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!!
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!!
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