8-23
So bc we had a day off due to the cancelled flights, I decided to go hit up some skiing in NZ. I have always wanted to ski in NZ and had actually hoped for this delayed flight opportunity. So it was definitely a dream come true.
To save time bc internet is expensive here and time in a foreign country is always valuable, I am just going to paste in an email to my brother that I wrote about the skiing and it covers basically what I would have written anyways.
So bc we had a day off due to the cancelled flights, I decided to go hit up some skiing in NZ. I have always wanted to ski in NZ and had actually hoped for this delayed flight opportunity. So it was definitely a dream come true.
To save time bc internet is expensive here and time in a foreign country is always valuable, I am just going to paste in an email to my brother that I wrote about the skiing and it covers basically what I would have written anyways.
Hey Bro,
My flight was cancelled yesterday to Antarctica so I got to
head up for some NZ skiing! I took a shuttle at the crack of dawn up to Mt.
Hutt. It was a lot of fun, and I think
you would have really liked it. It was a
Colorado bluebird day, but they had gotten a lot of snow the previous week
including about 7 inches overnight, so it was a powder day. They had a huge base, at a bit over 2 meters
bc this August they have had double the amount of rainfall in Christchurch than
is the average. So there was excellent
coverage. The snow was a bit sun crusted
in the morning on the north facing slopes (but it is the equivalent of late
February here and low elevation compared to what we are used to in the Rockies)
so that it felt like april skiing in the back bowls of Vail, but the south
facing slopes were sweetness with fresh tracks all day. The mountain was pretty cool bc although
there were only 4 lifts and 1 shuttle, it was set up nice so that there was
tons of terrain access and it skied much bigger than you would think with that
many lifts. The other thing was that it
was entirely above tree-line as the tree line in NZ with its southern latitude
is quite low, so in effect, the whole ski area was like a giant bowl and
everything could be skied. The terrain
was quite nice with lots of good steep stuff and some good cliffs (which I
avoided bc I did not want to risk injury right before Antarctica). They had lots of backcountry access gates and
the alpine touring options were endless and some of the lines I could see that
you could ski would be epic. So much
snow that all the peaks had good coverage and huge lines. There were even some people out doing some
heli-skiing. The views from the top off
in the distance were amazing and you could even see some of the huge glaciated
peaks including Mt. Cook (NZ’s highest).
One of the other cool things is that the mountains are so steep that
they drop straight down to sea level. So
from the mountain if you looked straight down the snow disappeared into bright
green fields (of course filled with sheep) and you could even see the ocean in
the distance. It created a cool
contrast: the green and the white and the blue sky. But seriously, the mountains just looked
really gnarly and full of coverage for some backcountry skiing that you would
absolutely love. Oh, and several of the
kiwis were skiing in costumes although it wasn’t even a special day.
It was nice bc since it was a weekday and the mountain had a
lot of terrain and steep terrain that people stayed of off, I got fresh tracks
all day. And they opened up these really
cool backside chutes that hadn’t been opened in a while that I lapped quite a
bit. They ended up going lower than the
base area, but you could grab a shuttle bus that went by every 15 minutes back
up to the base.
I don’t think that the skiing can compare with Colorado
skiing bc our snow is better and we have more varied terrain, but it was still
pretty awesome. I imagine though that
there are a lot of days with nasty weather and with terrible visibility
especially since there are no trees for wind protection or contrast.
And I did a total guy bros ski day. I had to catch the shuttle at 630 in the
morning as it was a 1 and a half hour drive to the ski resort (did you know
that Christchurch has 18 ski areas within a 3 hour drive of the city, but this
one was one of the biggest and with the best snow this year). At that time in the morning there was no food
available so all I had was a nature valley bar I found in my ski jacket. Bc the ticket and rentals were expensive, I
was using the money I get for per diem on that and not on the expensive food at
the resort, so I skied non-stop without a break (partly bc of the powder day)
for lunch since the food was expensive.
And btw, New Zealand doesn’t even give out free crackers and hot
sauce. Just small cups of water. I of course skied until the last run and
didn’t get back to Christchurch for dinner until after 7. I wish I could have found a panda buffet but
instead got a big thing of noodles at a malay/Singaporean restaurant and then
got a 2nd meal at a thai takeaway place and finished with dessert
and attempted internet for a mcsesh at mcdonalds’. (btw, mcdonalds’s in NZ has a Lamb Burger and
for breakfast as this thing called the kiwi mcbreckie which is a mcmuffin with
egg, bacon, sausage, rosti (like hashbrowns), ham, tomato, and cheese…puts the
American caloric breakfast to shame!)
I’ll send some pictures of the skiing your way at
somepoint. Hope the 24 hour race goes
well. Are you enjoying the pro cycling
challenge?
Love ya,
Bro
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