Turoa Still has some Goodness left

Hi Matt, just took 2 days off work and headed back to the mt for one more
hit at it. Here's how it panned out.

Well, it looks like winter has come back for one last hit. We set the dates
2 months ago, October 8 and 9th 2009. Who knew what the weather would bring,
what the snow would be like, or even if it would still be holding up. So the
plans went into motion, the leave forms were handed in at work and we set
about making sure we had everything.
The week leading up to our planned overnighter decided to bring back winter
in a big way. The snow set in and roads all around the central plateau were
closed with 50-100cm falling in places. Unfortunately it was blowing a gale
on the mt so a lot of it didn't stick on the slopes, but the gullies and
bowls caught the most of it.
The weather cleared, Thursday came around and we were amped for the 25cm of
freshies that were sitting around on the field, with the expectation of much
more in the back country.
Thursday morning when we arrived it was cold and a bit snowy/rainy. A little
disappointing to say the least. But we set to it, 1 learner on the alpine
meadow, 2 progressive learners helping her out and the 3 more confident of
us headed up to the 'High Noon'. Half way up the Mt we rose above the cloud
to fields of fresh snow and bluebird skies. It was like an entirely
different day from what it was under the cloud.
First run of the day was absolutely epic. I opted for 'Little Bowl', and I
think that was the right move. Freshies ankle deep all through there and
with every turn, blowing the pow into the air. It was epic. So the first
part of the day was made up of runs top to bottom and checking in on the
learners, making sure they were doing all ok, and they were.
Later in the afternoon we decided to head out to the west backcountry area
'Solitude'. A little disappointing as the majority of it is prone to
becoming wind stripped, and that it was. So we rode that out and headed back
to the groomed. Decided to drop into the 'Hamilton's on the eastern side of
the field and the was defiantly the right choice!!! Freshies blown into
every crevasse and to the bottom of every drop. Running around there is
always full of fun, nice high speed straights, steep fall lines and the odd
cliff drop all make for an exciting time.
Later in the arvo we thought 'Solitude' would have released somewhat with
the blue skies above, so we shot back out there for a gamble. It had
released and was in perfect shape, so much so that we rode it down and had
to trek out again (we did that last time and vowed we wouldn't ride that low
again). By the time we made it out and back to the 'Giant' we realized the
time and pushed our luck to try and get on the 'High Noon' for the last run
of the day. Man, I have never been on such a slow lift in my life as we had
to ride the Giant to get back to the Express. But we made it, just. 3 lifts
behind us and they closed it. Once at the top we thought about heading out
to see what the Glacier over the west boundary was like and found a group of
guys trekking up and decided to join onto the line. We climbed for approx
half an hour before dropping into the nicest run of the day. Massive wide
open bowl, filled with powder, now that was nice. By the time we got back to
the piste it was 5.30 and there was not a soul in sight other then the guys
we were running with.
Anyway, I better cut this short now. When we got back to the car we realized
that one of the others with us had not been wearing his goggles and had
gotten quite bad sun burn to his eyeballs!!!!
We got back to Ohakune, found the place we were staying, showered up, lit
the fire, hung out our gears and headed into town for dinner, Italia
Pizzeria!!!! 5 Traditional Italian Pizzas for dinner, and tried to figure
out what was best for the burnt eyes. So we made a few door to door stops
asking for cucumbers (weird I know, but apparently it works to revitalize
the moisture). It turns out that no one in Ohakune has cucumber!!! So he
settled for cold tea bags.
The next day was a short one, we woke up and headed on our way. Turns out
that Turoa was closed due to high winds, so we shot around to Whakapapa for
the first time. The wind was much less, but the viz was pretty shot. But
hey, we gave it a go anyway. A few interesting little lifts there, cute
little chutes and slushy snow down below. Up top it was snowing again, so
that was good. Come 1pm the snow had lowered to the car park and was puking
down so we made the call and gave the rest of the day a miss.
So, we got home, checked the mt site (www.mtruapehu.com) to see if we had
made it onto any of the webcams, which we didn't, but noticed a message in
the email from Ruapehu, SNOWVEMBER REMIX!!!  What was this I saw?!!!  The
new snow has enticed RAL to extend the season for the second year in a
row!!! Bring it on I say. So the last report was entitled 'Turoa is holding
up, Just'. But now I would like to say, "Turoa is soldiering on and holding
its mighty form"

I surely look forward to a few more epic days this season. Day 13 and 14
over and out!!!

Cheers

~Kingsley~

Base Team Rider Tim Herbert Wins Jr snowboard Nationals

Base team rider Tim Herbert has taken out the 14 and under Junior Snowboard Nationals for 2009. After a solid season of riding Tim stepped up at nationals to take first place in Giant Slalom, Boarder Cross,  Slope Style and Parallel GS and a tidy 2nd place in Half Pipe. Tim even rode his Ride Society pipe board in the GS races and still killed them. All this with a very recently broken collar bone. So a big congratulations to Tim from the whole team at Base. Tim will be off to the states after Xmas to train again this summer, no doubt he'll come back with a big bag full of new tricks to throw down next winter.

 

 

It's Rob Dyrdek & Ken Block in Space

This is absolute gold, Rob Dyrdek, Drama & Ken Block shooting an ad for Rob's new shoe collection on the NASA Zero G Jet, looks so fun. Goes a bit pear shaped for Rob at the end. Would love to try it though.

www.BaseNZ.com