Last week, Quiksilver team of snowboard went to New Zealand for a trip. Tomi Tominen, the team manager, told us about it.
Wanaka
After 48 hours of flights, lost bags and lost car reservations we finally found ourselves in Wanaka. The weather was wintry as ever and snow conditions were looking good. It was one of the best winters for snow in years so we were all amped to get on the mountains.
Like all great plans and when things seemed to have been timed just right, the wild card of weather came in and the sun vanished. The forecast was good with more and more snow predicted, but after 5 days of trying to chase the sun, we were starting to get a bit edgy. Were we going to get a good clear day to profit from the great snow or not? All our efforts to find a weather window seemed to be doomed.
The morning of the 6th day finally dawned with better conditions. It looked like clear skies and 1m of fresh snow. The crew of Travis, Hampus, Candide and Markku geared up and headed to Mt Cook for some well-awaited heli time. The day turned out to be good, but not great, and the team came in with some shots and motivation for the next day. Meanwhile the rest of us flew around the Southern Alps with Austin, Brian and Mathieu.
Our luck seemed to be changing as the guys had epic sessions the following day. There were plenty of powder landings on a full-sized kicker, which the guys had got together. The celebrations continued, as that night it was time to hit the red carpet to check out the awaited movie premiere of Travis Rice and associates.
Beginning of the road trip
Saturday morning it was time to head out and explore NZ country. We hooked up with our guide Mike and headed out to try the traditional way of riding in NZ, the club fields. We'd only heard of the wild rumours of nutcrackers and towropes.
Broken river
The sun was out in the morning when we headed straight out to Craigeburn ski fields. It was a beautiful drive up through the forest to get to the parking area. I was happy to see there was a lift, but my joy was cut short, as we were told it was only possible to send our gear up. No worries, it was only a 20 minute hike up to the start of the lifts, at least that's what the sign said. We were to discover after hiking the initial 20 minutes, another sign that told us we actually had a further 20 minutes to go.
We finally made it to the top, only to be greeted by some curious kea birds, which awaited us at the end of the runs.
For those of you who have never seen a nutcracker before, I can tell you, I wonder why most of the skiers and snowboarders on these fields are not missing some fingers. Try to picture yourself locked in a harness with a metal "hook" attached to it. With this metal hook you are supposed to grab hold of the 3 centimetre thick cable while it pulls you up. After a few spectacular slams we seemed to finally start to get the hang of it and were able to get to the top. Even though the snow was not the best, we still managed to find some packed powder pockets and had a fun day on the hill.
The weather was once again turning bad and we headed to the coast and Kaikoura.
Kaikoura
This was intended to be the place for the traditional Maori experience, whale watching and maybe some surfing, but yet again the weather really turned a trick on us. The rain started pouring and didn't stop for three days. We got 250 mm of rain in 24 hours! Flooding and landslides closed all the roads out of town and we found ourselves stuck. Nonetheless we managed to find surf at a right hand point break with no one around.
The roads stayed closed until midday of our third day. We were all expecting to take the scenic boat trip across the Cook Strait, but because of the delays we missed the boat and had to catch the evening boat.
Mt Ruapehu
Next stop was to be Mt Ruapehu and the Whakapapa ski resort. Mt Ruapehu is an active volcano with the most amazing scenery and terrain. We had sent ahead the world famous Nicolas Marduel who was on orders to shape us up a jump using the second volcano as the backdrop.
We had a sunset session and managed to quickly get a few shots in the can. The jump needed to be changed a bit and we were hoping to score it the next day. Unfortunately just like our previous stops, the weather was against us once again. The next day we suffered thick fog. We waited until sunset for it to clear, but it was not to be.
It was time to bring the snow part of our trip to an end. We now headed to the coast and the world famous left hand point break of Raglan. We hoped to score some waves and for once Mother Nature was with us. We were lucky and scored perfect 2-metre waves for the next 3 days. It turned out to be a great trip with highs, lows and some incredible adventures.
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