So *should* have been up early and straight to the field seeing as I was up there and placed to make the most of it. Was still on the field early enough, but unfortuneately the main rope tow wasn’t working, so queues soon built up (as it was the opening day)

Here’s a picture of the method of getting up the slopes which is used on the club fields – nut crackers..

I have also put a video up. It is encoded using divx. You may need to download videolan to play it. Still, if you have a look at the movie you’ll get a good understanding of how it works. It’s an extremely efficient way of getting about. It’s also totally scary the first few times you use it (ok, I actually still get rattled every time my nutcracker runs through a pulley!)

Another fun evening of apres-ski. They do night skiing here too.. though didn’t get the chance this time. But there’ll be another go I’m sure.

Off to broken river for the weekend. Richard had put a link up on snowpool and so got a lift up with him. A Frenchman – Gerome – had also come across the website and he came up with us too.

At broken river, like many of the club fields, you have to walk up to the ski field. At Broken River there’s a goods lift – so you dump all your stuff in the lift and then just walk yourself up.

The field didn’t actually open until Saturday morning, so we arrived into a pre-opening party. Good times.

Ok.. so while this is probably kinda scary.. I think it’s great!

Google has in the last while (no idea when) updated their maps of Christchurch. That pic above is of my house, the yellow bookmark pretty much where I am currently sitting. Wow! There’s a bookmark here if you want to look yourself (you will need to download google earth first of course).

Stayed the night with Darren & Heather (friends of Euans – Darren helped in setting up snowpool.. which seems to be working well!) in Methven. Up early and on up to Mt. Hutt.

What a difference to Mt. Dobson – SO MANY PEOPLE. It was good to go here once, but I will not be going back again I think. Had a few good runs (though I was pretty knackered from yesterday).. but there were just too many people there. The rescue helicopter was flying all day!

At Dobson I never had to queue once. Here, with about 2000 odd people it was fast enough I guess (10 mins ish) but still – a completely different feel. Can’t wait for the rest of the club fields to open (next week hopefully)

Finally a quick pie (I got the last one.. and didn’t share it either they’re SO good) at the pub in Hororata. Totally worth getting pies there on the way back from skiing.. I’d been looking forward to my next pie there since the last time I was there (about 2 years ago!)

All in all a really excellent weekend. I can’t convey just how amazing it is to snowboard on deep (for us anyway) fresh powder. It’s just something you have to experience! (oh, and I did my first little jump too.. excitin’ stuff eh ;)

The South Island received a huge amount of snow in the last week. Mt. Dobson, still the only Chill Pass (smallish club) field to be open, we decided to head down there for Saturday. The pic below is an aerial photo of the South Island on the 12th June.

It was a lovely group of friends heading down : Warick & Aroha, Dave, Nick & Heidi, Michelle, Euan, Bob and me. It was great to have people to play with all day! There was *so* much more snow this time. See, the fields hadn’t opened since the dump of snow.. so it was about 2ft of fresh powder (1.5m base) to ski on. Heaven.. the last best day I had like this was Ohau almost 2 years ago. It’s an incredible feeling to be carving along, at reasonable speed, knowing if you fall you’re probably going to be ok. That said, I still might get a helmet as I did have a few tumbles!

There are a couple of videos too.. one of Shelly Boarding.. and the other of Warick paragliding (pic below)

Then down for a quick pint (and setting napkins alight by mistake) before Michelle, Bob, Euan and I headed to Methven (small alpine town by Mt. Hutt skifield) for the night.

Now.. I must say.. this is terribly illegal probably.. but I thought this book of bunny suicides was utterly hilarious (yes, in a sick way). I put up a slidehow here.. and here’s one pic from the slideshow..