PowderFest 2008

This has been an amazing season and still running.. so much snow and soo little photographs.

Well had an epic weekend away at Mt lyford, up in the kaikoura ranges. The build up to the weekend was picture perfect, snowed thursday and friday, then sat and sun where blue sky powder days.

the lodge in the morning.



waking up to this is a pretty rare occasion in NZ.



there was some wild gangsters loose on the mountain.



we built a little back yard kicker, and proceeded to hurt each other.




its a bit far away, but you can check out my fresh tracks in the vid.

celebrating after another empty powder run.

and some more freshness..

Opening A can at Mt Lyford

Opening day at mt lyford was a pearler!!

fresh 40cm of pow.. but there was still a few thinner patches which when doing some big deep powder turns, had a similar effect to a cheese grater on my borad.

heres some shots:

2006 Highlights

With winter arriving, i was checking out a few shots and videos from last years totally mammoth winter. Heres a collection, i never got a chance to blog.


Nice Reward for a 1hour hike at Mt LyFord



A few freshies, and drops like this look easy..



Testing out the park



Tasting some fresh stuff

summer is here, get over to logriding.blogspot.com

Honestly this place despite the feeling that we were being watched, or in a remake of some club camp, the weatherall motel had character, with an pristine interior decor to make you feel like stepping back to lake ohau 1975..

5 STAR Views!!! and it had awsum duvet covers i had as a kiddie, you all know the ribbed wolly ones ones that your aunty/grandmas have on there spare beds, often in turquoise or yellow ochre accompanmied by a nice floral pattern cushion and teddy bear..

Im keen as for another trip down there soo people drop me a line for an experience you wont forget..

Day 4-5-6:

These fine days were spent at oahu in the fine establishment of the weatherall motel (images to be posted later)

By the time we had hiked to the top of mount ohau likke 5 times in a day we were knackerd and didnt even care where we slept.. heres a little sequence of the heliskiing quality that was at our doorstep + a twenty minute drive and half an hour hike + 25 minute rest and 1 minute to stop and appreciate what a totally epic country this is.

Day 3:

Coronet peak..

Sadly agian i couldnt take a cam up onto the mountian as i was just too excited about the 25cms of fresh snow they received overnite and didnt take any pics.. i did however manage to gun it down the mountain so many times i was so tired by 2pm we hit queenstown for a bit of a shopping spree of candies and beer then headed to ohau,

VIA the well signed highway we fucking went around in circles and ended up back in fucking wanake and didnt arrive in the murderous weatherall motel til 9pm.. greeted by the extremely strange Hamish weatherall of the weatherall motel..

hrrrhrr it was a creepy place, but i highly recomend it for a group booking, perferably accompanied by a lot of alchohol.

Day 2:

Cardrona, my first experince and me likey!

A real intermediate field compared to 80% advanced terrain of T.C.. but is a great mountain to kick around at..

Receiving 20cms of fresh stuff overnight, we were greeted by another perfect morining and the days riding was spent in a far side of the mountain away from the crowds, and powder hunting, which wasnt to hard as most of the people that ski/board cardrona seem to stick to the trails !!??

By about 2pm a weekly pattern was emerging and agian the weather packed it in and we struggled to see more than 5 metres in front of us. My brain was getting the snowblindness and soo disorientated, but eventually we found the car and had a calm and friendly experience of putting the chains on the suby in horizontal winds of up to 50kms an hour. mmm the life i dream of..

It was my birthday and me and petra decided to take a little trip down south.. We couldnt have timed it more perfectly, and so the story goes:
Day 1, my first time at trebble cone, and what an experience, the only moment we stopped to take a picture was on the access road, because T.C. had half a metre of powder in the Saddle basin, and we spent most of our riding in some perfect un touched powder. The rest of the day was spent digging ourselves out of knee deep snow drifts and catching our breath!!!

Sooo 30cms of fresh snow and a 2hour drive to mount lyford, and we were given cloudy conditions with about 10m of visability.. until about 10am, when the clouds cleared and we pretty much had the whole mountain to ourselves..

Heres sum pics of me dropping off a nice and powdery ledge :)

So me and petra hit mt hutt on fri..

well first time open in 3 days of and 50cms of fresh pow, you'd expect it to be pretty exciting, but $50 worth of petrol, and a crazy drive to the top of the moutain with zero visability and freezing winds welcoming us. Followed by our day getting soo much better when they didnt even open..

heres some great shots petra and I managed to get before the batteries went flat on my cam..

Me and some guys checked out hutt a few weeks ago.. It was pretty sweet, had a good Pow run down the south face, and just all round good vibes..