Tahoe Part 1

As promised, the Tahoe photos. I flew down to San Francisco for about 10 days of riding at a few of the resorts in Lake Tahoe. Managed to swing in a trip to the Burton 2009 sample product sale on the way from SF to Tahoe which was really cool, and picked up some new outerwear for prices that were unbelievably cheap.
We rode Boreal, Heavenly and Northstar with Northstar by far being my favourite of the resorts. Conditions were hot and slushy all day every day so there wasn't much time spent freeriding, pretty much just terrain park laps. Northstar's park setup is incredible, with so many features and an all-natural park (no plastic or metal, and the jumps shaped more like natural features) called The Stash as well.





We also managed a quick trip down to Mammoth as well, which was cool because I got to see where a good friend of mine spent a season a few years back. Again, more park runs and fun with a great crew.

Because Fernie has decided to close early, I've shuffled my flights and am heading back to Tahoe soon for the remainder of my time in North America.

All the best intentions...

Well, on setting out on this trip I had great plans of updating frequently and showing lots of photos. That plan hit a massive downfall when Dell kindly decided that they didn’t want to sell me a laptop, even after they’d already taken my money. Apparently they won’t send it to you if you’re not living at a registered address. I’m sure we could have made it work, but the customer service rep was terrible so it’s their loss really. Anyway, thanks to a great deal of help from a friend of mine I’ve acquired a non-Dell laptop and can update with photos. My time in internet cafe’s always seemed to get chewed up on email updates and other things, rather than blog updates.

The last update was day 9, and I passed 50 days snowboarding the other day so there’s a lot to catch up on. This season has been one of the best on record for Fernie, so needless to say there has been a LOT of fresh snow days. There was a period of about 2 weeks without snow but other than that it’s been fairly consistent. I realise people back home will be expecting big things from me when I return, but the only way I can show off my (mildy improved) skills is by finding some steep terrain with fresh snow and tight trees!

Time for some photos to sum up the trip (click to enlarge):

Coming soon - photos from my 10-day trip to Lake Tahoe...

Pow!

8 Days into the trip and new snow every day! Unlike New Zealand reports, they UNDER-report what's fallen overnight, so somehow after 20cm's on Wednesday night, the snow was up to mid-thigh level in places. We still haven't found anywhere to live yet, but the hostel has been great for meeting people to ride with.

I had one of the best crashes of my snowboard ''career'' yesterday, after jumping off a 2 metre cliff I landed and then caught an edge riding away, resulting in around 3 full backwards somersaults and three me-sized holes in the snow. I managed to come out uninjured though, so no problems.

Time to rest up for day 9...

The adventure begins...

After a couple of months that have been an absolute blur of organising, downsizing and saying goodbyes I'm ready to start my trip. Everything I own now fits in 1.5 Subaru Outbacks, and everything I "need" for the next 3 months fits into a pack and a snowboard bag that will hopefully be under the maximum weight limit - 2 hours until I find that out.

The temperature change between countries will be really interesting - it was mid 20's in Christchurch yesterday, and mid -30's in Calgary at the same time.

Cold weather is good though, and hopefully means plenty of this:


Off I go!

Good intentions...

I had the best intentions of keeping this up to date throughout the season, but my laziness has prevailed and the small amount of effort that it takes appears to be too much!
I'm about to have 6 days off to ride, so hopefully during that time I'll organise (and take) a few photos, and have something worthwhile to report on when I get back.

Over the 6 days I think I would like to:
Get out of the superpipe
Land an alley-oop in the pipe
Frontside boardslide ANYTHING without looking like I'm out of control and about to get hurt.
Land a few tricks on an ollie-on rail/box
Do a backcountry hike
And maybe hit the 20-footer at the Remarks.

Achievable goals? I hope so...if I get them all I'll be this happy:

The ultimate weekend warrior...

So while I've been slack in updating this intarweb thing, I've been making a good go of getting up the hill. Every weekend of the season in fact. I'm not sure why I haven't ridden more park with the way the snow has been, but somehow tussock runs and mud/rock gaps have kept me busy.

I've been pretty bad at taking pictures, too. More so because no one else has a camera and it usually works best if you take pics of others and trade afterwards. I'll make more of an effort from now on. Until then, you'll have to make do with my in full mint glory. That's right, matching pants and fleece. Lisa couldn't have said it any better with "Oh my God, you're so GREEN!"



I will return, with more frequent updates...

Nearly there!

Coronet is supposed to open on Saturday, I don't like their chances:


However, it's hailing and 'almost-snowing' (soft hail!) down here at the moment which is a really nice taste of Winter after one of NZ's warmest Mays on record.