Base 2 Video Tour

Take a video tour thru Base 2, our new Hardware Focused store at 12 Helwick St Wanaka.

Base 2 Grand Opening Party

Last night saw a great bunch of people get down to Base's new Snow Hardware focused store at 12 Helwick st, Base 2, for the Grand opening party. Most of the Base freeride team and parents made it in for drinks and the compulsory finger food. It was great to see so many of our suppliers come along to celebrate with us, along with customers, friends and all the crew that helped build and fitout the store in record time. Also in attendance were some industry luminaries Jossi Wells, Byron Wells and Robett Hollis, thanks boys. Also great to see the guys from Racers Edge and Cheapskates in also. After a couple of hours pilefring the Free Drinks most of the crew headed to Mint Bar for some free PIzza and more drinks. Dj Phillipa kicked off around 10.30 and dropped some solid boeats that kept the crowd jumping late into the night.
Thanks to everyone who came along.
Matt
Chillin by the ski rack, Base alumni Kris Mayen, Hamish from Rossignol and Base's Chris Walsh.

Base Crew - Lee, Trev & Potter



The Crew - Gemma from Icebreaker is in there, Simon Knight from K2 & Charlie from racers Edge are chewing the fat, Pro Ski Photographer Camilla Stoddart in there telling someone what's up.
Base Ladies - Jenna, Daisy, Kelly, Fi, Kim & Prue.

Base freeride team grommets Beau James Wells & Tim Herbert raid the finger food.

Dj Phillipa dropping the beats at Mint Bar

Snow Falling In Wanaka Right Now

Hey Crew, check it out, snow falling in Wanaka right now, looking good for snow for the weekend. Though i don't think the vis will be very good. But at least it's snowing!
Base 2 getting it's first snow ever, check the pics, will try and add some video later today too. Sorry the pics don't show the snow awesomely but it's still falling

Base 2 is Live

That's right people, Base 2, our new dedicated Hardware store with NZ's largest range of Skis and Snowboards under one roof, is now open. It was mad dash to get it ready before the mountains opened but the whole crew pulled together and put in some serious hard yakka to get it open. And the result.... i think the pics speak for themselves

Turoa snow Update

Hey Crew, i've got a new report from our roving north island reporter Kingsley on last weekends action at Turoa, read on

With the forecast earlier in the week looking pretty miserable for the
coming weekend our crew had written off the idea of heading up to Turoa
for our 2nd day this season, but as the week progressed the metservice
updates were looking better. Come friday night the report stated "Low
cloud, winds at 1600m rising to 40km east, winds at 3000m rising 60km by
midday. Rain, with occasional snow flurry above 1800m". So the report
didn't look too flash, but we couldn't help it. We had talked it up all
summer and had a newbie keen to hit the slopes. It was up to him if we
went or not, and he chose to go.
So up at 5.30am and leaving town at 6 with rain pouring we once again
decided 'If it's open, we'll stay'.
Arrived at the Ohakune 8.30 and got our newbie his hire equipment from
Station Lodge Rentals (www.stationlodge.co.nz) and up the Mt road we went.
It was an awesome sight to get to the base and see the lifts running. A
great relief after last weeks walks. So we decided 1 of us would stay and
help the new guy at alpine meadows while the rest of us cruized for the
first biggie. Up onto the 'Movenpick' lift to hopefully get to the 'High
Noon Express', unfortunatly that wasn't running yet, so 'High Flyer' it
was. We skated over and jumped on.
From the 'High Flyer' there is a few runs down and also the terrain park.
So I hit the park for a few small airs, coupled with a few small bails
(ok, maybe not so small bails).
Later in the day the high noon opened and we rode her to the top. -10
degrees or so with wind chill factored in up there. The trails had just
been groomed and the runs were awesome. Not bad for a 105cm base on the
volcano.
The weather began to clear and as blue skies cut through the wind picked
up, but that lasted all of 25 minutes around midday, then they backed off
leaving us with the remainder of the day bluebird.
I must say, later in the day the high noon trails had been taken back to
ice and became no good to ride. From the top of 'Parklane' (Turoa's
smallest lowest lift) there was only 1 trail available to base and that
was continually congested with learners falling head over heels and
blocking it up for everyone else.

Overall, at 105cm the lower mt is pretty much a write off for runs, except
when you need a break in the cafe. The 'High Noon' runs, freshly groomed
are ok, but that didn't last too long. So that just leaves mid Mt, and the
runs from 'High Flyer' are not bad at all, plenty of snow, a few rocks
here and there, then jumping across to the boneyard and as always, is a
nice run, very choppy, but great soft and dry snow built up so it's alot
of fun.

So here we are now with another cold snap covering the Mt and the fields
closed for the last 2 days due to snow. The last stake read was yesterday
with another 3cm added to the base. If this keeps up as forecast we could
see 1.5m pretty soon and hopefully the 2m mark reached within a few weeks.

Keep the snow falling!!!

~Kingsley~

Treblecone Opening Day is a blinder

personally it was a day i had been waiting for longer then most, after a knee injury it had been 23mths since my last day at Treblecone, and it didn't disappoint. After busting thru the cloud inversion that has kept wanaka in perpetual darkness the peak loomed up with only some high wispy cloud above tinting the sunshine, it promised to be a cracker of a day. Once on snow you could see the weather lately has been kind to the snowpack with plenty of good coverage across the front basin and the saddle. The more shaded faces held sweet pockets of dry chalky snow, the main trails stayed fairly firm most of the day. Despite both carparks being quite full the slopes seemed comfortably empty and the cafe had no lines. There was some hold ups with eftpos services due to phone line overloading but overall the service was good. The TC beef burger i had for lunch, although not a bargain at $11.50, was super tasty, I'd highly recommend it, tomato sauce and mustard was the way to go.
My knee held up well to the days shredding and getting some turns in in the sunshine stamped a grin on my face a mile wide. Great to see a lot of locals getting out for first runs of the winter too.
Overall Treblecone Opneing Day 2009 was one of the best i've seen in 10 years.

matt

Opening Day report from Turoa

Our North Island roving reporter Kingsley has sent thru a report on Turoa's opening day action, read on

Hi Matt,
As planned 3 mates and myself headed off from Levin at 6am on Saturday to
hit Turoa on it's opening day. The travel up to the mt was great, the
excitement of that moment when our boards hit the snow once again, man, we
couldn't wait....Lucky for me the car has cruise control, so no unexpected
expenses from the cops. We eventually made it to Ohakune and had planned
to stop for breakfast, but the car wouldn't stop, it just knew we needed
to get to the snow asap, so no breakfast in our tums and we were on the Mt
Road. We finally made it up to the car park and got all set up and off to
the lifts.

Unfortunately the lifts were closed as it was blowing a gale and snowing
something chronic. We decided to head out onto the Alpine Meadow and
figured there were things we could work on. So once we got our feet back
after a run or 2 we spotted some hard-nuts trekking up the trail to the
upper learners area for a bigger run. We decided to join them. It was a
25-30 min trek to get to the top of the Parklane chair. It was seriously
blowing up there so we didn't head any further. We strapped in and away we
went, our first big(ish) run. But it was over all too soon. So the 2nd
trek begun. Before we knew it it was nearly lunch time. Anyways, spent the
arvo down the bottom at Alpine meadows practicing riding switch, ollie
180's, nosepresses and tail presses.
It was a good arvo actually, ended with a hour hanging round right at the
bottom on a little slope in which we built a small kicker and spent the
last part of the day on that.

All in all it was a great day, pity there was no lifts, but hey, trekking
the mt, hitting a small kicker, and being forced to spend time doing
things we usually wouldn't, it was an experience that had to be had.

We left the mt all in high spirits, keen and amped for our next day,
hopefully this time some top-to-bottoms will be run.

Cheers

~Kingsley~