señor taco’s travels

Well, now some time has passed since the New Zealand trip and I
figured I should write a post wrapping up the actual snowboarding.

To say I was the most inexperienced rider in our group would be an
understatement the likes of which I’m not about to make. I was the
bottom of the barrel. Everyone else was good and confident and there
I was, the slowest one, falling coming off the lift and all. And to
think I thought I was decent going down there.

After the first
day I did feel more confident because I was doing boardslide spins
going downhill and I had ollied at least a couple of times. As the
days went on I got more comfortable with what Alain was instructing me
on and getting all that down as what I was supposed to be doing while
riding. The one thing I seemed to have a problem with was my arms.
Generally it’s a good idea to have them out and use them to balance.
Somewhere along the way I had picked up the bad habit of keeping them
at my side where they do no good. It took a couple of days, but I
finally broke myself of that habit without thinking of it.

Another bad habit I had was not bending my knees enough. I can’t
stress enough how much more control you have when your knees are bent.
Thankfully my bindings have highbacks that allow you to push them
forward so that they are pushing against the back of your boot. This
causes you to have more forward lean and thus more bend in your knees.
Dialing those in only took a day, but once I had them set I was
rocking on the bent knees.

I had never done any freestyle riding (terrain park with pipe,
kickers, boxes and rails) before and getting to do some showed me how
much more control over your board you learn by riding that way. You
begin to see how learning freestyle helps with freeriding in that you
take the natural bumps and jibs without batting an eye. On the
href=”http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/08/18″>snow cat day there
were wind lips on a field as we came down. Thanks to hitting the much
bigger kickers and rollers at
href=”http://www.snowparknz.com/”>Snow Park I was totally ready
for them and did ollies off of them. I’m pretty sure I would have
just avoided them before the trip, but now I’ll be on the lookout for
things not in the park.

Speaking of park, I really want to go harder in the pipe now. After
watching myself on video in the pipe I was horrified that I barely got
to the halfway point on the wall. While I was riding I thought I was
getting pretty well on up the wall, but the video analysis later that
night shattered that myth.

I feel like the last thing to work on is my personal confidence level.
I was surprised at the steepness of slope I was hitting toward the end
of the trip and then actually quite ashamed of my performance on one
of the last days in Tahoe. We hit a steep icy slope and I did
everything wrong on getting down. I won’t be making that mistake
again thanks to Alain and Mani from
href=”http://www.accesstrips.com”>Access Trips.

So, I’ll work on my confidence and I’ll hit more park. I’ll also be
willing to try much steeper and more difficult routes now. On our
href=”http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/08/19″>last day Alain and
I were sitting in the lodge and he said that he was really happy with
how far I had progressed. He also mentioned that he was surprised
that every bit of instruction he gave me I picked up on right away
(except, to me, the arms, but that was only a day or so, especially after
seeing the video of me not using them). That made me feel better and
want to push myself more. For those wanting to learn and have an
awesome time traveling I can’t recommend
href=”http://www.accesstrips.com/”>Access Trips more. The
instructors (all pro at one point) were amazing, patient, friendly,
and willing to work with you until you got it. They took questions,
they explained clearly, and they were great people both on and off the
hill. I’ll be keeping in touch with them as having them as friends is
the least that I would want.

I’ll get back to it this next season in Tahoe. For now I need to
repair my board and make sure all my gear is in good shape and then
riding will begin again in a few short months.

Well, New Zealand was an amazing trip. On the last day I didn’t want
to leave. A few days of rest and then more snowboarding in such a
lovely country would have been perfect.

My favorite place that we stayed was definitely Wanaka. It’s a great
little town that was comfortable and not too pretentious. Queenstown
had a lot and was pretty good too (I mean, href="http://fergburger.co.nz/">Fergburger is there as well as the
Dux de Lux brew pub, both of which you should check out if you’re down
there), but it did seem a bit much of a resort town.

On my return to work I did get a bit depressed walking through the
Mission. I mean, I had to return to urine and feces on the sidewalks,
trash, and people panhandling. I didn’t see any of that in New
Zealand (granted, it could exist, but I didn’t see it). The people
were super friendly and I would like to think I could fit in well down
there. It’s strange how I find myself dreaming of ways to try and get
down there. There’s the food angle, start up a small place that does
one thing really well like Fergburger or href="http://www.freebirds.com/">Freebirds, but I know I don’t
have the experience for that. I really envy Alain and his starting up
Access Travel. He seems happy
doing it and it’s exactly what he wants to do.

But that’s all just dreaming right now, but with the right
determination and chutzpah it could be reality. I’ll just have to
keep working away and maybe something will come to me, but for now,
I’ll keep dreaming of that far away land that was awesome to be in.

Well, August 20th was Keith, Patch, Jake, and I driving from Mt. Potts
back to Queenstown so Patch could catch an afternoon flight. Keith
and I were flying out the next day and Alain drove everyone else to
Christchurch to catch their flights.

Keith and I walked around most of downtown Queenstown and waited for
Alain to show up. We all split a room and had more of the most
excellent Fergburger to top off
our trip.

Sunday the 21st found us getting up, grabbing a muffin for breakfast,
and making our way to the airport. It was the longest one day I’ve
ever had and I’m glad to be back home. I am also sorry to have left
New Zealand though. It’s a beautiful country and I would love to go
back and honestly I really wanted to stay longer. I will not soon
forget this trip and how much fun it was at just the right time in my
life. I got a lot better at snowboarding and I came out only sore,
not injured.

I’m looking forward to the next snow season here and I
hope that I can continue to improve. I guess I’ll write more specific
snowboarding notes later. For now it is time to sleep and get back
into the time stream here at home.

Well, Keith and I were going to do a second snow cat day, but we
started thinking we might like to join the rest of the group at href="http://www.nzski.com/mthutt/">Mt. Hutt. Well, our decision
was made for us when we were told that winds were too high to do the
heli ride up.

A group of us drove the hour or more to Mt. Hutt. I have to say that
the access road, as with almost all of them on the trip, was dirt and
gravel, but this one was the worst we had gone on by a long shot. At
Treble Cone there was some
slim track and a one lane path at one point, but that was nice
compared to the Hutt road.

We got to the mountain and warmed up and and did our first ride. Even
on the chair lift ride up we could tell the snow was pretty crappy.
There were rocks sticking up in places and pebbles in parts of the
groomed fields. It was pretty icy at the top and the snow was okay
towards the bottom. Had the snow cat not been canceled and I had
chosen to goto Mt. Hutt I probably would have been very pissed with
myself.

As it was this was the end of the trip and I was pretty beat. Keith
and I did three runs with Alain and called it quits. I ended up
tagging a rock on the last run and put a gouge in my board I’ll now
have to repair. Oh well, that’s the way it goes.

Today we had to get up the earliest of any day so far, but that’s okay
because breakfast was served and we were getting ready to go snow cat
riding. At Mt. Potts you don’t
take a lift to the slopes or even use one once you’re up there. You
get a heli ride up to the hut on the mountain and then once up there
you ride a snow cat.

The first run was pretty good and they purposely made us go easy to
get warmed up. Then we did a hike up a little bit higher and that was
kind of scary because it was very steep. Gitti (a bronze medal winner
from the Nagano games in our group) gave me some advice on turns and
from then on I was doing it just fine (well, better). The snow wasn’t
super powder, but it was nice. The coolest part was when the sun was
behind you and you could see your own shadow and the snow was shooting
up in a rooster tail behind you.

I took it pretty easy. I pushed myself a little, but not much (no
hikes up too far when the others did) because I still had one more day
of riding to go. The day was the biggest confidence builder I’ve had
so far. We got eleven runs in before the snow cat decided to get
fussy about the fuel filter and it was time to heli back down. Chris
got hurt on the run right before lunch and blew out his knee on a
steep. He’s a good skier and I’m sorry to see him get hurt, but at
least it was towards the end of the trip.

As for Mt. Potts, I’ll come back here again when I come to New Zealand
to snowboard, but I’ll just have to remember that the accommodations
are a bit more basic than other places. That’s okay though, the food,
free pool table, and bar make up for it.

Nothing much exciting today as we just drove the five hours or so
North to Mt. Potts. It’s pretty
remote and there’s a simplicity to that I like.

There is a large hill near here called Mt. Sunday. It’s where the
village of Edoras (home of the Riders of Rohan) was built. It was
very recognizable as you’ll see once I get pictures up.

One of the great things about Mt. Potts is that they include the meals
in your stay. Of course they kind of have to because it’s so far out,
but the food there is excellent and the staff super friendly and
sociable.

src="/SenorTaco/images/freeride-day-10.jpg" />

Our last riding day in Wanaka found us returning to href="http://www.snowparknz.com/">Snow Park for some more
freestyle work. The whole group started on the half pipe and Alain
video taped us from the bottom. I got a few runs in after I got over
the intimidation of the launch hill and the really good riders also
riding there.

After lunch we did the superpipe one more time and then went on to
ride the kicker and the flat boxes more. Keith and I were just
working on that and I landed pretty much every time. The one time I
went to do an ollie off the box I was too far forward and ended up on
my back. Another couple of good runs and the day was over on a good
note.

Tomorrow we drive to Mt. Potts for snow cat riding. The rest day will
be good.

The picture up there is of Keith actually doing an ollie off the box,
something I still have to work on.

src="/SenorTaco/images/freeride-day-9.jpg" />

Today was the day, we were going to go heli. We drove about 70km
north of Wanaka to the site and got ready to ride. All of us got
fitted with avalanche transcievers and then we talked a bit about the
weather conditions. A storm front was approaching and there was a
possibility that we would have to cut our day short.

The first group took off in the Heuey D500 and the rest of us waited
around for our turns. The helicopter only holds five people including
the pilot so that means that there were only three riders and a guide
on each trip up. When getting to the top it was quite nerve-racking
to see how small the people were against the mountain.

Exiting the heli and staying down until it was gone was quite the
experince because you’re on top of a mountain and the rotor draft is
blasting snow at you. We then got together and our guide took us down
the slope and into a gun barrel (ravine). I had a mess of the first
run because I was so nerveous I was shaking.

We waited at the bottom for the heli to pick us up and then did two
more runs before lunch. I did much better on those two runs and I
really was enjoying riding the fresh powder. In fact, I’ll have to
say that was the best damn day of riding I’ve ever done (once I got
over the nervousness and trepidation). The distances we ran were
pretty incredible. We not only did a lot of vertical distance, but
also a good bit of horizontal.

The first run after lunch, my fourth, was the one that did me in. I
was so worn out I had trouble staying up and traversing. Once I got
to the bottom I called it quits and waited for the heli to ferry me
out to the base.

While waiting I was watching other riders way up on the slopes. I saw
a group of snowboarders shooting to the left on a ridge and right
behind them was an avalanche (the first of the day, and we hadn’t seen
signs of any others at all). It apparently had split in two on the
ridge just then we saw the other half come up on their right. It was
a pretty scarry sight. If the ravine we were in had been more loaded
with snow it could have continued down to where we were waiting, but
it didn’t. Later people went by the fracture point and said it was
about four feet of snow that slid. One guy got tumbled in it when he
set it off, but he ended up under a rock ledge and was okay. No one
got hurt or buried and so it was a damn fine day.

Sunday found us getting 15cm more snow at href="http://www.treblecone.co.nz/">Treble Cone. I was tempted
to ride today, but I’m feeling a little worn out (knackered as Jake
would say) from riding six days straight so I’m taking a rest day.
I’m going to walk into Wanaka and check it out a little. Hopefully
I’ll be rested well enough because it looks like tomorrow will be our
helicopter day. I just hope I can ride the snow there okay.

Just a quick note on the site, I had to disable comments as I got
slammed by a comment spammer, I’ll put them back up once I’m back int
the states.

Waking up on Saturday morning we were greeted with the news that we
had about 30cm of fresh snow to look forward to. We headed up to
Treble Cone which is a
freeride only resort to see how it all was.

Getting there was interesting with the road being the narrowest so
far. Then, the backside of the mountain wasn’t open so the queue on
the one lift that was open was a horribly long wait. When we got to
the top Alain decided to take me over to a steep basin that was really
deep in powder. I struggled to get out as we traversed over to some
easier terrain. The depth of the snow combined with the steepness
were a little intimidating to me. After getting worn out getting out
of there we rode some easier groomed trails and only small areas of
powder.

After lunch we got a few more runs in and the backside opened up so
everyone else went to ride that while I just cruised down to the base.

I was pretty worn out at the end of the day and almost fell asleep on
the couch.