course and as you will see from one of the following photo's I may have fallen once, maybe twice but not that many times!!

 

Ohau....

Ohau was another mountain I'd wanted to ride but never got the chance, hearing how sick it is there. So when I heard there were people going I was stoked to head there with them and a rad shred crew it was of Craig, Alexis, Anita and I.

It was the perfect day, we were driving there in Craig and Alexis' van, me and Anita were in the back one second Alexis turn round and we're in mid conversation, the next we have fallen asleep, hahaha!!!! We came across a herd of sheep on the road that we had to stop for, a common sight in NZ. The weather was not looking awesome, dark clouds over head, then just as we saw Ohau our excitement rose as it was the only spot in the sky that had the sun shining down on it, perfect!! The road is real narrow and sketchy going up even having to cross a stream at the bottom to head up but the views amazing overlooking a lake.

There's one chair here but so much awesome terrain to ride when you start looking around scoping out your line on the ride up!! The summit was open with fresh untracked snow, so you guessed it we hiked all day for those fresh lines going in a different direction each time to see all sides of the mountain what an EPIC day it was I'd have to say my best yet in NZ!! :D The snow was so good, loved riding some pow again constant smiles from ear to ear from all of us all day long and on the drive home too!! :D

 

A Remarkable Day....

Last year I never got the chance to ride any of the Queenstown ski fields but the only one that interested me was the Remarks, so when Seb and Vix two of the other lifties and the most sickenly cute couple you will meet said they were heading there and asked if I wanted to go I said hells yeah, haha!! It was a fun day of shred for sure with them mistaking some crazy thing I said which ended up meaning Seb got renamed Donk, hahahaha, sorry dude!!!!

The crew, oh look Donks got ears growing out of his helmet, hehehehe....

The park was sick and real progressive with lot's of different sized jumps and a cool mix of features. The only thing letting it down was the park crew not maintaining the features throughout the day, was not till near the end of the day we really saw them in the park and even then they were just fixing up the big jumps when that was the least hit features of the day!! I guess we are spoilt at Cardrona where the park crew are the best I've seen, always riding the park, and out with the rakes countless times a day keeping it in perfect shape!! It was still fun to ride though for sure and has way more features in it than was expecting I even got lost going through it the first time, it comes from all directions!!

We went and checked out the stash park which is pretty big, lot's of features, the cloud had closed in when we went through it so couldn't see much!! We found this rad concrete picnic bench that Seb and I did a photo shoot on, hahahaha, and we rode on every time we are not stationary at all in these photo's, we are just that damn good, honest, teehehehehe!!!!

 

 

Birthday....

It was my birthday a week after arriving in Wanaka. Last year I had it in Wanaka too but not really knowing anyone out there as I'd just arrived out there I did not end up doing anything for it!! Was real nice this year as some of my friends, fellow lifties from last season had invited me down to the lake and turned out to be a surprise birthday celebration, thank you Katie for organising it and baking me a birthday cake :) It was a beautiful day for my birthday too, wouldn't have wished to be anywhere else on this day, I was surrounded by good friends in one of the most beautiful settings in the world, so lucky!! You just need to look at this picture to see that....

 






I also got a massive birthday card, here's some photo's of it....

 

At night the Matarika celebrations were going on down by the lake so I headed down to watch them as went last year but this years was even better. Stoked this was on my Birthday, they even had fire works this year and I love fireworks, met up with Anita there as she was possibly going to be joining in with the fire twirling and watched the fireworks with her which was rad, it was a huge fireworks display for being such a small place was super stoked on it :D

 

annnnd last but not least I got this amazing piece of artwork from Dylan and Sarah that Dylan made for me, so stoked to have a piece of art by him I can hang on my wall as he is a very talented artist, thank you!! :D

Riding shots

Chilling at Cardies :)

Gap with stale fish to box :)

Spinning onto picnic table at snow park :)

Dressed as Spongebob on the last day of the season for a run through the park!! :)

Welcome to my season....

End of season edit :)....

Katie Worboys....

Katie was a lifty last year and we were friends but became best friends this season!! She was there to pick me up from the airport when I arrived at Queenstown to take me to Wanaka. We had the same days off to go riding as I was her coach for the season. Katie was a skier but last season had the fear for some reason and did not enjoy skiing, so tried snowboarding and loved it!! This season she'd purchased her own board and boots, etc and was ready to rip it up on her board.

The first time on her board was when we were riding to the different lift stations on our training days, the conditions weren't great as lot's of chunky ice boulders as it hadn't been groomed yet but we talked her into riding down with me by her side the whole way as she was super nervous!! Well she did it, may have taken her a while and mainly side slipping but she did awesome taking that step to conquer her fear!!

She progressed so much this season, riding comfortably down with confidence, riding switch, carving, riding pow, steeps, hitting boxes in the park, doing flatland trickery spinning in every direction even switch, stoked :D Massive well done to you keep up the hard work this season in Morzine!!

Katie also sponsors Roxy and would like to thank them for letting her buy their clothes, 60-70% of the clothes she wears everyday is Roxy so if you would like to hire her as a Roxy model she would be super stoked with that....

Miss you FRIEND :) Thank you for an amazingly fun season!!

Here's an edit I made up of Katies riding....

Life of a Lifty....

There were 13 return lifties this season at Cardrona, the most they've had for a while so was rad as stoked to see my lifty friends from last year who I would say are some of the best friends I have ever made and became even closer to them this year meaning I miss them a lot now that I'm back home :( The new lifties were also so much fun to work and ride with so turned out to be a real good crew of people from all over the world!!

Work was different for sure this year with our boss being lazy and cutting and pasting the rota etc sometimes working 6 days in a row with one day off then riding on your days off so feeling pretty run down and tired a lot of the time but that's just how things work out sometimes, you get used to it. On a normal working day I'll be up at 6am have porridge with nutella and banana to keep me going for the day and get on a van for around 6:50/ 7am and then usually home by around 5:30 so pretty long days especially if you are on early start with the earliest early starts being picked up at 5:15am for the ski racers who get in their training before the mountain opens.

These photo's are of me doing lift evac training, I don't know what Red is doing in the background, hahahaha....

 

We got some crazy ice a few times this season meaning we had to de-ice the chairs which meant all hands on deck with Lifties, Maintenance, patrol and even the park crew to push chairs as they came through the station and whack Ice off the chairs with the yeti sticks. I was on the learner slope on one of these ice days and almost turned into an icicle as this photo shows....

Lunch hours were always fun as you'd usually find fellow lifties to ride with. With the help of Scotty and the encouragement from him and Jimmy I manned up and hit the first jump of the triple line which was 30ft, following Scotty into  it and having that fuck it and go attitude I went for it, as I take off I realise I have way to much speed as I see the landing disappear below me, meaning I over shot it to flat pretty much so scary, although super stoked I did it and know I can do it and more just maybe not as gnarly as overshooting it and screaming through the air on realisation of that, haha!! I also rode with Drew a fair bit on lunch breaks and on days off who knew a skier and snowboarder could be good friends, haha, was fun shredding with him though and has progressed so much on his skis and as a person since last season which is good to see!! He also helped me a lot with German related Austrian issues while I searched for instructing work this coming winter which I am greatly appreciative of, thank you dude!!

I got some awesome pep talks from Erin this season that almost had me in tears, just real nice to hear that there is people out there who see the potential within me and my riding, etc and are there to support me through it wherever they may be and are stoked with what I'm doing with my life!! You really need to hear stuff like like that now and a again, means so much :)

There was a phase throughout the season that I like to call the lifty curse, where the lifties were dropping like flies everyday another one injured over the course of a couple of weeks!! Made you so scared to ride for fear that you would be the next!! It all started with the gnarliest injury of them all which was poor Jimmy who landed on his pole after launching off a side hit catching his skis and going down rupturing his spleen, he got a badass scar though and as they say chicks dig scars so he'll be fine!! Was awesome seeing him back to work doing light duties near the end of the season, always happy and enjoying life :) Eoin had a real gnarly injury too which was splitting his knee cap in half on one of the rails in the park super painful injury that must have been and that was him out for the season, he'll be back and kiling it for sure though once it's all healed and he's done his physio!! There were a lot of wrist and hand injuries this year too, some knee, head and shoulder injuries too, fair to say we kept patrol busy, haha!!

We had Frenchie the classic french man which I'm sure Scottie just hired for the comedy value!! His radio talk being the most hilarious thing, teeeeeeket oofffiiiiiice.... yeeeessss.... there ees a probleeeemm with my door number 4, hahahaha classic!! He also loved the iPad to hunt for his next woman to pounce on!!

We also got up to lot's of fun and games while at work, here's a photo of Scotty Backflipping off a chair and a photo of Steph planking a chair and Ben getting air at the bottom of one of the lifts!!!!....

Shout out to the RAD maintenance guys who we work with especially Andy and Euan who we have worked with for the past two seasons, they are fun to work with and 2 of the nicest people up Cardies not to mention an awesome double act :D and thank you Bruce for being the legend of the lift department, you the man, much respect to you Sir!! :) and thank you to Scottie for letting me work at the best mountain in NZ, Chur Bro!!

NZ Take 2....

So this summer I decided to head to New Zealan for a second season. It feels like home over there and hearing a lot of my friends were still in Wanaka or were going back I had to go one season there was just not enough. I applied for an instructor position but ended up finding out that they did not receive my application, probably because I was applying from a dodgy internet connection in a supermarket in Tahoe at the time specifically going there to do it on the day applications opened. But I took it as a sign that not to worry I could always be a lifty again so contacted Scottie my boss from last season and he said yup there's a place for you so sorted, I applied for my visa and got it and headed out beginning of June :D

This time I was flying to Auckland and stayed a few days up there as had never seen any of the North Island, also my friends Luci and Jade who I was in Tahoe with live there so was cool to visit them and Luci and her parents kindly let me stay with them in their beautiful house. They were both working while I was there but still had time to show me around. It's amazing how you don't have to drive far out of the city to come across beautiful beaches or forests with waterfalls and see some of the most amazing scenery I have seen and I'm sure if I traveled around New Zealand more then I would see even more amazing scenery and sights!! I finally got to meat Sumo Jades rad dog I had seen photo's of and heard about. I've also never seen so many rainbows in my life than I did the few days that I was there!! I got so many photo's. We also took a trip to snow planet the indoor snow dome in Auckland which was fun, they had some features set up which was sick so had fun getting in a mini shred and Tahoe reunion :) On the last night they took me to Mission Bay and got some ice cream and before this we had gone to the top of Mount Eden I think it was to see the city all lit up at night was rad. Thank you Luci and Jade for an awesome time and showing me around taking me to all the cool places, if your ever in Scotland I will be your tour guide  :D

Here's some photo that either me or Jade took....