Midweek Bliss at Turoa

BaseNZ.com's North Island Roving Reporter Kingsley has taken the pilgrimage to the Volcano for another killer day on the snow, read on

Hey guys, another small story for ya from up here in the north.
Bluebird alert had come out for Thursday 6th August 2009. So with that we
were off. For some reason things just weren't the same today when we set
out.
It started at 5.15am when I awoke from a really weird dream. It was one of
those dreams that no matter how much you try, you just can't shake the
feeling from it. In my dream we were cruising the backcountry when the
mountain began to shake. Next thing I knew we were dodging flying rocks as
the volcano was erupting. So that was an interesting feeling that I
started the day with. Jumped in the car and shot off to grab the boys. It
was an eerie feeling. The sky was clear, the moon was so full and bright
it was casting shadows down the street and it was silent, dead silent.
As the car load of guys got bigger the excitement I had expected began to
grow. We had driven for 40 or so minutes when it started to rain and with
that our excitement began to lessen. About a hour and a half into the
journey we had passed the rain and were heading past an area of road works
when a funny noise started coming from outside the car. We had a
puncture!!! And to make it worse, we had nothing to take the wheel off
with. So thanks to some nice road workers we managed to get that sorted
and were back on the road.
The remainder of the trip was all good. We hit the Mt Road and passed
through the clouds to the glorious sight of a bluebird day and a mt full
of snow. Finally, after all the odd feelings and mishaps on the way, we
were where we wanted to be, in the conditions we had expected. Everything
was right in the world once again.
So, as per usual, slightly icy conditions first up in the morning so we
stuck to the basic freshly groomed runs, but come 11 the snow had
sweetened up to something nice. We mostly ran High Noon Express runs till
around 1. It was great. Stopped for a few photo's in my awesome new pants
(Groovstar Crown Lime tie Dye, thanks BaseNZ) and generally cruised around
having a ball.
There were no major happenings. One of our guys took out a skier who
decided to stop right infront of him, he then hit a little something which
bailed him and twisted his ankle. So he was off to the car and over for
the day. We ran the Why Not's plenty in the afternoon, awesome lips for
grabbing air off and great stashes of wind blown powder in the gullies.
Come 3.30 we were thrashing it hard, getting as many express runs as
possible before she closed up for the day. So at 3.56 we jumped aboard for
the last ride of the day, got to the top 4-6 mins later and sat round
untill the crowds has dispersed. We had the last run of the day, just as
the sun was beginning to set over in the horizon. So that was it, last
run, not a soul in sight on the snow, the Mountain was ours.

So, 4 days under our belts so far, 3 bluebirds and 1 puncture, we are
pretty stoked so far this season.

Looking foward, as always to the next stunner day, shredding up that big
old volcano, and hopefully my dream was only that, a dream.

Cheers

~Kingsley~