Richard Westenra

You can read the entire archive of my 2009 season here, or by clicking on the following links. Each post contains a list of that month’s snow days with commentary. I’ll warn you, it’s not exactly compelling reading. I decided to write them as a complete chronicle of my ski season, kind of like an online road diary. I included nearly everything I could remember at the time of writing and published it. As a result it’s a bit of a verbose ramble. You’ve been warned.
Great Winter Roadtrip Part One – Pre-season
Great Winter Roadtrip Part Two – May-June
Great Winter Roadtrip Part Three – July
Great Winter Roadtrip Part Four – August
Great Winter Roadtrip Part Five – September
Great Winter Roadtrip Part Six – October

However if you don’t want to wade through all that, you can just check out the following.

Most memorable moments from the 2009 season:

Beating my previous record  for earliest turns of the season: Mt Cheeseman – 10th May

The skies started puking in early May delivering over a foot of fresh snow, so Alan and Ryan from the Snow.co.nz forum organised a daytrip up to the mountains to check out the conditions and get a few turns in. We drove up to the skifield gate and hiked/snowshoed for 45mins to get to the lodge. There were a fair number of skifield staff/club members around preparing for the season, as well as a couple of ski-tourers with skins. From the lodge we hiked another 15mins or so to get a wee 30 second run. We followed that up with a wee kicker session before skiing back down to the car. There were heaps of rocks around; my new Volkl Gotamas (which were being used for the first time) were pretty scratched up, but nothing too major. Ryan’s snowboard edge took a pretty big pounding though.
On the whole a good day out – nothing compared to a good mid-season day, but fun all the same – plus I beat my previous record (Queen’s Birthday Weekend) for earliest turns of the season by 2 or 3 weeks!

The Temple Truck breaking down again, and again, and again: State Highway 73 – 6th & 7th August

Through July to early September, I spent a lot of time carrying out Temple Basin food resupply missions. A typical TB food run involves waking up at dawn and heading to Trents to spend a few hours working through a several thousand dollar shopping list. After loading about half a ton of supplies onto the truck, I head to Growers Direct to pick up more groceries, then drive two hours up to the Basin, usually arriving around sunset. I then spend the next hour or two sending the food up to the lodge in the goodslift while fending off keas, then commence the hour-long walk up to the field by the light of my head-torch (or if I’m lucky, the moon). Whilst the food run (usually Thursday) is a long hard day’s work, you get all your volunteer work out of the way in one go, and get to spend the next few days skiing without having to worry about more chores. It’s a fairly good gig.

The fly in the ointment is that you have to do it all in the Temple Truck. This ancient behemoth is notorious for its unreliability, and has broken down on me more times than I care to remember. (Admittedly, the first time was my fault – let’s just say that I’ll never forget to check the oil again).

This season provided a few hairy episodes, including a couple of trips undertaken with one headlight and no indicators, horn or interior lighting. (Ever worn a headtorch while driving so you can see the speedometer? I have). However undoubtedly the worst of the season was the Fire & Ice food run, which involved 2 days’ work (dawn to midnight), 8 hours driving the Temple truck, 5 tonnes of food and alcohol, and 2 truck breakdowns.

Day 1′s breakdown happened at the Arthur’s Pass railway station when I stopped briefly to visit the toilet. When I got back to the truck it wouldn’t start. I spent the next hour defending two tons of exposed food from half a dozen ravenous keas with a ski pole, while trying to get the truck going again. To compound my frustration, the AA refused to help me because my membership apparently doesn”t cover vehicles that size (Never mind that the size wouldn’t have made a difference in giving me a jump or tow start – fuck you AA!). Eventually I managed to get a tow start from the friendly local DoC ranger (Cheers Chris, you’re a champion!) and finally delivered my supplies to Temple Basin (minus a few loaves of bread – casualties of the kea war). On arrival I was informed that after unloading I’d immediately have to return to Christchurch to get the truck fixed and pick up more alcohol. Not only that, but during the two hour return journey I could not under any circumstances allow the truck engine to stop or stall, as I would not be able to get it started again on my own. Fortunately I arrived shortly after midnight with the truck intact.

I spent most of Day 2 waiting for the truck to be fixed, and finally managed to get on the road in the late afternoon with nearly two tons of beer on the back. The trip went smoothly until Flock Hill, when I suffered a complete gearbox failure while coasting down the steep incline. Luckily, I managed to pull into a siding not 200 metres from Flock Hill Lodge, and was able to use their phone to call for reinforcements. The next few hours were spent guarding the precious load and trying to keep warm while smaller vehicles ferried the alcohol 40 minutes up the road. I finally arrived at the Temple Basin lodge around midnight, where I was treated to a well-earned beer .

Tracking out the fresh pow before the student hoardes arrive: Temple Basin – 1st August

The morning of the 80s Party heralded back-to-back shallow pow runs in fresh, beautiful, untracked snow with barely a chunky spot in sight and barely half a dozen punters on the field. Stoked!

Knocking off the Grand Traverse: Temple Basin – 9th August

Brian and I trekked from the top of the Elevator Chute, across the top of Upper Bills (just under B’limit) to reach a point just short of Cassidy peak at sunset, culminating in my longest Temple Basin run to date – 10 minutes from the peak to the bottom of Temple tow (including the Cassidy bridge crossing on skis). Although my skiing was a little sketchy due to loose boots and sticky snow, I managed to hold it together and make the descent without bailing nor losing the ear-to-ear grin from my face. A fitting end to an epic Fire & Ice weekend.

Winning a t-shirt in the Gnomes Freeride Competition: Temple Basin – 22nd August
Downhill Basin (the originally intended site for the comp) was out because there wasn’t enough snow to allow a good line, so the comp was moved to the top of Upper Bills. Everyone got one run to show their stuff. We had earlier been advised against ‘hucking our meat’ off big drops if we were unsure about sticking the landing, and that the judging would instead focus on aggressive, fluid, controlled riding. With that in mind (plus my comparative lack of ability) I chose a real mellow line with no airs, and a quick dodge between some rocks at the start. I didn’t see my entire score card, but from what I did see I could tell that I had done pretty much as expected – a good score for control but a poor score for my line. I ended up coming 14th (out of about 20), and Neil picked me out for a T-shirt spot prize due to my years of service (cough), so I was stoked with that.

Actually getting to sleep in my car: Broken River – 31st August to 2nd September
My plan for the winter was to spend the vast majority living in my car and exploring each of the 12 Chill ski fields. Foruntately/unfortunately that didn’t happen – I ended up getting regular volunteer work, accommodation and food at Temple Basin, so I stayed there instead. As a result my investment in a car electrical system, roof box, curtains, mattress and camping stove were largely wasted, and my planned ‘Great Winter Roadtrip’ turned into a ‘Great Winter Ski-Bumming at Temple Basin’. However I did get three awesome days and two nights camping out in my car at the bottom of the Broken River access road.

The original plan was to try to make it to Cragieburn, Cheeseman and Mt Olympus and thus finish off the Selwyn fields that I hadn’t yet visited. Due to weather I ended up only managing Cragieburn and Broken River. The two Cragieburn days were dominated by strong winds. There was a fair amount of fresh snow on the ground, but the winds had redistributed it so that ridges and exposed points were extremely icy. The upshot of this was that the basins, gullies and chutes were filled to the brim with powdery goodness, and any ski tracks were quickly erased by the gale-force winds. Hooray, unlimited freshies!

The weather during the second day was horrible, and the word on the grapevine was that everywhere was closed but that Broken River would be opening at 6pm for night powder skiing. I spent the day idly mooching round Castle Hill and hanging out at Flock Hill Lodge, then when dusk came I made a move up to BR. It had been snowing most of the day and was getting pretty Epic – over a foot of fresh pow on the ground, woop woop! Everyone was completely stoked, with powder-day grins from ear to ear. I bumped into a few familiar faces while there – these days it’s getting pretty hard to visit a club field without spotting someone I know. I guess the club field community’s pretty small.

Sleeping in the car was reasonably comfortable, albeit a little cramped and cold. The new car battery setup only managed to power my laptop for an hour unfortunately, meaning that I needed to run the engine for a bit to allow me to finish my Deadwood episodes.

On the way up Cragieburn on the third day, the CHARDIS’s snow chains struggled to pull the car up the road, and broke a few links. I tried to persevere but the chains on the front right tyre ended up ripping themselves apart and wrapping themselves around the axle of the wheel. I had to remove the wheel in order to pry the chain loose, which proved to be an adventure in the fresh snow on a steep hill. Eventually I got it off and managed to get a tow up to the field from a helpful dude in a 4wd. That’s the last time I buy cheap shitty chains off trademe – next time I’m getting some snow-sweats.

Watching the Black Diamond Big Mountain Competition: Temple Basin – 5th & 6th September

Screw rugby and cricket – what could be better than reclining in a deckchair with a beer on a sunny skifield and watching some of NZ’s best freeriders slay a few epic lines?  A highlight included watching Neil Williman and Sam Smoothy hit the huge cliff near Main chute, and compete over who could claim the biggest drop.

I managed to stick my first ever 180 that weekend as well, which was also pretty rad

Enjoying a beer on the summit, at midnight, under a full moon, with a group of pro skiers: Temple Basin – 5th September

The evening of the Big Mountain Comp was clear with a bright full moon, so instead of partying, I joined Ross and a small party of pro skiers to climb to the top of Hot Pocket. We left the lodge at around 10pm and climbed from Temple tow with ice axes in hand. The snow was pretty hard, which made for fun climbing if not for good skiing. We had had a beer on top of the ridgeline overlooking the Mingha backbowl at 11:30pm, and skied down at midnight. It was an amazing night – I am completely stoked on it.

Club Championships: Temple Basin – 12th September

The photo says it all really:

Sticking my biggest ever air: Temple Basin – 13th September
“ok here we go… hmmm going a little fast… stay balanced… hit the kicker… HOOOOOLY SHIT THAT’S HIGH… hold it together… spot the landing… absorb the impact… keep your skis together… don’t eat shit… alright I’m not gonna fall, sweet… ok time for a celebratory fist pump… fuck yeah!”

‘Breaking hearts and saving lives’: Temple Basin – 19th September

Saturday the 19th (International Talk Like a Pirate Day and Aoife’s birthday) was the also beach party day, and the weather turned out perfectly with sunny blue skies and light winds. We had a bbq outside on the veranda with a badminton net (complete with coke bottle shuttlecock), and all the staff were wearing Hawaiian shirts. The most exciting event of the day (for me at least) was injuring myself in an act of derring-do:

It was pretty icy in the morning on Temple tow. I was manning the rental dept, and rented some gear to a Danish girl then taught her how to use the ropetow, and she got to the top first time. I rode up with her, checked she was ok, then skied back down. I was hanging around the bottom and noticed she was taking her time, so I rode back up to check if she was ok. I got about halfway up the tow and she just started sliding down out of control from the top, lost both her skis and slid at breakneck pace towards a field of rocks. It was terrifying, she was screaming and looked like she was gonna nail herself. She mostly missed the first patch of rocks (thank god), while I hung on to the tow and willed it to go faster. As soon as she was almost level with me I jumped off the tow, bunny-hopped some rocks and skied over to her as fast as I could and grabbed her to help her stop, but we slid together for another five metres or so until I could get us to a stop. She had broken her wrist on a rock and had to be helicoptered to a hospital. While we were treating her I noticed that my arm had a fair bit of blood on it from the icy slide, cos I was only wearing a hawaiian shirt at the time. It was a really bad graze and took a month to heal, but it was totally worth it for the manly story.

Catching the ultimate snow day: Temple Basin – 23rd September
The 23rd was hands-down my best day of the season. We’d had about 10-15cm of fresh snow the day before, and it was snowing on and off that morning. Shortly after I arrived at Downhill, the sun came out for an hour and I got some sweet turns in good vis before heading in for lunch. It socked in during lunchtime and delivered about 5cm which covered up most of the morning’s tracks. Then as we were heading outside again, the sun reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and we had 4 hours of bluebird freshies! The afternoon snow was if anything even more fun than the morning’s, and we thrashed it till 5pm. I got the last tow out of Downhill back through Lower Bill’s, and had a sweeeet run through Cassidy chute. Then, to top it all off, it started snowing again less than 5mins after I arrived back in the lodge. Perfect

Playing snowboard instructor: Temple Basin – 27th September to 2nd October
During TB’s final week we were overwhelmed by the arrival of 26 kids between the ages of 5-16. The mountain became a noisy place filled with, in the words of Dylan Moran, ‘miniature drunks’, whose only purpose seemed to be converting sugar into violence.
Whilst we had a couple of ski instructors, there were no qualified snowboard instructors on the hill. As I used to snowboard before switching to skiing a couple of seasons ago, I grabbed a board out of ski hire and gave the kids some lessons. It’s a pretty cool feeling when one of the kids comes up and says thanks for the lesson, and that the tips I gave him really helped his snowboarding.

TB’s final open day of the season: Temple Basin – 4th October
After a season of cajolling, Hugo and I finally managed to drag Aoife up to Bill’s Basin and show her the field’s full potential.

Staff-only powder day: Temple Basin – 5th October
After the final TB open day, the staff finally got a day to themselves to pack their bags, tidy the lodge, take down the trip cords, and of course ski the empty slopes! I spent a couple of hours at Downhill taking down trips and picking out pow between the ice patches, then headed back through Lower Bill’s with a pack full of tools.

Skiing on Halloween: Mt Olympus – 31st October
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.
Mt Olympus announced a final weekend of skiing over Halloween with a forecast for blue skies and corn snow. Paul invited me to join him so I ignored my dire financial situation and tagged along.
The access tow wasn’t running so we had to hike to the lodge. The walk’s difficulty showed me just how much the last month had cost my fitness. The spring sun was boiling, everything was exhaustingly hot and the snow was spring corn, which melted and became very slow after lunch in sun-affected areas. The riding was still pretty sick though.

Final 2009 Winter Tally:
Snow days: 43
Ski fields visited: 6

Cheers 2009 for an awesome ski season!

Continue Reading »

The following is the sixth part of my Great Winter Roadtrip series. I’ve decided to write these as a complete chronicle of my ski season, like an online road diary. I’m gonna include nearly everything I remember at the time of writing, publish it, and leave serious editing for later. If that turns this blog into an exhausting ramble then so be it – at least I’ll have something to remind myself of what I got up to in the winter of 2009. If you find it an interesting read, great. If not, too bad – go check out TV Tropes or something.

Ah, the final days. 2009 was a bit of a weird season, in that the two months that are usually the best of the lot – August and September – were the two worst snow months. We had an awesome early season, then once I really got stuck into skiing the weather warmed up. Then, once all the skifields had closed for the year, the temperatures dropped again bringing epic snow during October. Unfortunately by that time I had run out of money and was back in Christchurch, so I didn’t manage to get much skiing done during those glorious final days. I did however manage to grab one last hurrah at Mount Olympus on their final weekend – a fitting end to a truly Great season.

In the end, my planned ‘Great Winter Roadtrip’ never really eventuated. I spent all of two nights in my car, with the rest of the season spent at Temple Basin or the occasional daytrip. I’m not complaining: I had a blast. Being a staff member at TB was a fantastic experience, and I’ll treasure the friendships I built up during those months living in a wee lodge at 1350m above sea level.

Final 2009 Winter Tally:
Snow days: 43
Ski fields visited: 6

Day #40 – Temple Basin – 3rd October 2009

The weather was extremely shitty all day: blowing and snowing, hard. I manned goodslift top in the morning while Anna ran the goodslift at the bottom. After lunch she asked if I could take over goodslift bottom in the afternoon, but I wasn’t keen to head down the mountain. Later I felt really bad about it, so I gave her a J as an apology.
Whilst I was a bit of a douche not to help her out, it worked out pretty well for me, as the skiing was ON after 4pm. The weather gradually cleared and the snow was amazing for those few hardy souls who braved the gusty winds on Temple tow. Sick chalky shallow cold pow, woohooo! I kept at it for a few hours before heading in for dinner at 7:30pm (dinner had been scheduled for 7pm, but the snow was too good to head in just yet). The best part was that the occasional gusts helped erase previous tracks, allowing me to get some fresh lines for hours. Temple tow was covered with ice patches due to the wind, but fortunately the old ice was a dirty brown colour compared to the fresh white pow, and was easy to spot and avoid.

After dinner everyone piled out for night skiing, but the wind had died down so Temple tow was tracked out pretty quickly. The hours I had spent on the tow before dinner proved very useful for nightskiing, as although the ice was hard to see under the night lights, I had already worked out which areas of the tow to avoid and didn’t need to spot them anymore. After nightskiing for an hour or so, I hung out round the brazier with some of the guys and watched the full moon rise. Then at around 10pm a group of us climbed up Temple ridge and dropped into the lower bills chutes. The snakepit had ‘all time’ snow, and skiing the sick pow in the full moon was a near religious experience.

Day #41 – Temple Basin – 4th October 2009

Last open day at Tempe Basin for the 2009 season!
I manned goodslift bottom in the morning to give Anna some respite (and allow her to get some pow turns in, after days of being stuck down the bottom!). In the afternoon I headed up to Downhill with Aoife, as I had promised that morning to finally show her Bill’s Basin. We did a few runs on Downhill amongst the windblown pow and ice pockets, then headed over to Lower Bill’s with Hugo. We made our way down through Cassidy chute, and I gave Aoife the tour as we went, pointing out the areas she’d never seen before. Oh yeah, and the pow in Bill’s was meeeeeeeeeeeaaan .

Day #42 – Temple Basin – 5th October 2009

The end – or so I thought.

After the final TB open day, the staff finally got a day to themselves to pack their bags, tidy the lodge, take down the trip cords, and of course ski the empty slopes! I spent a couple of hours at Downhill taking down trips and picking out pow between the ice patches, then headed back through Lower Bill’s with a pack full of tools.

Thanks Temple Basin for an awesome 2009 season.

Day #43 – Mt Olympus – 31st October 2009

Just when I thought I was out, the snow pulled me back in.
Mt Olympus announced a final weekend of skiing over Halloween with a forecast for blue skies and corn snow. Paul invited me to come up with him so I came along in his car.
The access tow wasn’t running so we had to hike to the lodge, which showed me just how much the last month had cost my fitness.
I first realised that Morgan was there when I caught my first tow of the day and heard ‘A-GEORGE AND A-ROSCOE!’ in the distance.
The sun was boiling, everything was exhaustingly hot.
The snow was spring corn, which melted and became very slow after lunch in sun-affected areas.
The riding was still pretty sick.
Paul and I hiked up the top tow (which also wasn’t running due to parts of it being buried in snow) so I could get a good look at the field. Mt Olympus is an awesome field, probably my favourite clubbie after Temple Basin.
On the way down we gave a couple a lift from the Olympus access road back to Chch because they had two (!) flat tyres. Go figure.

Continue Reading »

The following is the fifth part of my Great Winter Roadtrip series. I’ve decided to write these as a complete chronicle of my ski season, like an online road diary. I’m gonna include nearly everything I remember at the time of writing, publish it, and leave serious editing for later. If that turns this blog into an exhausting ramble then so be it – at least I’ll have something to remind myself of what I got up to in the winter of 2009. If you find it an interesting read, great. If not, too bad – go check out TV Tropes or something.

I probably skied as much during September as I had during the rest of the winter months combined, despite it being probably the worst snow of the season. Long periods of rain and blistering sun led to a quickly declining snowpack. As a result, we spent a lot of the month trying to get as many days in as possible before the rapidly approaching end.

However, just because the snow was crap, it didn’t mean we had to have a bad time. September ended up being the most fun and eventful month of the season, with manly exploits, epic snow days and drunken parties. I was made an official full-time staff member for the final two weeks of the season, although my job title could most accurately be decribed as ‘general volley bitch’. I spent my time in a variety of roles including ski hire manager, goodsie, assistant patroller, liftie, and even snowboard instructor.

Day #20 – Broken River – 1st September 2009

I woke up to rain and overcast skies in the Broken River carpark, and to the news that pretty much everywhere was closed. Visiting Cheeseman wasn’t gonna happen, so I resigned myself to a day hanging around the area trying to find something amusing to do. The plan for down days had been to watch movies all day, but my battery setup was playing up. If I wanted to do that in the car I’d have to run the engine all day, which wasn’t gonna happen. I decided to head down to Castle Hill Village to see what was going on but there was pretty much nothing to do, so I checked out Flock Hill Lodge instead. Me old mate Ange was there, and was happy to let me hang out in the corner and watch videos on my laptop, so I spent a good few hours watching Deadwood and doing a little work on the lappy in the warmth and comfort of the lodge (with a freshly made coffee, yum!).

Word on the grapevine was that Broken River would be opening for night skiing at 7pm, so I headed up there at around 6 to find a lot of fresh snow on the ground and a growing crowd of amped punters in the parking lot. Brewed up some beans in the carpark then headed up the mountain with my headtorch.

The snow up there was epic – several inches of fresh pow on the ground, with occasional gusts of wind but nothing too major. Everyone up there was completely stoked, with powder-day grins from ear to ear. I ran into Tim from TB and Sam my designer pal at the day lodge – jeez it’s hard to visit a clubbie without meeting people I know these days!
I kept riding until I’d had enough (around 10pm), then headed down, and ended up walking down the track rather than taking the inclinator due to the sizable crowd waiting for their turn. Being the Temple Basin lad that I am, the 15min walk was nothing, and I soon made it down to the bottom of the access road to camp in the same spot as the previous night, looking forward to the fresh powder day in store for me when I woke up.

Day #21 – Cragieburn – 2nd September 2009

I had been planning to visit Cheeseman on Wednesday, but had been advised that Cheeseman was a terrible place to visit on a powder day – when it’s deep, why not go somewhere steep? Hence, I decided to return to Cragieburn instead to sample some of the fresh powpow that had fallen in the last 24 hours.
On the way up the hill, the chains struggled to pull the car up the road, and broke a few links. I tried to persevere but the chains on the front right tyre ended up ripping themselves apart and wrapping themselves around the axle of the wheel. I had to remove the wheel in order to pry the chain loose, which proved to be an adventure in the fresh snow on a steep hill. Eventually I got it off and managed to get a tow up to the field from a helpful dude in a 4wd. That’s the last time I buy cheap shitty chains off trademe – next time I’m getting some snow-sweats.

Unfortunately, when I got up to the field the winds were still up, and the top tow was still closed. Conditions were very similar to the Monday, albeit with a little more snow (and perhaps a little more wind-scoured ice too). Still – endless fresh tracks! Only downside is the occasional wind gusts that pelt you with ice chunks the size of golf balls – lovely.
I ran into Kate and Josh from CUSSC, and we skied together for a bit. Headed back down to chch in the afternoon, just in time for the Temple Basin food run the next day. On the way back down the mountain I spotted my hub cap that I had lost the week before – score!

Day #22 – Temple Basin – 4th September 2009

What a difference a week makes! The wind and the rain have done their bit, and then the snow came back earlier in the week (with a generous helping of wind). Now TB’s got excellent wind-blown dry pow in the gullies and wind-lips all over the mountain, with patches of wind-blasted ice on exposed faces and ridges. It’s pretty icy in the mornings, so there’s no point heading out before 11am. Weather is bluebird and still. I spent the day lazily lapping the windlip on Temple tow in a t-shirt, fun times.

Day #23 – Temple Basin – 5th September 2009

Saturday dawned bright and clear once again, with perfect bluebird conditions for the Black Diamond Big Mountain Competition, which drew heaps of NZ’s best freeriders to TB to slay some epic lines. I spent the morning doing a few laps of Temple tow, with one run through lower Bills, then joined Anna, George and Jethro to watch the comp in the sun. We got to watch Neil Williman, Sam Smoothy and some other riders drop the huge cliff near Main (?) chute, and compete over who could claim the biggest drop.

That evening the sky was clear with a bright full moon, so instead of partying, I joined Ross and a small party of pro skiers to climb to the top of Hot Pocket. We left the lodge at around 10pm and climbed from the top of Temple tow with ice axes in hand. The snow was pretty hard, which made for fun climbing if not for good skiing. We had had a beer on top of the ridgeline overlooking the Mingha backbowl at 11:30pm, and skied down at midnight. It was an awesome, memorable night – I am completely stoked on it.

Day #24 – Temple Basin – 6th September 2009

Sunday was yet another bluebird day, so we shuffled out of bed late in the morning, hung around in the lodge until lunchtime, and then headed out for some more easy laps. The competition organisers decided to give the remaining competitors one more run through the course, so I slapped on some sunscreen, grabbed a plastic chair and some beers, and headed over to Cassidy to watch.

After everyone had had their run, I joined Anna and Jethro for some runs down Cassidy and Temple tow. Watching the competition riders seemed to have given my own skiing ability a boost, and I found myself able to drop small cliffs and jumps with more confidence than before. When we got to Temple tow, I managed to successfully stick my first ever 180, and was stoked on lapping the same line and slowly refining my technique. I kept riding long after everyone else had headed inside, and finally returned to the lodge after sunset with a big grin and a thoroughly ruined body.

Day #25 – Temple Basin – 7th September 2009

Monday dawned bluebird as well, for the fifth day in a row! I did a few laps of Temple tow with Aoife shortly after lunch, mainly practicing my 180s and switch riding. We rode for half an hour or so until it got too hot and headed back inside. I planned to head back after a rest for more practice, but goodslift top needed manning so I didn’t get a chance for any more skiing that day. I got to watch many of the staff lay down some sweet tracks on Mini-Phipps however, which was almost as good .

Day #26 – Temple Basin – 12th September 2009

Temple Basin Club Championships day. The weather was mostly cloudy and the snow was WET and heavy after a few days of rain. I did a few runs in Downhill and recorded a couple of unimpressive times on the slalom racecourse, then headed back down through lower Bills. The skiing wasn’t that great so I retreated back indoors. Pretty average day, but I’ve had worse.

Day #27 – Temple Basin – 13th September 2009

Headed out after lunch with Aoife for a few runs on Temple tow. The weather was partly cloudy once again, and the snow was still extremely slushy, but not quite as heavy and much more fun and forgiving to ride.
I ended up spending the afternoon sessioning a jump near Temple lodge, working on getting my fear under control with concentration, music and a safety meeting with TJ. Early on in the day I managed to stomp my biggest air ever – pretty stoked . I was having so much fun that I kept lapping Temple tow and hitting the jump until dusk.

Day #28 – Temple Basin – 19th September 2009

Saturday was the beach party day, and the weather turned out perfectly with sunny blue skies and light winds. We had a bbq outside on the veranda with a badminton net (complete with coke bottle shuttlecock), and all the staff were wearing Hawaiian shirts.

The most exciting event of the day (for me at least) was losing a fair bit of skin on my right arm in an act of derring-do. It was pretty icy in the morning on Temple tow. I rented some gear to a Danish girl and taught her how to use the ropetow, and she got to the top first time. I rode back down and was hanging around the bottom and noticed she was taking her time, so I rode back up to check if she was ok. I got about halfway up the tow and she just started sliding down out of control, lost both her skis and slid at breakneck pace towards some rocks. As soon as she was almost level with me I skied over to her as fast as I could and grabbed her to help her stop, but we slid together for another five metres or so until I could get us to a stop. She broke her wrist and had to be helicoptered to a hospital. While we were treating her I noticed that my arm had a fair bit of blood on it from the icy slide, cos I was only wearing a hawaiian shirt at the time.

After she had been choppered out and I had gotten my wound treated, I headed up to Downhill for some untracked spring corn in the sunshine, beautiful.

That evening was Mark’s 30th birthday party, so we all got boozed on his keg of Ginger Tom . Mint day.

PS/ Was also Aoifa’s birthday and International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Day #29 – Temple Basin – 20th September 2009

Another sunny clear day on smooth spring corn in Downhill Basin, mint!

Day #30 – Temple Basin – 21st September 2009

Downhill didn’t open today for some reason, so I spent the afternoon lapping Temple tow. Jo escaped from her kitchen for a ski at last, yay! Temperatures were a little bit cooler, and it was refreshing to be able to wear my jacket comfortably again after days of sweating in the hot spring sun.

The snow-forecast.com report had predicted fresh snow in the afternoon, which seemed very unlikely given the clear skies and still (relatively) warm temperatures. However at 5:30pm the snow gods delivered, when it started dumping precious white flakes. The first time I’d seen snow fall in the better part of a month, I’d nearly forgotten what it looked like!

Day #31 – Temple Basin – 22nd September 2009

Fresh snow across the mountain, woop woop! Downhill was siiiiiiiick.

Day #32 – Temple Basin – 23rd September 2009

BEST DAY OF THE SEASON!

Today was pretty much the ultimate day. We’d had about 10-15cm of fresh snow the day before, and it was snowing a bit this morning on and off. Shortly after I arrived at Downhill, the sun came out for an hour and I got some sweet turns in good vis before heading in for lunch. It socked in during lunchtime and delivered about 5cm which made a surprising difference, and covered up most of the morning’s tracks. Then as we were heading outside again, the sun reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and we had 4 hours of bluebird freshies! The afternoon snow was if anything even more fun than the morning’s, and we thrashed it till 5pm. I got the last tow out of Downhill back through Lower Bill’s, and had a sweeeet run through Cassidy chute. Then, to top it all off, it started snowing again less than 5mins after I arrived back in the lodge. Perfect .

Day #33 – Temple Basin – 24th September 2009

It was pretty windy and snowy. Skied for a bit on Temple tow, possibly with Jo, possibly went to Downhill also, but I really can’t remember.

Day #34 – Temple Basin – 25th September 2009

Nothing much opened in the morning due to wind and snow, so we hung out in the lodge until after lunch. At about 2:30pm Downhill was opened, and there was a fresh pow feeding frenzy as about a dozen of us (mostly staff) raced to track out the mint snow in conditions of variable visibility. Unfortunately I had to run the goodslift in the afternoon from 4-6pm, so I was forced to leave after only half an hour. Gutted. The snow was mint as though.

Day #35 – Temple Basin – 26th September 2009

Saturday was ‘Retro Party’ day, mainly because Todd the new manager was looking for an excuse for a weekend party to attract more punters.

The day dawned bright and clear, but alas I was scheduled to man goodslift bottom from 9am-12pm while everyone got stuck into the fresh goodies. By the time I arrived back up the hill, the blisteringly hot sun had done its work on the snow, and it had become sticky and slow mashed potatoes, not fun to ride at all. I gave Downhill a good try but it was pretty horrible, so I headed back to the lodge via Cassidy chute for the slowest and lamest Lower Bills run of the season.

Day #36 – Temple Basin – 27th September 2009

Temple tow’s was increasingly resembling moguls on a groomed slope, while Downhill was bumpy and horrible. I did a bit of skiing this day, but not heaps.

Day #37 – Temple Basin – 28th September 2009

By Monday we were overwhelmed by the arrival of 26 kids between the ages of 5-16. They were there for the school holiday ski week. The mountain became a noisy place filled with, in the words of Dylan Moran, ‘miniature drunks’, whose only purpose seemed to be converting sugar into violence.
Whilst we had a couple of ski instructors, there were no snowboard instructors for the few kids learning to snowboard. As I used to snowboard before switching to skiing a couple of seasons ago, I grabbed a board out of ski hire and gave some lessons.
Aoife the Irish custodian was pretty keen to try snowboarding, so I gave her a lesson as well.

In the afternoon I switched back to skiing. A few of the kids were building kickers all over Temple tow, including an ambitous one over some rocks in the middle of the tow. I hit it a couple of times but it had a sketchy takeoff, so I set to work improving it with a shovel. By the time I had finished, the jump was much bigger and more formidable. It was now much easier to clear the rocks, but now the angle was so steep that the landing was very hard. While skiing with Aoife and Jo, I gave it a shot and bailed over the tail of my skis, hurting my neck and my right shin. After I had collected my gear I got to watch a bunch of kids hit the jump perfectly, rubbing salt into the wound. Lame.

Day #38 – Temple Basin – 29th September 2009

More snowboarding instruction in the morning, and skiing in the afternoon.
It’s a pretty cool feeling when one of the kids comes up and says thanks for the lesson, and that the tips I gave him really helped his snowboarding

While my neck and shin were still hurting, I was determined to stick a landing from the jump I had built the day before. The first time I hit it, I bailed again, but the kids watching said they were impressed by how big I had sent it, as I had hit it way faster than anyone else was. This made me feel a bit better. For my second attempt, I went way slower, and managed to stick it but hurt my shins badly on the hard landing. Satisfied that I had at least conquered my own kicker, I headed back inside.

Day #39 – Temple Basin – 30th September 2009

Shins and neck were still hurting and the snow and weather conditions were pretty poor, so I stayed inside all day. The only skiing I did was to get up Temple tow to shovel a little snow onto the towline to cover the emerging rocks.

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The following is the fourth part of my Great Winter Roadtrip series. I’ve decided to write these as a complete chronicle of my ski season, like an online road diary. I’m gonna include nearly everything I remember at the time of writing, publish it, and leave serious editing for later. If that turns this blog into an exhausting ramble then so be it – at least I’ll have something to remind myself of what I got up to in the winter of 2009. If you find it an interesting read, great. If not, too bad – go check out TV Tropes or something.

As I’m writing this, it’s early August, and I’m relaxing in the main lodge at Temple Basin with a well-earned beer. I am exhausted. I’ve spent more time doing volunteer work up here than I have skiing. Today I spent all day running the goodslift, and didn’t get a chance to ski. Last Thursday and Friday I worked from dawn ‘til midnight doing two food runs back to back, totalling about eleven hours of driving (in the Temple truck and goodslift), five tons of food and alcohol delivered, and two truck breakdowns.

I am having the time of my life.

I’ve been keeping track of my days on the snow using the ‘Snowbook’ application on Facebook, and I’ll let them tell the story of my days on the snow by pasting them below. Suffice to say that it’s been rockin’. Instead, I’ll try to summarise of what’s been going on off the snow.

Note: At this point I stopped writing – apparently I got distracted by something. The rest of this entry was written in mid October.

August was dominated by Temple Basin weekend events and warm summery weather. Nearly every weekend featured a special party or competition, which meant that I was frequently bringing up huge loads of food and alcohol in the Temple truck. The upside of all this work was that I got to spend a lot of time on the mountain – the downside was that a lot of it was spent stuck in the goodslift shed.
Possibly due to the El Niño climate pattern, this was the warmest August since records began 155 years ago. Bluebird days were almost unbearably hot unless spent skiing in a t-shirt, and any precipitation arrived as rain to destroy the already-suffering snowpack. As a result, during much of August and early September we felt like we were watching the snowpack die.

In mid-August a cold went round the TB staff, exacerbated by our close living conditions. I felt the first effects as I drove down from the mountain with Jo, Aoife and Claire, and was forced to spend the next week laying low in Christchurch while I recovered. On my return to the Basin I found that the rest of the staff had suffered the same thing – must’ve been a pretty crappy week on the hill.

Day #10 – Temple Basin – 1st August 2009

A one-day break between storm-fronts allowed a mellow day’s skiing in fine conditions and 7cm of fresh snow, perfect for the afternoon of the 80s Party. Due to the previous day’s slush-skiing and overnight freeze, Temple tow had horrible and unpredictable snow conditions, consisting mainly of fresh dry dust on icey chunks. A couple of these runs left me sore and frustrated, so I returned to the lodge to let my feet rest and get my stoke back. After a short time browsing ski mags, I headed over the Cassidy and managed to find exactly what I’d been looking for all along – fresh, beautiful, untracked snow with barely a chunky spot in sight. Cue back-to-back shallow pow runs, as I raced to track out Cassidy before the student hoardes arrived, along with about a dozen others who’d discovered the goods on Cassidy. I also managed my first proper Upper Bill’s run in the afternoon, although I can’t remember a thing about my line or who I was with.

Day #11 – Temple Basin – 8th August 2009

Fire & Ice Weekend! An epic bluebird day. By mid-morning Temple tow was riding like a sweet groomed run, after a few sunny days and heaps of punters tracking it out. The flat and (relatively) forgiving snow made it perfect for hucking the numerous small features dotting the run, and the huge Fire & Ice crew got stuck into it. By the afternoon Downhill and Bill’s were looking sick, so we headed over that way and got a few good runs on the upper tow before hiking the Elevator chute and dropping through Upper Bills with Cam, Helen, Liv, Erin, and some other girl whose name I forget. That evening was the Fire & Ice weekend, about which little need be said save that it was awesome. The crew riding Temple tow under the night lights was huge – so much so that the tow queue was at least 5 minutes long and snaked up to the hill, unprecedented for Temple tow.

Day #12 – Temple Basin – 9th August 2009

Snow and weather conditions: see previous snow day – same applies. Sunday’s skiing was just as sweet as the previous day’s, and also included a fun Upper Bills trip (with Brian, Josh and Daniel) just prior to lunchtime, dropping through the laundry chute just in time for a feed. At the end of the day Brian and I embarked upon the Grand Traverse from the top of the Elevator Chute, across the top of Upper Bills (just under B’limit) to reach a point just short of Cassidy peak at sunset, culminating in my longest Temple Basin run to date – 10 minutes from the peak to the bottom of Temple tow (including the Cassidy bridge crossing on skis). Unfortunately I was suffering from loose boots (having had my boot padding expand beyond the limit of their ratchets – exacerbated by the two hour hike/traverse – which has subsequently been fixed with a ratchet re-drilling) which caused my skiing to be more than a little sketchy. Compounding my problems were the heavy sun-affected snow and an advancing blister from the hike, however I managed to hold it together and make the descent without bailing nor losing the ear-to-ear grin from my face.

Day #13 – Mt Hutt – 16th August 2009

The parents came down for the weekend and shouted me a day at Hutt so they could take it easy on the chairlifts.
Was sunny-ish this morning, then the low cloud came in and brought things to a standstill with 10 metre visibility that sent the punters scattering to their cars. Reminded me of skiing at Ruapehu as a kid: in the North Island that kind of weather is just your standard morning tea.

The snow was just as you’d expect from two weeks of warm temps and rain. Hard in the morning, slushy in the afternoon. Broadway was well-polished and precluded getting a solid edge in the morning, but not bad after lunch.

Bring on a cold snap already dammit! This warm precipitation isn’t doing anyone any favours. Usually in winter every cloud has a silver lining because you know that it’s bringing snow, but this week the crappy weather is just, well, crap.

Day #14 – Temple Basin – 21st August 2009

Weather: bluebird, no wind, mint.
Snow conditions: What do you expect? It’s been sunny/rainy for 3 weeks. The snowpack has been substantially reduced. The good news is that it’s still very ridable. There are rocks on trail, but not a whole lot. Nothing is worth skiing before lunchtime, but there’s lots of sick spots in the afternoon. Temple tow is no fun at all to ride, kinda like skiing slippery gravel/marbles. Cassidy is heaps of fun once it warms up, slushy and forgiving. I spent the early afternoon practising my switch skiing on Cassidy, love it over there.
Downhill is surprisingly fun in the afternoon. Ski patrol were describing the snow as ‘cheesy’ – in a good way. Bill’s still has a bit of fresh from Tuesday’s storm, kinda like dust on crust. Apparantly Cassidy peak after the grand traverse was mind-blowing, one of the Aussies described it as the best run of his life so make of that what you will.

Freeride competition tommorrow, sweet!

Day #15 – Temple Basin – 22nd August 2009

Freeride Competition! Downhill Basin (the originally intended site for the comp) was out because there wasn’t enough snow to allow a good line, so the comp was moved to the top of Upper Bills. Everyone got one run to show their stuff. We had earlier been advised against ‘hucking our meat’ off big drops if we were unsure about sticking the landing, and that the judging would instead focus on aggressive, fluid, controlled riding. With that in mind I chose a mellow line with no airs, and a quick dodge between some rocks at the start. I didn’t see my entire score card, but from what I did see I could tell that I had done pretty much as expected – a good score for control but a poor score for my line. I ended up coming 14th (out of about 20), and got a spot prize of a T-shirt, so I was stoked with that.
The snow conditions were the same as the previous day – solar-affected, slushy in the sun and dusty/crusty in the shade. Was pretty sunny, but with some high cloud.

Day #16 – Temple Basin – 23rd August 2009

Rainy and horrible. It snowed a little, which improved Temple tow a little, but mainly it sucked. I went out for a few turns, found it lame, came back inside.

Day #17 – Temple Basin – 24th August 2009

Day skiing was lame, but night skiing was actually pretty cool. A fair bit of rain all day, we are watching the ski field die.

Day #18 – Broken River – 28th August 2009

Planned a day at Mt Olympus with Kate, but in the morning it was on hold, so we opted for Cragieburn instead, which was also on hold but at least has a backup in BR. We arrived at Cragieburn to find it closed for the day, so we headed round the corner to BR.

Weather was partly cloudy with strong winds in the morning, changing suddenly to heavy snowfall (with more strong winds) in the afternoon.
A fair bit of new snow on the ground from the last 24 hours’ snowfall, but it had a weird consistency. Looked fairly dryish, but was incredibly draggy and not exactly exciting to slide over. Probably caused by the rain or temperature. The only run open on the field was the top half of the access tow (Rugby), but that got old pretty quickly, especially with lame snow and increasingly lame conditions, so we left after a couple of hours and headed to Castle Hill to frollick in the rock gardens (where we were right on the edge of the storm boundary, with blue skies and sunshine but rain blowing at us from across the divide).
When I got home I noticed that I had lost one of my car’s hub caps. However, all was not lost, as a later post shall reveal…

Day #19 – Cragieburn – 31st August 2009

This was the first of a 3 day trip living in the car. The original plan was to try to make it to Cragieburn, Cheeseman and Mt Olympus and thus finish off the Selwyn fields that I hadn’t yet visited. Weather looked like it’d be touch and go, but I cruised up to Cragieburn shortly before lunchtime and it was open except for the top tow, which was closed due to high winds.

I bumped into Ben Pritchard from TB (he had judged the Gnomes Freeride Comp the previous week) in the parking lot as I was cooking up a little lunch, and we did a bit of riding together during the day. There was a fair amount of fresh snow on the ground, but the strong winds had redistributed it so that ridges and exposed points were extremely icy. The upshot of this was that the basins, gullies and chutes were filled to the brim with powdery goodness, and any ski tracks were quickly erased by the gale-force winds. Hooray, unlimited freshies!

At the end of the day I headed down to camp at the bottom of the Broken River access road. There were a few other campers around, and I managed to build up a bit of a picture of what was going on in the area from talking to them about where they’d skied that day – who needs a snow report when you’ve got the bush telegraph?

Sleeping in the car was fine, albeit a little cramped and cold. The new car battery setup only managed to power my laptop for an hour unfortunately, meaning that I needed to run the engine for a bit to allow me to finish my Deadwood episodes.

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The following is the third part of my Great Winter Roadtrip series. I’ve decided to write these as a complete chronicle of my ski season, like an online road diary. I’m gonna include nearly everything I remember at the time of writing, publish it, and leave serious editing for later. If that turns this blog into an exhausting ramble then so be it – at least I’ll have something to remind myself of what I got up to in the winter of 2009. If you find it an interesting read, great. If not, too bad – go check out TV Tropes or something.

Whilst I’d gotten a couple of sneaky ski-touring days in May and June, July heralded the start of the season proper. Ski fields started to open their gates and run their tows, and I managed to get in a few day-trips to Porters and Broken River. However, the bulk of my time was spent on food runs to Temple Basin.

The Temple Basin food run usually involves waking up at dawn and driving the Temple truck to Trents for a supermarket shop (usually taking several hours and requiring several large supermarket trolleys of food). Afterwards, I head to Growers Direct to pick up more groceries, then drive two hours up to the Basin, usually arriving around sunset. I then spend the next hour or two sending the food up to the lodge in the goodslift, then commence the hour-long walk up to the field by the light of my head-torch (or if I’m lucky, the moon). Whilst the food run (usually Thursday) is a long hard day’s work, you get all your volunteer work out of the way in one go, and get to spend the next few days skiing without having to worry about more chores. It’s a pretty good gig.

As I had heaps of TB work tickets saved up and was prepared to do regular food runs and help out around the field where required, the TB manager allowed me to stay on the hill as long as I liked with free food and accommodation. As a result, I increasingly spent the majority of my time at the Basin to the exclusion of other fields.

Day #3 – Porters – 1st July 2009

* Weather: beautiful blue skies, no wind, subzero temperatures.
* Snow conditions: 10cm of fresh dry snow on a rock hard base layer. Rock patches off-piste (especially at the bottom of Big Mama), and a couple of patches towards the upper mountain, but nothing you can’t dodge easily if you’re paying attention. The snow guns at Porters have been given free reign over the T1 slopes due to cold temps recently, so the lower mountain is well coated on-piste.
* Comments: Popped my Porters cherry! A good fun day. Went up with a couple of guys from Snowpool. Helped out a couple of French tourist girls with their chains at the bottom of the hill, and was rewarded with a coffee at the end of the day

Saw a sign at the top of T3 saying ‘Caution Rocks’. I like that, I reckon they should put up another sign saying ‘Being Careful Kicks Ass’.

Day #4 – Porters – 9th July 2009

* Weather: Bluebird – basically the same as last time but a little warmer.
* Snow conditions: Recent snow storms earlier in the week, but most of it had been tracked out by now. Still a few rock patches off-piste, but slightly fewer than last time.
* Comments: Another sweet bluebird day! This time with George, Lucy, DMC and his sister. First proper day on my new Volkl Gotamas (which were brilliant), and with my new poles.

Day #5 – Temple Basin – 12th July 2009

* Weather: Sky was cloudy with occasional sunshine poking through, winds increasing from weak at the valley floor to strong at the mountain tops, temperature was subzero for most of the day.

* Snow conditions: The snow is suboptimal, but still plenty of fun. There is a soft weak layer about a foot deep but the top of it has been fried by the sun since early last week and is fairly crusty and hard. It is barely breakable by skis but boots and poles will break through easily, which makes both skiing and walking a little more difficult. All three tows have long since been tracked out and are in various stages of bumpy crud formation, but with many patches of windblown pow. There are still plenty of sizeable rocks across the field, especially the two lower tows, but they are not difficult to avoid for the most part. Everything is open as far as I can tell, including Upper Bill’s Basin.

* Comments: Did the food run on Saturday with George, we brought up at least a ton of fresh supplies in the Temple truck and didn’t reach the lodge until after 10pm. On Sunday we hit the slopes. Downhill claimed one of my poles when I landed on it and bent it in half – if I keep up this rate of ski pole destruction at Temple Basin I better start making my own. I started off skiing very badly, and my crapness plateau’d when I broke my pole then briefly lost a ski shortly before lunch. In the afternoon I hit Temple tow for a few hours and gradually got my confidence and skill back, and started really enjoying the challenging conditions. Had one bail in the afternoon but I managed to roll on my back then back on my feet and keep skiing, awesome. Hopefully my improvement in cruddy conditions continues!

Day #6 – Broken River – 15th July 2009

* Weather: Occasional cloud at ski-field altitude, leading to bouts of low-visibility and flat light. Light winds.

*Snow conditions: Sun-affected pow with a crusty surface, mostly tracked out. Less rocks than Temple Basin, but still a few hiding in wait for unwary skiers.

* Comments: Headed up with Sam and Poncho. Bumped into Ryan up the hill. I am slowly improving in my crud-skiing abilities. A pretty good day, I am tired now.

Day #7 – Temple Basin – 23rd July 2009

Night skiing on Temple Tow with a bunch of pro skiers and snowboarders who were doing a photo shoot! Fresh snow on the ground, still clear skies, stoked.

Day #8 – Temple Basin – 24th July 2009

I did a few runs in the morning before heading back to Christchurch after being snowed in for a day. The sloppy gloop from the previous day had frozen to crunchy ice, and because we had tracked it out last night it was full of chunks and ice boulders – kinda like riding over light avalanche debris. There was 5cm of fresh dry snow that fell overnight (which hasn’t been recorded on the snow report because 30cm on the 23rd looks better than 5cm on the 24th), but on Temple Tow it didn’t do much to improve the conditions because the icy chunks were too big.

As a result I did a couple of weak runs, then chucked it in and headed down the mountain.

Day #9 – Temple Basin – 31st July 2009

The snow conditions were horrible sloppy gloop due to a dumping of snow/rain/sleet over the last day. Riding Temple tow required no speed checks on the bottom half of the run in order to make it back to the tow shed. Because the snow was so slow (and not helped by my skis’ lack of a recent wax), I decided to inject a little excitement by straightlining Temple tow. The first attempt was fun – I took a lazy line down the most forgiving parts of the run and made it down in one piece. For my second attempt, I decided to go a little braver, and literally drop a straight line down the middle of the run, effectively plummeting down the steepest part of the run. I made it down the first two-thirds alright (albeit at a hair-raising speed), but ended up coming across a small (and normally sweet) rock-drop at a speed that allowed no time for correction nor room for error. I tried to stick the landing, lost a ski, and tomahawked for at least ten metres, leaving my skis well behind me. It was a funny bail, but I ended up hurting my neck, requiring painkillers to make it through the next couple of days.

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