Ice and Rocks and Chunky Bits

Hey, is this Club Hocking's first post from New Zealand

Well, the first week over here has been interesting. The NZ snowfields have decided not to repeat last year's season :-(. Skiing wise, the quick summary is:

Sunday 12/8 - Took the long way around to Queenstown (Ooops) from Wanaka to try to ski the Remarkables, but we arrived to late and they had closed the mountain. Too many skiers! We ended up heading around to Coronet Peak and had a fun afternoon there. It is really amazing how little snow you can have and still open the resort.

Monday 13/8 - Headed up to Cardrona as it looked like it would have the best beginner terrain for our less experienced boarders. Turned out to be a pretty good call. Cardrona was quite cold and still retained some reasonable soft stuff from the last snow fall. Florent, Nir and I had a great time skiing the arcadia chutes - steep, soft, narrow - way too much fun.

Tuesday 14/8 - Headed up to Treble Cone - one of the most seriously expensive resorts around - $100 for a day ticket and $2000 for a season pass. I think it has about 4 lifts. The snow was a bit more hardpacked and icey up there, but we had a good time skiing some of the steep black chutes - drop-off, mine shaft and gun barrel. In the afternoon I hooked up with the local paragliding tandem dude and flew my glider back down to the base of the mountain.

Wednesday 15/8 - I took the day off skiing this day while the others did Cardrona again. I spent the day hitching up Treble Cone and paragliding off it. Another two good flights, but no thermals :-(.

Thursday 16/8 - Checked out of the backpackers and headed off up to Castle Hill Village via the west coast and Arthur's Pass. It was a fairly long day, but as anyone who has driven that road will know, the views are fantastic. We ended up getting in to our little chalet at Castle Hill Village at about 9:30pm.

Friday 17/8 - After a bit of a late start headed up towards Mt Hutt, as it looked like it would have some easy terrain for Scott, our not so accomplished trayer. Fantastic views heading up the mountain, and it looked like we'd have some great steep powder slopes as well. Turns out the great steep powder slopes were scratchy scree slopes with a 20cm or so cover of powder. It was a fun run, but the Gotama's have now been well and truly christened and scratched and core shotted.

Saturday 18/8 - Today it was just Florent and I as both Scott and Nir weren't feeling so well. We decided to check out porters, and were rewarded with a fun day. The first run was down the bluff face. About 500m of steep and not too bad heavy powder. It got pretty chunked and crusty by the bottom, but the Gotama's were more than up to the challenge. We ended up skiing about 4000m of descent that day.

Oh, and my brother Jimbo bid at an auction for me back in Sydney. I won, so I'll soon be living at 20 Binning St Erskineville. House warming plans won't be too far away.

Sunday 19/8 - Tried Craigieburn, but they were turning away all non members to try to preserve their limited snow cover. Next we headed over to Broken River and hiked up the hill for a ski there. There is a decent hike to get from the car park to the lifts - about 300m vertical, so you get well warmed up before the runs. We skied away the afternoon, and fun was had.

Today, Monday 20/8 - has been spent in Methven sorting out house finance stuff while Florent and Nicholas ski Cheeseman.

So that's the news from Kiwiland. Hope all are well back in Australia, and I'll see you all when I get back.